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How Your Family May Be Making You Fat

Family plays a role in a child’s weight, a new study finds. (Photo: Image Source/Getty Images)
Family plays a role in a child’s weight, a new study finds. (Photo: Image Source/Getty Images)

When it comes to obesity, people often blame overeating and a lack of exercise. But your family also plays a big role in whether you’ll become overweight, according to a new study published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

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“A lot of times when we talk about obesity, we simplify it and say it’s a result of what you eat and how physically active you are — we never think about the family environment and how parenting influences their child’s weight in the long term,” lead study author Daphne Hernandez, PhD, assistant professor in the department of health and human performance at the University of Houston, tells Yahoo Parenting. “Obesity is a multifaceted problem.”

Hernandez’s research found a link between long-term exposure to three specific types of family-related stress and children becoming obese by the time they reach 18 years old. The study, which looked at 4,700 adolescents, identified the three areas as: family disruption, financial stress, and maternal poor health.

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Family disruption includes parents getting a divorce, having a parent who is incarcerated, the death of a close family member or friend, or if the child is a victim of violence. Disruption can even include what would normally be a happy event: a single mom getting married. “Marriage is a good thing, but it changes an individual’s [including a child’s] routine, which is a form of stress,” says Hernandez. “Any sort of disruption from birth to age 18 was positively related to females being obese.”

Financial strain, such as having a mother who is unemployed or a family that’s struggling with poverty, is another stressor that can trigger adolescent girls to become overweight or obese. “The parents are worried about finances, but not thinking that the stress of the finances can influence their kid’s health in the long term,” she says.

The third stressor is having a mom with risky health habits, such as binge drinking or using illegal drugs or overusing prescription drugs, as well as mothers battling serious depression. These behaviors were associated with adolescent boys being overweight or obese by age 18.

Although it’s not fully understand why, Hernandez discovered in her research that not all family-related stressors affect boys and girls equally. “Males and females are reacting differently to what’s happening in the family unit,” she says. “There are some cases where the son may be influenced but not the daughter.”

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The take-home? To combat the obesity epidemic, which has quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s not enough to teach kids about healthy eating habits and the importance of staying active. Mental health also needs to be addressed, such as counseling and teaching kids stress-management techniques to help them cope with the stress they may be facing at home.

“With obesity prevention, it’s important to understand what’s going on in the family environment and how that can be an influence on adolescent weight gain,” says Hernandez. “You have obesity education at school, but the problem is the child goes home and there are things you can’t control that are influencing a child’s weight. I’d like to see prevention programs focusing on teaching stress management as a way to prevent obesity. If mom and dad are fighting, what can we do to relieve stress?”

Adds Hernandez: “The family unit can really have long-term effects on weight status — beyond what we’re feeding our children. It’s the every day interactions.”

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