Parents' general approach to raising their children is often reflected in how they manage their children's diet. To predict parenting styles from feeding practices, American researchers studied 239 parents out of. (93.5% mothers) of first-grade children (134 boys, 105 girls) enrolled in rural public schools. The parents were asked to fill child feeding and parenting styles. It was found that parents who were strict in general also tended to have an authoritarian approach to their children's eating - banning certain foods, for instance, or using pressure to get them to eat fruits and vegetables. Further, parents who were generally permissive in what they let their children eat tended to have a liberal parenting style. In between these two groups were the authoritative parents who set limits on their children's diets, but often used more positive approaches like following a healthy diet themselves, to get their kids to eat well. Both the strict and permissive parents typically failed to serve as good dietary role models for their children. Parental feeding practices with young children can predict general parenting styles, which are important in their children's diet. Also, the researchers recommend that parents should use positive approaches to get their children to eat right by setting a good example with their own diets. They also suggested that efforts to help obese children lose weight are not likely to be successful unless the underlying family dynamics are addressed.
Journal of the American Dietetic Association
July 2008