In obesity it is necessary to blame parents
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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A group of scientists led by Dr. Stuart Agras from Stanford University concluded that the problem of obesity and excess weight can be solved by a rational approach to nutrition of young children.
Often, in families where parents themselves have problems with overweight, children are at greater risk of experiencing identical problems in the future. This is due to the fact that the family environment provokes malfunctions in the normal nutrition of the child. Parents take too active part in feeding children and often just "stuff" them, for fear that the child will remain hungry. This behavior of household members in turn does not allow the child to adequately assess the feeling of satiety and hunger, which simply deforms his concept of the process of nutrition in general.
Experts attracted to the study 62 families with children from two to four years. At least one of the parents suffered from problems with being overweight or obese.
The families were divided into two groups. The first group of parents changed their habits and approach to child nutrition, guided by the principle of "sharing responsibilities." In general, this method is that parents provide food, and the responsibility of children is to eat it. However, there is a small caveat - no one rapes or forces anyone. Parents are responsible only for where, at what time and what food they give, and the child is free to decide on their own, whether he will eat part of the portion or not to touch it at all.
The second group of parents was observed by employees of the National Institute of Health. These families adhered to the "We Can" program, which aims to organize healthy eating and development of physical activity.
An analysis of the information received led scientists to the conclusion that parents who lived under the "separation of responsibilities" program stopped putting much pressure on children, compared to families who took part in the "We Can" program.
"Separation of responsibility" led to the fact that parents stopped evaluating the feeling of satiety or hunger in the child by themselves and stopped the "battle". Some kids, to the great surprise of their parents, even began to try products that they even refused to even watch before the experiment.
Indicators of the success of the second group were not so rosy. By itself, the principle of healthy eating, of course, has only positive meaning, but the desire of parents to feed the child with useful food led to the opposite results. If they have changed their diet and way of life, the approach to feeding the child has remained the same.
"The new study is not unconditional, affirmative. In order to argue about the benefits of this or that method, we must conduct large-scale observations of the results of experiments and make sure that they really help in combating obesity, "concluded Dr. Agras.
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