Food-related parenting practices and child and adolescent weight and weight-related behaviors

Abstract

Summary The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children has reached a concerning plateau in the past three decades, with overweight or obesity impacting approximately one-third of youth. Unhealthy weight-related behaviors, including dieting, unhealthy weight control practices and binge eating, are also a great public health concern for young people given both their high prevalence and harmful consequences. Food-related parenting practices, including food restriction and pressure-to-eat, have been associated with higher weight status, as well as the use of unhealthy weight-related behaviors, in children and adolescents. Physicians and other health care providers who work with families should discourage parents from using food restriction and pressure-to-eat parenting practices with their child or adolescent. Alternatively, parents should be empowered to promote healthy eating by focusing on making nutritious food items readily available within their home and modeling healthy food choices for their child or adolescent.

Directive and non-directive food-related parenting practices: Associations between an expanded conceptualization of food-related parenting practices and child dietary intake and weight outcomes

“…13–16,63–69 Further, the present study demonstrated no cross-sectional associations with food restriction or pressure-to-eat and better dietary intake outcomes. Thus, while parents likely adopt directive forms of control with the goal of improving their child’s dietary intake or weight status, findings from the present study, in combination with previous studies exploring the impact of food restriction and pressure-to-eat on child outcomes, 9,10 suggest these forms of control might yield unintended results.…”

“…Finally, although our sample was not particularly large, it was adequate for the analyses conducted and allowed for examination of associations within an under-explored age group. Previous work exploring food-related parenting practices has been conducted primarily in samples of toddlers, preschoolers, and early-elementary school aged children, 35–38,40,48 with some more recent work exploring the impact of these practices on adolescents; 10,20,25,74,75 thus we were able to fill a gap in the literature by examining associations within a population of late-elementary school children.…”

“…14,16,18–20 Further, studies have revealed controlling food-related parenting practices are significantly and positively associated with child weight status. 10,21–25 Based on these study findings, it would seem that controlling food-related parenting practices have a detrimental effect on child weight and dietary intake patterns. However, several studies have suggested parental control might actually lead to improved dietary intake and reduce unhealthy weight gain over time 9,26–28 and other studies have found no significant associations between food-related parenting practices and child weight and dietary intake outcomes.…”

Relationship of physical activity with body image, self esteem sedentary lifestyle, body mass index and eating attitude in adolescents: A cross-sectional observational study

“…Furthermore, disordered eating behaviours have been found to associated with a number of undesirable outcomes including increased risk of eating disorders and obesity, in adolescents. [ 10 ]…”

The impact of familial, behavioural and psychosocial factors on the SES gradient for childhood overweight in Europe. A longitudinal study

“…A multitude of behavioural factors within the family context has been explored. This is especially true for food-related behaviours [11][12][13] , but also physical activity, sleep, media consumption 14,15 , and, albeit much rarer, psychosocial factors like e.g. lack of social networks have been shown to be associated with childhood obesity 16 .…”