Parents should be more careful now when talking about weight with their children as a study revealed that it may cause eating disorders.

Jerica M. Berge, a researcher from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and her colleagues analyzed the surveys and assessments taken by 2,793 teens with an average age of 14.4 and 3,709 parents with an average age of 42.3 years between 2009 and 2010. These surveys were Eating and Activity in Teens 2010 (EAT 2010) and Project Families and Eating and Activity in Teens (Project F-EAT).

They found out that the teens with parents who talk to them about weight were more likely to engage in dieting, unhealthy weight-control behaviors, and binge eating than overweight or obese teens. The parents of overweight teens only discuss to their children the importance of healthy eating with less focus on weight.

The team concluded that parents who do weight talks instead of healthy eating talks may trigger eating disorders to their children. It is recommended that these parents use proper words and tone when talking to their children. Rather than saying “You should stop eating chocolates because it will make you fat”, it is better to say “Eating too much chocolate is bad for the body as it has too much sugar on it, you may get diabetes”.

Berge elaborated on it during an interview with LiveScience. "My clinical experience would say that even if a child came to the parent saying they wanted to lose weight, a parent would not want to reinforce the 'weight talk' by saying, 'If you want to lose "weight" and reduce your "size" (repeating words he [the child] is using), you need to eat better and exercise”.

"Rather, the parent should say something like, 'I think it’s great that you want to be more healthy through eating better and exercising. How can I help? This allows the parent to focus on the positive actions the child wants to take," she said.

The study was published on the June 24 issue of JAMA Network.