WTVR – CNN Wire
“One way health programs today are trying to reduce the growing problem of childhood obesity in the United States is by making parents aware that their child is overweight. The thinking is they can take steps to help their child eat more healthily and exercise more. But a new study has turned that thinking on its head. Researchers found that young children were actually more likely to gain weight during childhood if their parents thought they were overweight…Angelina R. Sutin, who led the research, believes the reason behind this could be that parents who thought their children were overweight, regardless of whether they actually were, could have been limiting how much their kids ate and the kids could have rebelled by eating more. Alternatively, these parents may have shamed their children about their weight, which could have led them to overeat or avoid physical activity. Neither possibility could be tested with the data available from the Australian study, Sutin added.”(more)