Parenting style and childhood obesity

[nancylebov]

Here's the abstract.

RESULTS. A total of 872 children, 11.1% overweight and 82.8% white, were included in the analysis. Children of authoritarian mothers (n = 298) had an increased risk of being overweight, compared with children of authoritative mothers (n = 179). Children of permissive (n = 132) and neglectful (n = 263) mothers were twice as likely to be overweight, compared with children of authoritative mothers. Of the covariates, only income/needs ratio was significant and did not alter the relationship between parenting style and overweight risk.

Here's an article that explains the parenting styles.

The effects seem pretty large to me, but I don't know whether the study had enough people to be statistically significant.

The culture generally seems to believe that people are fat because they aren't treated harshly enough, and I collect every clue I can find that the culture is generally composed of cruelty addicts.

Info about the story found at The Agitator. I hunted down the abstract myself. The Agitator is mostly about government outrageousness, with a recent emphasis on evil SWAT teams, but there's also some fat acceptance.

Comments

[firecat]

I'm glad to find research that backs up my personal experience, but "BMI of ≥95th percentile" is a completely useless definition of "overweight."

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Well, we are definitely authoritative parents (I've encountered this term before), and while I am obese and my husband is a bit overweight, none of our kids is or ever has been overweight. So we fit. Thanks for pointing out this article.

[cleverthylacine]

Actually, the strictest parents of all had the most fat children; authoritative parenting involves rules, but with input from the child. I'm guessing that permissiveness and neglectfulness lead to too much input from advertisers and peers, not enough from parents.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Wh. fascinates me here is that they talk about how "parenting" style affects the children, but only studied the style of the mothers. There is an interesting, and possibly sexist, assumption -- though it might be defended|defensible as "reflecting the sexist bias of a culture where mothers generally spend more time parenting, and are more likely to have custody of the kids."

The researchers seem to {assume|presume} that the "style," or for that matter the presence/absence, of the father have no significant effect on the child's weight.

I suspect that it does, at least in the case of boys whose "traditional" fathers want them to be "athletic" .....

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it does, at least in the case of boys whose "traditional" fathers want them to be "athletic" .....

Well, those fathers are likely to more envolved in their children's, and especially their sons' lives. The physical activity may even outweight the overbearingness and the resentment.

[ala-too.livejournal.com]

I suspect 872 is statistically significant since those are the kind of numbers used in political polls in the USA. It makes sense to me since children of aggressive and deglectful parents would likely have control issues. Emotional eating is a contributing cause to being overweight.

I'd want to see such a study duplicated by others before making any assertions. That said, I don't think either aggressive or permission parenting styles are overall good for children and I wouldn't be surprised to see this duplicated.