Aug. 5, 2003 -- Parents who put their young daughters on diets
Aug. 5, 2003 -- Parents who put their young daughters on diets or use restrictive feeding practices may be setting them up for future eating disorders, according to a new study.
Researchers found that girls whose food was often restricted at age 5 were more likely to eat when they weren't hungry later in childhood than girls whose food was not restricted. This was true regardless of whether the young girls were overweight. Five-year-olds who were already overweight and who were subjected to the most restrictions were the most frequent overeaters by age 9. The report suggests by restricting food, parents are teaching children to ignore their own hunger and fullness, which puts them at an increased risk for obesity.
The study is reported in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In earlier studies on the same subject, researcher Leann Birch, PhD, and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University reported that mothers who were most concerned about their own weight used more restrictive feeding practices to control the weight of their young daughters. Ironically, daughters whose food was most restricted tended to be heavier.
Good Intentions Backfire
Researchers recruited roughly 200 5-year-old girls of varying weights for the study. They surveyed the girls' mothers about eating practices and their perception of their daughter's risk for being overweight. The mothers were surveyed again two and four years later, when their daughters were ages 7 and 9.
In the latest analysis, the incidence of eating in the absence of hunger -- a major risk factor for eating disorders -- increased significantly for all of the volunteers. The 5-year-olds who had stricter food regulation had more frequent episodes of eating when they weren't hungry at ages 7 and 9 compared with girls with fewer restrictions.
Girls who were already overweight at age 5 and who were subjected to the most food restriction ate the most frequently when not hungry at age 9.
Because all of the young girls included in the study were white, the authors note that the findings cannot be applied to black, Hispanic, and other minority girls.
"Our findings, which indicate that restriction is counterproductive and not an effective approach to limiting girls' food intake, emphasize the importance of providing guidance to parents on alternative methods of setting limits for children in the feeding context that allow the development of adequate self-control mechanisms," write the researchers.
The Right Way to Prevent Eating Disorders
So what can parents do to help children develop healthy eating habits? In an earlier interview, Birch suggested making a large variety of healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, available so that kids will learn to like them. She also said that snacks should be allowed in moderation.
Nutrition researcher Barbara J. Rolls, PhD, recently found that children who serve themselves from family-style dishes during meals took smaller portions than an adult would give them. In an earlier study, she found that food intake among 3-year-olds is relatively unaffected by environmental cues such as portion size, but by age 5 this changes. Like adults, 5-year-olds in her study responded to increased portions by eating more. Rolls is also with Pennsylvania State University but was not involved in the Birch study.
"As much as possible, kids need to determine their own portion sizes," Rolls tells WebMD. "It is a parent's responsibility to make sure their kids have access to nutritious foods, but ultimately the kids decide how much of it to eat."
