Adolescence is that tricky part of life where children must be handled with tact. A study conducted by University of Minnesota provides another important tip to parents on how to handle eating habits of teens.
The study advises parents to discuss positive impacts of healthy eating and living habits with their children to avoid obesity. This prevents children from taking up extreme diets and unhealthy weight loss techniques which are generally cause eating disorders and weight gain.
On the other hand, linking food with the child's weight could cause negative effects including higher risk of problem dieting and might lead them to develop unhealthy eating behavior such as anorexia, binge eating or bulimia. This trend also occurs when parents tease them or call them fat.
"A lot of parents are aware of the obesity problem in the U.S -- it's everywhere you turn -- but they wonder how to talk about it with their children," said study lead author Dr. Jerica Berge of the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. "In both situations, parents have a good intention. They don't go into it wanting to make their children feel bad. But the way you say it does make a difference."
Berge suggests parents to 'tell kids to eat more fruits and vegetables because eating them will make them healthy and strong. Don't connect these conversations to weight and size.'
Berge also said that having conversations on healthy eating gave children a solution, while talking about weight loss embarrasses them.
"You're trying to find an approach that allows them to want to change without feeling ashamed or guilty," Berge said.
About 2,300 adolescents aged 14 (on an average) and more than 3,500 parents participated in the study. The benefits were recorded in both overweight and normal weight teens.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has more than tripled in adolescents in the U.S. over the past 30 years. The long-term effects of obesity which is usually more prominent in adults such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, is now being diagnosed in children.
The study showed that about 28 percent of moms and 23 percent of dads talked about healthy eating habits with their kids who turned out to have normal weight. On the other hand, only 15 percent of moms and 14 percent of dads had a conversation on the same topic with their overweight kids.
"These conversations have to happen way more than at dinner. They are not in-the-moment conversations, but ongoing ones," Berge said.
Around 33 percent of moms and 32 percent of dads with non-overweight kids said that they asserted on weight and the need to lose weight in their talks, while 60 percent of moms and 59 percent of dads engaged in similar discussions with their overweight kids.
"Telling people that they are fat or overweight is not in the best interest of the adolescent," said Dr. Ronald Feinstein, an adolescent medicine specialist at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. "We need to focus on healthy lifestyle, and parents need to lead by example," he said. This includes appropriate meal planning and having healthy food available.
"At a restaurant, quietly ask the server not to put the bread basket out, or hand out one slice to everyone and then have it removed, so it's the family making the decision and no one feels left out," Feinstein said. "Set an example and avoid putting kids in a position where they have to make poor choices."
Dr. Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, in Washington, D.C., says that weight is not a preferable topic for the adolescents.
"I always try to focus on health, not appearance," Kahan said. The new findings 'lend further weight to the importance of finding careful loving, supportive and appropriate ways of discussing health with kids."
