Childhood Obesity Causes | Sins of the Fathers

Latest research shows that the key to tackling childhood obesity is changing the eating attitudes of parents as well as the children, with fathers being especially important.

Research published recently in the journal Pediatrics, showed clearly that parents must be pro-actively involved in changing the diet of the whole family to ensure the success of programs to reduce childhood obesity and excess weight.

Even tackling parents by themselves, without the child’s involvement appears to produce a better result than programs focused only on children.

The two-year Australian study involved 165 overweight children who were divided into three groups that involved different Programs:

• A nutrition program focused mostly on parents who were directed to change the entire family’s food habits and to established healthy eating goals for all family members. The families received help from practicing dieticians who ensured that the changes were made;
• An activity program focused on the children which developed exercise programs with the help physical education specialists;
• A combined nutrition and activity program which jointly involved both the children and parents.

All of the programs that involved professional input and monitoring were successful with all children losing weight over the two years of the study or not putting on extra weight as expected without intervention.

However, the best results occurred when parents were given good quality advice and professional help to shift the family's diet to healthier options. The results suggested that targeting parents was very important.

A new study conducted by Australian researchers at the University of Newcastle found that having an overweight father led to a 4-fold increase in the likelihood of the children in the family being obese by age eight or nine. The research findings were based studies of 3000 Australian families between 2004 and 2008. Having a overweight mum or an obese mum did not have the same effect. Lead researcher, Dr Emily Freeman, stated that the reason why overweight dads had such a big influence on their children's weight was not clear and needs further research.

One suggestion was that the father's attitude dictated the eating and exercise habits of the family more than the mother and this has a major effect what the children ate and their lifestyles and level of physical activity. The fathers may be poor models for eating and exercise.

The body mass index (BMI) of the parents was significantly correlated with the BMI of the children BMI, but there was no evidence of sex-specific associations between parent and child BMI correlations. Having an overweight or obese father, but a mother of healthy weight, significantly increased the risks of the of children being obese. Having an overweight or obese mother with a healthy weight father lead to no significant increase in the risk of obesity

The conclusions was that children with obese or overweight fathers had a higher risk of becoming obese. This suggests that future programs to tackle childhood obesity to either prevent or treat obesity or excess weight problems, should focus on the overweight fathers.

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