Child Health
"Are you sure you need to eat that, honey?": BEWARE, Your good intentions may be contributing to your kids' excess weight
By Kim Hiatt
Jul 23, 2007, 10:19

Are your children painfully struggling with added pounds? Are you worried about them going back to school? Are you doing all the "right" things, but your child is still gaining weight? Do you feel like you keep trying to get your family to change their behaviors but nothing has lasting results?

Unfortunately, many well-meaning parents unintentionally contribute to their children or adolescents' overweight or obesity. Many parents ban certain types of foods or beverages in an effort to help their child lose weight (fried foods, soda, etc.). Although this seems like a good idea, food restriction can trigger binge eating, food hoarding, an increased appeal for restricted foods, and even eating disorders in some children. In addition, parental prompting and control is associated with increased food consumption and overweight in children and adolescents. Thus, the more you try to "remind" your child to eat or not to eat certain foods, the more you may be contributing to his or her weight issues (Birch & Fisher, 1998; Faith, Matz, & Allison, 2003; Keel, Leon, & Fulkerson, 2001).

Furthermore, enforcing food rules, such as: "You can have sweets only on special occasions," "You must eat your vegetables at dinner," "If you put it on your plate, you have to eat it," "You must try three bites of everything on your plate," and "You have to finish your dinner to have dessert" can actually contribute to child and adolescent overweight and obesity. Researchers aren’t exactly sure why children who grow up in homes with rigid food rules and higher levels of parental control of feeding are more likely to be overweight or obese than children who grow up in homes without such rules and control, but that is the connection that has been found (Faith et al., 2003; Johnson & Birch, 1994). One research team found the following: As adults, individuals who grew up in homes with strict food rules have higher rates of binge eating, weight cycling, and dietary restraint than do adults who grew up in households without such rules (Puhl & Schwartz, 2003).

Some researchers have speculated that enforcing these types of rules may cause children and adolescents to override their bodies' hunger and satiety cues. It then just makes it more and more difficult for them to balance their calorie intake and energy expenditure over time. Infants and young children are usually very good at balancing their calorie with their energy expenditure by eating when they are hungry and stopping when they are full. It seems that the more parents enforce food rules in the home and/or try to get their children to eat less, the more likely the child stops listening to hunger and satiety cues. It has been shown that, over time, children who are asked to "clean their plates" (as well as follow other food rules) and who are controlled by their parents in terms of their food intake, are more likely to be overweight than children who live in homes without such rules and parental control. This connection is likely because these children and adolescents have learned to override their body’s natural hunger cues and eat more than their counterparts who are not overriding their hunger cues (Faith et al., 2003; Johnson & Birch, 1994; Puhl & Schwartz, 2003).

In order to find a permanent solution, it is imperative that the causes of the overweight or obesity are examined. The contributory factors that have been associated with overweight and obesity in children are binge eating, emotional eating, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, low body-esteem, poor family cohesiveness, dietary restraint (dieting and the feast or famine mindset), and sexual abuse and other childhood trauma (Beamer, 2003; Institute of Medicine, 2005; Lobstein, Baur, & Uauy, 2004; Wadden, Brownell, & Foster, 2002). Restrictive eating programs only address the superficial aspects of the problem and do not address the root cause or causes. The best advice I can give to parents is to stop trying to control your child’s weight and food intake and begin researching non-diet approaches to weight loss that address the contributory causes of the problem.

Birch, L. L., & Fisher, J. O. (1998). Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 101, 539-549.

Beamer, B. A. (2003). Genetic influences on obesity. In R. E. Anderson (Ed.), Obesity: Etiology, assessment, treatment and prevention (pp. 43-58). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Faith, M. S., Matz, P. E., & Allison, D. B. (2003). Psychosocial correlates and consequences of obesity. In R. E. Anderson (Ed.), Obesity: Etiology, assessment, treatment and prevention (pp. 17-32). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Institute of Medicine. Committee on the Prevention of Obesity in Children and Youth. (2005). Preventing childhood obesity: Health in the balance. Washington, DC: National Academies.

Johnson, S. L., & Birch. L. L. (1994). Parents’ and children’s adiposity and eating style. Pediatrics, 94(5), 653-661

Keel, P. K., Leon, G. R., & Fulkerson, J. A. (2001). Vulnerability to eating disorders in childhood. In R. E. Ingram & J. M. Price (Eds.), Vulnerability to psychopathology (pp. 389-411). New York: Guilford.

Lobstein, T., Baur, L., & Uauy, R. (2004). Obesity in children and young people: A crisis in public health. Obesity Reviews, 5(Suppl. 1), 4-85.

Puhl, R. M., & Schwartz, M. B. (2003). If you are good you can have a cookie: How memories of childhood food rules link to adult eating behaviors. Eating Behaviors, 4, 283-293.

Wadden, T. A., Brownell, K. D., & Foster, G. D. (2002). Obesity: Responding to the global epidemic. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70(3), 510-525.