Merely acknowledging that their husky teen has a weight problem is not enough to make parents implement healthier habits at home, as a new study in this week’s issue of the journal Pediatrics shows.

Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues at the University of Minnesota’s epidemiology and community health division wanted to explore how parents behave when they correctly perceive their child’s “weight status” – which, according to previous studies, doesn’t happen as often as one would think. Apparently many parents have trouble identifying whether or not their child is at a healthy weight.

Neumark-Sztainer and her fellow researchers first found that parents are more likely to talk to their child about dieting and exercise after correctly recognizing that their son or daughter is overweight. No surprises there. What is surprising and interesting about these findings, though, is that these discussions about dieting simply aren’t helpful. No effect on long-term weight management was found during the study:

“The researchers learned that parents who recognized their children as overweight were more likely to encourage their children to diet, but they were not more likely to have better family meal practices, such as having readily available healthy food choices such as fruits and vegetables at home rather than candy, salty snacks, or soft drinks.”

Adolescents who were overweight at the start of the study tended to remain overweight five years later, whether or not their parents had realized their weight problem and discussed it with them. In fact, the article says,

“…such parental encouragement backfired and predicted poorer weight outcomes such as increased weight gain, especially in girls.”

So, what is this study trying to say, then? Should parents give up and stand silently by while their children slump in front of the television for hours on end, quaffing calorie-laden sodas and munching mindlessly on M&Ms? Of course not. The take-home message from Neumark-Sztainer’s study: just knowing that your kid is overweight isn’t enough, nor is talking to him or her about it. It’s up to you to lead by example, revamping the home environment into a place more conducive to attaining and maintaining a healthy weight.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Reference:
News release, American Academy of Pediatrics. Neumark-Sztainer, D. Pediatrics, June 2008; vol 121: pp e1495-e1502.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 10 Jun 2008
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