News Summary

Comments from parents focusing on the weight of their children, parents’ dieting behaviors, and teasing by family members may contribute to disordered eating in adolescent girls, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Quotes

“While parents who are concerned about their children’s weight may encourage dieting with the best of intentions, they need to know that talking about weight loss may have harmful consequences for their children’s health,” said lead author Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D. “Instead, I encourage parents to look for changes that can be made in the home environment to support healthier eating and physical activity behaviors among youth.”

Full Text

Comments from parents focusing on the weight of their children, parents’ dieting behaviors, and teasing by family members may contribute to disordered eating in adolescent girls, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Comments made by mothers, in particular, were associated with numerous disordered eating behaviors. As a result, researchers suggest parents avoid weight-related discussions at home, such as talking about their own weight and encouraging their children to diet, and any form of weight-teasing. The study appears in the September edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health and appears in the online version of the Journal as of August 13, 2010.

“While parents who are concerned about their children’s weight may encourage dieting with the best of intentions, they need to know that talking about weight loss may have harmful consequences for their children’s health,” said lead author Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D. “Instead, I encourage parents to look for changes that can be made in the home environment to support healthier eating and physical activity behaviors among youth.”

Analyzing data from 365 adolescent girls, many of whom were overweight, researchers found 45 percent of participants reported their mothers encouraged them to diet. Girls whose mothers encouraged them to diet were two times as likely to binge eat and five times more likely to engage in extreme weight control behaviors than girls whose mothers did not encourage them to diet. Extreme weight control behaviors include taking diet pills or laxatives and vomiting for weight control purposes.

In terms of parental dieting, roughly two-thirds of the girls reported their mother dieted or talked about her own weight, and 40 percent reported their fathers dieted or talked about his weight. Mother dieting was associated with girls' unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors, and mother talking about her own weight was associated with greater use of unhealthy weight control behaviors, extreme weight control behaviors, and binge eating in the girls.

Family weight-teasing also may prove to be an issue in the homes of adolescent girls. Of the study participants, 58 percent of girls reported being teased by a family member about her weight in the past year. Girls with higher Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) were teased more. Weight-teasing was strongly associated with higher BMI, body dissatisfaction, unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors, and binge eating.

This study is part of New Moves, an alternative physical education class offered to girls who are inactive, overweight, or at risk for being overweight. New Moves is currently offered in 12 high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, and more research findings are expected to come out of the course.
This study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health.