Managing parents’ stress significantly reduces the risks of obesity in young children, according to a new study.
Helping parents manage stress could reduce the risk of obesity in young children, a new study has found.
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When parents are overwhelmed, family routines may suffer, unhealthy food choices increase, and positive parenting behaviours decline.
Researchers from Yale University found that targeting parent stress with healthy nutrition is effective in preventing early childhood obesity and improving positive parenting and child healthy food intake.
“We already knew that stress can be a big contributor to the development of childhood obesity. The surprise was that when parents handled stress better, their parenting improved, and their young child’s obesity risk went down,” said Rajita Sinha, lead of the research team.
How the study worked
Researchers ran a 12-week randomised trial with 114 parents from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. All the parents were overweight or obese, and had children aged between two and five.
Parents were divided into two groups. The first one received a stress intervention called Parenting Mindfully for Health (PMH), which focused on mindfulness and behavioural self-regulation skills combined with healthy nutrition and physical activity counselling.
The second group received a control intervention, receiving healthy nutrition and physical activity counselling. Both groups met for up to two hours a week.
Parents’ stress levels and childrens’ weight were monitored during 12 weeks.
Parents in the PMH group reported lower stress and showed improvements in positive parenting. Their children ate less unhealthy food and recorded no weight gain after the study.
The results from the other groups showed a different picture. Parents did not show similar improvements, and their children showed significant weight increases; they were six times more likely to meet the overweight or obesity category.
A growing global problem
Childhood obesity continues to rise worldwide. According to the World Obesity Atlas, the number of overweight children will reach 228 million by 2040, surpassing for the first time the number of underweight children globally.
Excess weight in childhood not only increases the risk of chronic diseases later in life, but they also pose dangers in the early years, when healthy development is critical.
“When people start moving up the weight scale, their risk of obesity-related illnesses, even in children, is increased,” Sinha added.
The World Health Organization member states have set Global Nutrition Targets to improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition from 2025 to 2030, aiming to reduce overweight by five percent over the next five years.