A study of 226 families by Plymouth's Peninsula Medical School found:
- 1. Obese mothers are 10 times more likely to have obese daughters.
- 2. Overweight fathers are six times more likely to have obese sons.
The study was funded by Bright Futures Trust, Smith’s Charity, Diabetes UK, NHS Research and Development, the Department of Health, Child Growth Foundation, Diabetes Foundation and EarlyBird Diabetes Trust. It was published in the International Journal of Obesity.
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When assessing same sex parent-child
relationships, the researchers found that a mother’s BMI had a significant
effect on her daughter’s BMI , but found no significant relationship between the
BMI of mothers and sons. Conversely, the researchers found a significant
relationship between father and son BMIs , but no significant relationship
between fathers and daughters. They concluded that childhood obesity is more
closely linked to obesity in a same-sex parent than to obesity in a parent of
the opposite sex. The link is thus behavioural rather than genetic.
The study did not assess the contribution of genetics to being overweight, nor it it evaluate the role of other environmental and social factors that influence a child’s weight, such as diet and physical activity.
As a mother of a 7 year old daughter, the results of the study are not at all surprising. My daughter clearly sees me as a female role model. She wears my shoes, rings and clothes. She also samples my lotions, makeup and copies my mannerisms. In the same vain my 9 year old son goes to great effort to emulate his father.
While acknowledging that genetics do influence a person’s propensity to obesity, it is clear that learned behaviours and environmental factors have a strong and I would argue stronger influence on a child lifestyle and weight. Both My husband and I are acutely aware of this and we make a concerted effort to speak and behave in ways that we are happy for our children to copy. E.g. eating fruit and vegetables, reducing our intake of ‘bad’ junk foods and exercising regularly.
The next logical questions are:
1. Does having obese parents mean that a child will be obese?
2. Does being obese as a child mean that you will be an obese adult?To date, health policies have mainly been focussed on targeting and monitoring the younger age groups, in the belief that obese children become obese adults. In fact, the International Journal of Obesity found that the opposite is true. Obese adults lead to obese children.
This has huge implications for policies makers who are trying to tackle obesity. Any obesity programme must have the family at it core. It isn’t sufficient to educate the children, in the hope of influencing their behaviour. The whole family needs to be fully involved; so that they can adopt to ‘the new way of doing things’ together and become healthier family unit.
The Department of Health commented that the Change4Life campaign, launched at the start of the year, aims to bring together a host of healthy lifestyle initiatives and includes the role of parents. A spokesman said "The obesity epidemic is one of the most challenging public health issues we face."