A careless comment from parents will have a huge impact to their children; most especially when it concerns about weight.
If anyone has ever told you that you’re looking a bit chunkier, you know how much it can hurt, particularly if that person is a parent. But what you might not have known is that these comments can affect the child, even when they’re already grown.
Studies undertaken by the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, and published this year in Eating & Weight Disorders show that women whose parents make comments about their weight are worst off in the long run. The women who remembered their parents commenting on their weight during childhood are more likely to be overweight, and less likely to be satisfied with their weight.
The lead author of the study Brian Wansink, PhD, had this to say about the team’s findings:
“Commenting on a woman’s weight is never a good idea, even when they are young girls.”
The Study
As far as studies go, this is a relatively preliminary one. It took a group of 501 women between 20 and 35 years and surveyed them about how they felt about their body image, how they compared to healthy norms (BMI), and how often their parents made comments about their weight.
In analysing the data the team discovered that the women with a healthy BMI were 27% less likely to remember their parents commenting on their weight, and 28% less likely to remember their parents commenting that they ate too much, when compared to the women with an overweight BMI. Even more interesting than that is that both healthy weight and overweight women who did remember their parents commenting on their weight when they were young were less likely to be satisfied with their weight as adults, no matter what it happened to be.
What To Do
It’s pretty clear that there are some serious consequences to making comments about your daughter’s weight, ones that can follow her for her entire life. The idea that you commenting on your child’s weight as a child might make her overweight as an adult is a difficult one for parents to contend with, particularly if they’ve made those comments before.
So what can a parent do if they’re concerned about the weight of their daughter, particularly if they feel she’s slipped into unhealthy eating habits and has neglected activity for a sedentary lifestyle. Brian Wansink, PhD, the lead author of the study has some recommendations:
“If you’re worried about your child’s weight, avoid criticizing them or restricting food. Instead, nudge healthy choices and behaviours by giving them freedom to choose for themselves and by making the healthier choices more appealing and convenient,” he said. “After all, it’s the choices that children make for themselves that will lead to lifelong habits.”
And if you’re feeling the urge to comment, even after you’ve made these changes, hold your tongue. Instead think about how you feel when someone says something critical about your weight, and consider whether you want to be the person who makes your daughter feel that way.
We’re certainly interested to see some more research done on this topic, particularly one that takes into account the experience of boys as well as girls.
