According to a new study, parents who fight with their spouse or are stressed out about other issues cause their children to become obese.
Researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia recently found that increased parental stress directly influences and results in higher rates of childhood obesity and fast food consumption, along with lower rates of physical activity.
"Stress in parents may be an important risk factor for child obesity and related behaviors," explained the study's lead researcher Dr. Elizabeth Prout-Parks, a physician nutrition specialist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in a prepared statement. "The severity and number of stressors are important."
There have been similar studies carried out in the past. However, this recent study is said to be more diverse and included a closer analysis of families from different ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Factors that the researchers looked into included adult levels of education, parental stressors, parent-perceived stress, race, body mass index, age, gender, health quality and sleep quality.
Findings of the study suggested that parents who are stressed out physically or mentally and parents who have household difficulties affect their children's health the most causing them to be more obese. Financial difficulties faced by parents usually result in their children indulging in lesser physical activities.
One of the biggest reasons why children become obese is because of the alarming high rate of fast food consumed by them. Parents who are under a lot of stress usually don't bother much about what the child eats as long as he or she has eaten. So they tend to order in or buy fast food to save them the stress of cooking.
"Although multiple stressors can elicit a 'stressor pile-up,' causing adverse physical health in children, parent's perception of their general stress level may be more important than the actual stressors," the authors wrote in the article. "Clinical care, research and other programs might reduce levels of childhood obesity by developing supportive measures to reduce stressors on parents," commented Prout-Parks, whose study appears in the November issue of Pediatrics. "Teaching alternative coping strategies to parents might also help them to reduce their perceived stress."
