New Studies Identify Parents As Role Models For Daughters.

2001 NOV 8 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Findings presented at the October 2001, annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO), in Quebec City, Canada, underscored the importance of parents and teachers as role models for healthy lifestyles in kids.

"We've known for a long time that parents' behaviors and lessons learned at school influence the choices kids make. New research findings presented here suggest that fathers have a considerable influence on their daughters' activity patterns and that being physically active in the classroom at school may be a useful approach for increasing activity levels in children," says Jennifer Lovejoy, PhD, Manship associate professor and chief of Women's Nutrition Research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and secretary of NAASO. "The studies also reveal new ways to identify kids at risk for obesity and to open new avenues for altering activity patterns before they become obese."

The families of 192 girls were interviewed when girls were five and seven years old and were classified as obesigenic (above average energy and fat intake, below average physical activity) or nonobesigenic (below average energy and fat intake, above average physical activity) based on parents' dietary and activity patterns. Girls from families identified as obesigenic had significantly higher body mass indexes (BMIs) and greater skinfold thickness values and experienced greater increases in BMI and skinfold thickness between the ages of five and seven, than girls from nonobesigenic families. "One of the more revealing results from the study," says Kirsten Krahnstoever Davison, PhD, Pennsylvania State University and lead author, "is that 11 of the 14 girls who became overweight during that time, came from families identified as being obesigenic."

Further investigating the link between family influence and the presence of child obesity, in a separate study by the same investigators, a group of nine-year-old girls was assessed and analyzed regarding their physical activity and preferences for physical activity. Their parents were assessed as being role models for activity and for providing logistical support, such as driving daughters to and from sporting events. ...