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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > June > 06 > Entry
My mom made me fat
“Clean your plate or else!” and other authoritarian approaches to parenting can lead to overweight children, a new study finds.
Strict mothers were nearly five times more likely to raise tubby first-graders than mothers who treated their children with flexibility and respect while also setting clear rules.
Although the children of flexible, rule-setting moms mostly avoided obesity, the children of neglectful mothers and permissive mothers were twice as likely to get fat.
Sadly this Boston University study of childhood obesity relates strictly to young children and made no conclusions about how parenting affected weight later in life. So I guess I can’t blame my mom for my belt size.
But here’s my question. The Washington Post story excerpted above does not define what a “flexible but rule-setting” parenting style looks like. Seems a little like an oxymoron to me.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Young Children
Comments
By Mary
June 7, 2006 4:43 PM | Link to this
Studies like this on obesity make good news fodder and cocktail conversation, but I really do not think they contribute much to understanding and solving the obesity problem and other related health and medical issues. Where is the real science in understanding the effects of growth hormones in our food supply and how other additives impact on nutrition and obesity. What about common genetic disorders, such as celiac disease and lactose intolerance and even diabetes, that are inconsistently diagnosed in our obese medical and health care system - common disorders that can hamper proper food metabolism. If we get the same hormones cows in the agricultural proceesses get,are we also fattening up ourselves. If our food lacks proper nutrition after processing, packaging and transportation do we tend to eat more and more because our body lacks the right nutrients? Where are the research studies by the government, medical, agricultural,and restaurant industries on the relative crappy food we are expected to subsist on. I go to a lot of trouble to eat right and it is a lot more trouble and time consuming than it should be. It has to be worse for busy moms who do not happen to be retired and without enough income to spend.