Parents To Blame For Childhood Obesity

Online, March 28, 2011 (Newswire.com) - It maybe extremely harsh and unfair to put all the blame for a child's weight on parents but it's up to parents what a child eats. If parents are aware of the affect that fast food and bad food choices have on a child's weight maybe they would choose differently.

It cannot be assumed that parents know what healthy eating habits are for children. There should be information readily available for parents regarding healthy eating so that they can make informed choices.

Parents with the proper information maybe the best solution on how to curb childhood obesity.

Isabel Hayes writes:

Educating parents on healthy eating could be more effective at reducing childhood obesity than physical activity, a new study has found.

The study, undertaken by researchers from the universities of Newcastle and Wollongong, found that targeting parents rather than children is the key to combating childhood obesity.

Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the study could have major implications for treating childhood obesity.

"The results indicate that by targeting the parents predominantly, we can make a huge difference to this global epidemic," Associate Professor Tony Okely from the University of Wollongong said on Tuesday.

The two-year study, titled Hunter Illawarra Kids Challenge Using Parent Support (HIKCUPS), involved 165 overweight children of primary-school age and their parents, who were divided into three groups.

In the first group, parents underwent a nutrition program in which they were encouraged to change the whole family's food habits.

In the second group, kids were given physical education training; and in the third, both methods were used.

The results surprised the researchers involved.

"When we started the study, our hypothesis was that the group where both the parents and the kids got treated would do the best, but they actually didn't," Professor Clare Collins from the University of Newcastle told AAP.

Instead, the group where the parents were targeted and the kids did not receive any treatment achieved the best result.

"All three arms of the research had positive results, but the group that stood out as being the slimmest, relatively, after two years was the parent-only group," said Prof Collins, an expert in nutrition and dietetics.

Researchers believe it is possible that the parent-only group worked harder to implement healthy eating habits once they discovered their child would not be doing the physical activity.

"The entire study involved parents who allrecognised there was a problem in that their child was overweight," Prof Collins said.

"If you have got your child being more physically active, that is wonderful. But at the end of the day, the most powerful result came from the parents saying, `Right, that's it, I'm changing the food environment.'"

Prof Okely, an associate professor in the University of Wollongong's Faculty of Education and director of the Interdisciplinary Educational Research Institute, underlined the importance of health programs currently targeting children, describing them as "critically important".

"However, our findings show that the most effective childhood obesity treatment is parents being given good quality advice and support to improve the family's food habits," he said.

The parents' nutrition program included setting family food goals, monitoring food intake, selecting lower-fat food versions and introducing healthy snacks.

Source: news.smh.com.au Read More...

Lifestyle could also be a factor on childhood obesity. If both parents work or if it's a one parent household there may not be enough time to prepare healthy meals. Providing parents with snacks that are healthy altnernatives to fast food is key. In some cases it's not a lack of education but a lack of time to prepare healthy meals for the children.