Health & Fitness
Pressuring children to diet can often backfire
to self-esteem.”
In the study, Berge’s group looked at data from surveys completed by more than 1,100 adolescents from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area from 1998 to 1999. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed were girls.
The respondents then filled out follow-up surveys at five-year intervals beginning in 2003, until they entered their 30s.
By the third survey, more than 40% of young women and 27% of young men said they received encouragement from their mothers to diet to stay slim. About 20% of young females and 18% of young males said they’d gotten similar messages from their dads.
The study couldn’t prove a direct cause-and-effect, but parental pressure to get and stay slim was associated with poorer health in young adulthood, the study found. There seemed to be a cumulative effect on adult behaviors centered on weight, weight-related behaviors and psychosocial well-being, the Minneapolis team found.
For example, by the end of the study — 15 years after the first questionnaires had been filled out — girls who’d been pressured to diet had 49% higher odds of being an obese young adult compared to girls who hadn’t gotten that parental pressure. Boys who had a similar experience had 13% higher odds of becoming obese young men, the researchers reported. When it came to what the researchers called “extreme weight control behaviors,” parental pressure to diet boosted the odds for girls by 29% and for boys by 12%, Berge’s group found. Risks for binge eating, specifically, rose by 17% for girls and 39% for boys.
Messages about dieting from parents were also linked to a higher odds for poor self-esteem, body satisfaction and depression in young adulthood.
None of this means that parents who encourage dieting are trying to make their kids unhappy or unhealthy, Berge stressed.
“Parents are well-meaning and doing the best for their kids,” she said. “They want them to be as healthy as possible, but they often undermine themselves with the language they use, making a kid feel guilty or ashamed and much more less able to change.”
As Berge explained, there is a better way.
“If you say something about someone’s weight, it’s internalized as shaming, and it doesn’t lead to behavior change,” she said. “So, we’re trying to refocus people’s language on eating health. We relate it to something kids like to do. If your kid likes soccer, focus on the fact that eating right can help you run faster on the team. Whatever is of interest to your teen, hone in on that and tell them eating well is for that purpose, not focusing on weight.”
How can parents prevent their good intentions to keep from backfiring?
Rebecca Puhl is deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. Reviewing the findings, she agreed that
“there are better ways for parents to communicate (about weight) with teens.” First off, “what parents is more powerful than what they say,” she said.
“Parents who create a home environment where healthier choices are easier to make — fruits and vegetables are available, minimizing junk food, modeling healthy behaviors themselves — are more likely to be effective, rather than telling your teen she or he needs to lose weight,” Puhl said.
Berge believes that it also helps families to focus on health and eating as a unit.
“Engage the family around it, rather than Mommy saying, ‘stop this,’ ” she said.
The study was published recently in the Journal of Adolescent Health.