Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

Social class is a factor in attitudes toward children's diets and weight, according to a new British study from the University of Hertfordshire.

According to a Sept. 28 PsychCentral article by senior news editor Rick Nauert, Professor Wendy Wills and her colleagues found that attitudes of middle-class parents were significantly different from those of working-class parents:

• Middle-class parents are more oriented toward planning and the future.
• They are more concerned that obesity is linked to poor health in adulthood and lower self-esteem in childhood.
• Middle-class parents took more control over their children's eating on a daily basis.
• Some of their attitudes were based on moral teachings such as the idea that obesity reflects laziness and a lack of self-control.
• Working-class parents were more concerned about the present and less concerned about their children's ideal body shape.

Given the complex, embedded nature of familiar practices and beliefs, policy and practice targets need to be realistic in terms of the time scale needed for achieving change, Dr. Wills said.

Labels: research, attitudes

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Concern for healthy eating habits motivates parents to set rules regarding the types and quantities of food their kids can eat. But according to a Feb. 19 article by Jodi Mailander Farrell of the Chicago Tribune, the parents' own eating habits have a far greater impact that the rules they set:

The best thing you can do for your kids is to be a good role model and eat the way you want your child to eat. Choose a variety of healthy foods from all the food groups, eat in moderation and make exercise part of your regular routine.

An estimated 10 million women and 1 million men suffer from eating disorders in the United States. Many of these disordered eaters begin to show symptoms at very early ages -- some as young as eight. Parental influence goes a long way toward ensuring that kids have good perspectives on food and healthy body image.

Labels: parents, attitudes, body_image

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Research that was recently presented at the BC Dairy Foundation Milk & Cookies Event shows that a parent's feeding style can influence a child's weight and attitude toward food. Force feeding, offering rewards (like dessert), restricting foods, or restricting nothing at all are methods that, though well-intentioned, can backfire.

"Children are more sensitive to the satiety cues than adults and know when to stop eating. When you force feed, you disrupt your child's natural satiety cues, which may lead to overeating later. You also create a lifelong aversion or dislike for the foods you force your child eat. Force feeding can also be associated with negative behaviors such as sneak eating."

If there are foods that you'd like to restrict, make sure your child knows that even though you're choosing not to have those foods in your house, other houses will have them and they're okay to eat. Also, lead by example by eating the foods you want your child to eat. Source: CNW Group

Labels: attitudes, influences, feeding_style

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