SAN DIEGO, March 3 -- The eating habits of parents may play an important role in the development of obesity in children, according to research being presented today at the American Heart Association's L.J. Filer Jr. Third Annual Conference on Atherosclerosis in the Young.
Researchers looked at the eating habits of the parents of 92 children enrolled in the Framingham Children's Study. The youngsters were all 3 to 5 years old at the beginning of the study.
The researchers used a standardized questionnaire to assess three factors associated with parents' eating behaviors: dietary restraint, disinhibited eating and self-perceived hunger. The Dietary Restraint Scale reflects an individual's conscious efforts to restrict food intake. The Disinhibition Scale measures "impulsive eating," as well as the resulting fluctuation in both dietary intake and body weight. The Hunger Scale measures whether a person eats in response to internal cues, such as hunger, or to external cues.
The parents were divided into three groups for each of the three scales depending on whether they had high, medium or low scores on those scales. Researchers then looked at changes in body fat in the children over the next six years. Body fat was measured each year by recording the child's height and weight and by using calipers to measure the thickness of the child's skinfolds in five different areas of the body as a total measure of body fat.
Researchers also recorded changes in the skin fold thickness in the children from year-to-year.
They found the kids whose parents scored highest on either dietary restraint or disinhibition had greater increases in body fat over the next six years than children whose parents scored lower.
The parents' level of impulse eating had a particularly strong effect on the child's body fat level. For example, the children whose parents had the highest scores in the disinhibition scale gained an extra 25 millimeters in their skinfold thickness compared to children whose parents had the lowest scores.
The children whose parents alternated between dietary restraint and impulse eating gained the most body fat over time. "The parents were consciously struggling to restrain their intake of food but, by their own report, were prone to eating excessively on impulse even when they weren't hungry," says Lynn L. Moore, D.Sc., assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass. "Most people do this on occasion by eating a piece of chocolate cake even though they aren't hungry, but disinhibited eaters are particularly prone to this loss of control in the presence of certain food cues," she says.
The study's lead author, Maggie Y. Hood, M.P.H., also of Boston University School of Medicine, says parents are often unaware that they are passing on their own dietary habits and attitudes to their children. "As with many other things, the children are doing what their parents do, rather than listening to what their parents say," she says. "Some parents may emphasize the importance of a healthy diet to their children, but if their own diet doesn't reflect that belief, it's not likely to be a very effective message."
Hood says that parents have a great deal of control over the eating habits of their children. "It may be that parents who score the highest on dietary restraint may also exert excessive control over the child's eating choices. This may suppress the child's ability to internally regulate his or her own dietary intake."
Moore, director of the Framingham Children's Study, says that researchers are currently looking at whether parents with high dietary restraint scores were more likely to be more controlling with their children such as insisting that the children eat on a specific schedule even if they aren't hungry, or that they clean their plates even if they are already full.
Moore says the study's purpose was to identify how risk factors for chronic adult conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, or obesity are first established, so they can be prevented. "By the time a child reaches adolescence, many of those risk factors are already set. These children have already developed habits, such as a sedentary lifestyle or unhealthy dietary patterns that will persist throughout their lives, and increase their risk for heart disease in the future," she says. "They may also be on their way to developing obesity or high blood pressure."
Moore says this and similar studies may provide a two-fold benefit to families: Helping their children to develop healthy lifestyle behaviors, and motivating parents to change some of their own unhealthy habits.
Co-authors are Anuradha Sundarajan-Ramamurti, M.A.; Martha R. Singer, M.P.H.; L. Adrienne Cupples, Ph.D.; and R. Curtis Ellison, M.D.
Media Advisory: Dr. Moore can be reached at (617) 638-8080. Dr. Hood can be reached at (617) 638-8075. (Please do not publish telephone numbers.)