Parents influence on children?s diet is small
The debate about how parents should approach the eating habits of their children has been raging for some time, with various studies and tests offering up consumers a mix of different opinions ranging from their crucial involvement in picking their child?s diet to studies that show that controlling what children eat can actually lead to fatter adults in the long term.
A new study by researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is one of those that are challenging the long held assumptions by claiming that whatever parents do or don?t do in regards to their children?s eating habits actually has very little effect. The study concludes that traditional methods of instilling nutritional behaviour in kids may need some rethinking.
Youfa Wang, MD, PhD and senior author of the study explained: ?Child-parent dietary resemblance in the U.S. is relatively weak, and varies by nutrients and food groups and by the types of parent-child dyads and social demographic characteristics such as age, gender and family income?
The study included data from over 16,000 people which contained information such as their demographic, economic and health backgrounds as well as their diet. The studies took place between 1994 and 1996. The research found only weak links between the diet of parents and children across the board. It suggested that the reasoning for this may include a mixture of outside family influences such as a child?s school and friends — and in older years — the child?s own self esteem and body image.
Results differed slightly by children?s age and family income, but generally kept to similar results and didn?t highlight any particular need for dedicated education or concern in any one area.
Wang concluded: ?Our findings have a number of important public health implications. In particular, the overall weak to moderate parent-child resemblance in food groups, nutrients and healthy eating index scores suggest that interventions targeting parents could have only a moderate effect on improving their children’s diet.?