Parents' Healthy Eating Has Little Influence on Children

As a previously obese person, I am very aware of the food choices that I am offering my children. We spend time together in the kitchen, the older ones helping prepare meals, and the little ones doing what they are able to do. I still buy them snacks, but offer healthier choices. They still have dessert, but small portions.

I'm not sure how old the children were in this study, but the older the child the more freedom they have. As they move towards adulthood, my goal as a parent is to give them the tools they need to succeed, not only academically but also with regards to their health. My hope for my children is that none of them will have the struggle with obesity that I did.

I would love to see a similar study done in Japan. Like the West things are changing for the worse it seems. Yet, I find there are way more healthy choices and society is not as tolerant of over weight people as the west. But like I said, things are changing.

This was a very surprising but when you do take into effect the working families & single parents, some of this makes sense.. the peers, TV & other things become the parent.

I really like your suggestions at the end, especially involving the children in cooking, not being over crazy and educate.

INTERESTING!

I agree with Jody very surprising results indeed. Just shows how strong these external influences can be on our children.

Don't you think that if more families had regular "dinner dates" together, were the focus was on healthy meals and socialising with each other, the results of this study would be very different?

Wow. Although it makes sense, especially when we spend fewer hours with our children, that peers have so much influence. I know that psychologically this is true in development and learning (why it is important to expose your children to older peers). I think this is why it works so well to have organic healthy eating in school cafeterias as Alice Waters shows. Thanks for the great post!

jen

In addition to actually spending mealtime with your children, it also benefits children greatly to understand where food comes from. We grow a vegetable garden every summer, buy produce we can't grow here at a farmers' market, and can or freeze what we'll use all winter. If you put some green beans on your 3 year old's plate and say "here, eat this!" the child is often confused and even scared because they have NO idea what a green bean is or where it came from. All he sees is an alien on his plate that he's expected to put in his mouth. But if the same child goes into his own backyard, picks a homegrown bean, brings it inside himself, he's TWICE as more likely to try eating it. We grew our own carrots for the first time last summer, and my formerly anti-carrot toddlers loved them. They won't eat those shriveled-up things that pass for carrots in the grocery store, though!

My first question is, how old are the kids they're looking at? Because study after study has shown - for decades, not just since divorce and single parents and working moms have surged - that parental influence on all aspects of a child's behavior drops rapidly as soon as the kid gets to school. There's no reason to think that this would be less true in terms of diet than in other areas of life.

I don't have kids myself, but I do remember that when we were kids, we did beg my dad to buy things we either saw our friends bring to school or things we saw advertised on TV. Of course, we never actually got most of it because my dad didn't let us buy them. We cooked a lot as a family and had a vegetable garden every year, so growing up, we did eat pretty similarly to my dad, who was a big health nut. My mom, not so much...she ate pretty terribly when she wasn't on a diet and she never really ate with us, so we kind of ignored how she ate. I do remember asking her if I could try some of her SlimFast shakes once and she let me have a sip and I thought they were pretty good, but I remember thinking that you should drink them with food, not instead of it.

How bout learning to cook well? What passes as healthy food is often not very satisfying. Some people need to be told they are lousy cooks and take some courses.

I'm not sure being a working or single parent has anything to do with anything. I know SAHMs who make their kids Kraft mac&cheese, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets night after night.

My dh and I work full time but I cook healthy meals almost every evening and we eat together as a family almost every evening. Though we have plenty of healthy snacks (fresh fruit & veg, yogurt, Clif Z bars, etc), my kids will ALWAYS choose junk if given any kind of choice.

We haven't had TV in our house since I was pg with my 11 year old, but they still don't really like to go outside and play. They prefer to sit in their rooms and read or play with their toys. It's difficult to coax them out to ride a bike or go to the YMCA, though they see me exercise daily.

I serve them healthy meals but I don't want to force them to eat. I model an active lifestyle, but refuse to force them to participate.

Good points. There's a lot of simplistic quick-fix formulas around. Like this: Just keep putting veggies on your kids plate and eventually they just start eating it.

Not in my experience.

My kids have had green veg on their plates for years and years. Unless I try and remind them to have a go they will not eat it. It'll stay on that plate all alone and untouched...

restricting unhealthy foods I think is an oppertiunity to give your children good habits..don't miss it

I am really quite surprised by this study! Aren't the parents buying the groceries? Even if children want to eat like their peers and others... aren't they limited by what's in the fridge?? Maybe I am missing something here...