Girls are scarred for life by parents who say they’re fat

WOMEN may be ‘scarred’ for life by comments about their weight made by their parents when they were children, scientists warn.

Daughters recalling their parents remarking about their waistlines were more likely to think they needed to lose ten to 20 pounds – even when they weren’t overweight.

The US study found that well-meaning parents are better off keeping their mouths shut, even if they are worried their child is packing on the pounds.

This is because comments about weight are often predictors of unhealthy eating, bingeing and other eating disorders.

Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut, said: ‘Parents who have a child who’s identified as having obesity may be worried, but the way those concerns are discussed and communicated can be really damaging. The research shows it can have a lasting impact.’

Dr Puhl says this influence on girls can be particularly destructive because ‘girls are exposed to so many messages about thinness and body weight, and often women’s value is closely linked to their appearance’.

In the study, published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders, 500 women in their 20s and early 30s were asked questions about their body image and also asked to recall how often their parents commented about their weight.

The scientists found that whether the women were overweight or not, those who remembered parents’ comments were much more likely to think they needed to lose weight.

Professor Brian Wansink, the study’s lead author and director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, claimed the parents’ critical comments had a ‘scarring influence’. He said: ‘We asked the women to recall how frequently parents commented, but the telling thing was that if they recalled it happening at all, it had as bad an influence as if it happened all the time.

‘A few comments were the same as commenting all the time. It seems to make a profound impression.’

In the UK, an NHS scheme designed to crack down on child obesity has caused controversy as some claim it labels youngsters as overweight from an early age.

The National Child Measurement Programme calculates the BMI (body mass index) of children in the first and last year of primary school and, if they are deemed to be overweight, letters are sent to parents along with healthy eating advice.

But some parents have been angered by what they claim are one size fits all measurements, which often do not take account of how active the child is.