New research using data from over 5,000 Irish families participating in the Growing Up in Ireland study, has looked at the relationship between children’s weight gain and their parents perception of them as being overweight.
Psychology researchers Eric Robinson (of the University of Liverpool) and Angelina Sutin (of Florida State University College of Medicine) found that children whose parents see them as being overweight are more likely to have a negative self-perception regarding their body size. The study’s surprising results demonstrated that these children tended to gain more weight over the next ten years than those whose parents considered them to be a ‘normal’ weight.
The researchers state:
“Although parents’ perception that their children are overweight has been presumed to be important to management of childhood obesity, recent studies have suggested the opposite; when a parent identifies a child as being overweight, that child is at increased risk of future weight gain.
We argue that the stigma attached to being an overweight child may explain why children whose parents view them as being overweight tend to have elevated weight gain during development.”
In addition to examining the data from 5,886 Irish families, Robinson and Sutin also based their analysis on 2,823 Australian families. The researchers measured the children’s height and weight when they began the study aged four and five. At that point, the children’s parents were asked if they thought their children were best described as ‘underweight’, ‘normal weight’, ‘overweight’, or ‘very overweight’.
When the same children were aged twelve and thirteen, researchers took updated height and weight measurements and asked the youngsters to pick an image from a series that they believed most resembled their own body size. They were also asked if they had attempted to lose weight in the previous 12 months.
The results demonstrated that children whose parents considered them to be overweight at a young age tended to gain more weight by their early teens. The twelve and thirteen year olds’ self-perception of their body size was also more negative and they were more likely to report that they had attempted to lose weight in the previous year.
The authors of the study commented:
“The findings support the proposition that parents’ perception of their children as overweight could have unintended negative consequences on their children’s health.”
What do YOU think? Damned if you do and damned if you don’t? How should parents broach the topic of their children’s weight?
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