Originally appeared in the Behavioral Health Nutrition Student Blog
http://drjennifernewman.com/2013/12/family-can-hurt-your-career/
Raising healthy kids is no easy task. Parents are constantly navigating the line between ensuring their children make healthy choices and allowing them to have the freedom to make their own decisions about food. There are many unexpected pitfalls into which parents may inadvertently tumble. It is important for a child to have some say in what they choose to consume. Well meaning parents may become too involved at mealtime by predetermining every detail of what their child will eat. A parent’s concern with a child’s food choice may be born from his or her own preoccupation with weight and food. These children are more likely to have difficulty managing their own intake later on in life, and these practices may lead to restrained or restrictive eating patterns in adulthood.
A recent study published in Eating and Weight Disorders aimed to determine exactly how much of an influence parents’ comments on weight and food had on their daughters’ eating behaviors and perceptions of self in adulthood. Researchers acknowledged that women are often much more vulnerable to disordered eating patterns and frequently are the primary food purchasers in the household making them an important demographic to examine. A group of 502 women were administered a questionnaire that inquired about how often they remember a parent making comments or expressing concern about their weight or food intake. It cannot be determined from the description provided in the paper, however, if the questionnaire had been properly validated. Questions included items such as “Did your mother/father comment about your weight?” and “Did either parent often comment about you eating too much/too little?” Participants were also asked how satisfied they were with their current weight, how much weight they would like to lose, and demographic information.
The findings from the survey revealed a few interesting patterns. Women who recalled fewer comments from their parents about their weight had a lower body mass index (BMI) than those whose parents commented more frequently. When only looking at women whose BMIs fall within the normal range (18.5 – 24.9), those with parents who made comments about their weight were significantly less satisfied with their own weight. The more parents commented that their daughters were “eating too much,” the higher the woman’s BMI. In addition, parents’ concern with their own weight led to daughters who were also much more concerned with their weight.
This research brings to light several new questions. The present study lumped comments from mothers and fathers together. Is there a difference in the resulting effects of these comments based who said them? What would be revealed if the same study was done with men? It is important to remember that the results presented here can only confirm a correlation between two events, not causation. This type of data is difficult to prove as an experimental design prescribing parents to comment on their daughter’s weight and food consumption would be largely unethical. A more detailed, longitudinal study would be the most useful way to gain more insight on this topic. These findings are certainly enough to make us pay more attention to how we talk about weight and food, especially to young girls. Parental comments may have a much more lasting and detrimental effect than we realize.
Source:
Wansink, B., Latimer, L. A., & Pope, L. (2016). “Don’t eat so much:” How parent comments relate to female weight satisfaction. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 1-7.