June 5, 2006
Do Very Strict Parents Raise Fat Kids?
Study: Authoritarian Parents May Be More Likely To Have Overweight Children
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Parenting Style And Kids’ Weight
Two years after the videotapes were made, when the kids were in first grade, the researchers checked data on the kids’ height and weight. They found that 11 percent of the first-graders were overweight, based on a BMI (body mass index) in the 95th percentile or higher for their age and gender.
Obesity was then correlated to parenting style. The breakdown of overweight children, based on the researchers’ observations of parenting styles two years earlier, were:
Authoritarian: 17.1 percent
Neglectful: 9.9 percent
Permissive: 9.8 percent
Authoritative: 3.9 percent
Researchers made adjustments for factors such as income level, marital status, gender, and child behavioral problems.
Not Blaming the Parents
The study doesn’t give a reason for the results and it doesn’t blame parents for their kids' extra pounds. The results also don't prove parenting style was solely responsible for the kids’ weight.
Rhee's team doesn’t claim that a child's weight reveals parenting style. Overweight kids — and children of normal weight — can come from any background.
"It is clear that biological or genetic factors are involved in the risk for some children to become overweight," the researchers write. Researchers didn’t have access to the parents' BMI.
Culture May Count
Culture may play a role in parenting style, Rhee and colleagues note. But with few minorities in their study, researchers weren't able to probe such influences.
It will take more work to learn how parenting styles — including cultural norms and specific parenting behaviors — affect child behavioral patterns regarding eating and activity levels, the researchers note.
A better understanding of those effects "may help to guide the development of more-comprehensive and more-effective prevention and treatment programs for overweight children," they write.
SOURCES: Rhee, K. Pediatrics, June 2006; Vol. 117: pp. 2047-2054. CDC: “Prevalence of Overweight Among Children and Adolescents: United States, 2003-2004.” News release, American Academy of Pediatrics.
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang, M.D.
© 2006, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
