Parents¿ Dieting, Comments May Contribute to Eating Disorders in Girls

MINNEAPOLIS - Comments from parents focusing on the weight of their children, parents’ dieting behaviors and teasing by family members may contribute to eating disorders in adolescent girls, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota.

Comments made by mothers, in particular, were associated with numerous disordered eating behaviors. As a result, researchers suggest parents avoid weight-related discussions at home, such as talking about their own weight and encouraging their children to diet, as well as any form of weight-teasing.

“While parents who are concerned about their children’s weight may encourage dieting with the best of intentions, they need to know that talking about weight loss may have harmful consequences for their children’s health,” said lead author Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D. “Instead, I encourage parents to look for changes that can be made in the home environment to support healthier eating and physical activity behaviors among youth.”

U of M researchers analyzed data from 365 adolescent girls, many of whom were overweight, and found 45 percent of participants reported their mothers encouraged dieting. Girls whose mothers encouraged them to diet were two times as likely to binge eat and five times more likely to engage in extreme weight control behaviors than girls whose mothers did not encourage them to diet. Extreme weight control behaviors include taking diet pills or laxatives and vomiting for weight control purposes.

Roughly two-thirds of the girls reported their mother dieted or talked about her own weight, and 40 percent reported their dads dieted or talked about his weight.

Dieting moms were associated with greater use of unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors among the girls, and mothers who talked about their own weight were associated binge eating and greater use of unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors.

Family weight-teasing also may prove to be an issue in the homes of adolescent girls. Of the study participants, 58 percent of girls reported being teased by a family member about her weight in the past year. Girls with higher Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) were teased more. Weight-teasing was strongly associated with higher BMI, body dissatisfaction, unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors and binge eating.

The study is part of New Moves, an alternative physical education class offered to girls who are inactive, overweight or at risk for being overweight. The class is currently offered in 12 high schools in the Twin Cities metro.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health and appears in the September edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health.