Like mother like child

It has been found that child obesity can be influenced by the eating habits of the mom and her behavior at the dining table. 

The research comes from Washington State University alumna Halley Morrison’s Journal Appetite published undergraduate honors thesis.Morrison was a biology major and student fitness instructor. Morrison and the chair of WSU Human Development Tom Power collected data of 222 low income African American and Latino preschoolers in U.S Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service Children’s Nutrition Research Center study.

 

"The problem is no longer food scarcity, but too much food,” Morrison said. 

Research showed 17 percent of U.S. children between ages 2 and 19 are obese. Also, Obesity rates among preschoolers are highest in African-American and Latino populations: 21 and 22 percent. By altering the behaviors of moms, study shows that obesity risk can be reduced which can help eliminate high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and respirator issues.

 

Moms who over eat themselves showed that they were most likely to stress their children to finish what is on their plates and withhold food for the next meal. The survey showed that these kids tend to be picky eaters.On the other hand, moms who were very interactive with he smell, sight, and taste of the food had kids who had strong want to eat food.

Power recommends positive behaviors in the dining room to prevent these issues. Power states that only having small portions on the plate and giving more when asked by the child can bring up positive meal time for the child as they are not forced to eat everything on the plate. Also this could bring up the child's self esteem as they finish what is on their plate easily without over eating. Power also suggests keeping junk foods out of kitchen especially if the moms eat based on their emotions. However, it is also important not to make these foods in to forbidden fruits as the kids can get stressed and obsessed with the food they can not eat.

It is also important for the moms to provide kids with healthy snacks because they tend to get hungry fairly quickly. Also, as the kids grow up to make their own choices of food, they tend to go for the food that they were not allowed to eat. Balancing out the kids nutrient table and the types of food from when they were young can also help the kid make better choices in the future.

This article was very interesting because there is always a connection between the mom and the child. However, based on the behaviors on the mom can effect the children's eating habits greatly was something that was very new to me. I also began to wonder how eating habits can differ if the parents are not home at all or if only dad was present in the family.

 

Washington State University Article for this blog post: 

Article Link Here

This article is based on: Morrison, H., Power, T.G., Nicklas, T., Hughes, S.O., Exploring the Effects of Maternal Eating Patterns on Maternal Feeding and Child Eating, Appetite (2012), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2012.12.017