Singling out children for
their puppy fat can leave them 'psychologically scarred' and likely to
get even fatter in future, a study has found.
So-called 'fat shaming' may lead to feelings of stigma that result in comfort eating, researchers say.
Children
labelled as being too heavy by their parents went on to weigh more as
adults than children of similar weight whose parents did not label them
as fat.
Being told they were overweight also led the children to make ultimately unsuccessful attempts to diet.
The findings may cost doubt on the wisdom
of the nationwide NHS scheme to measure the height and weight of all
primary school children, in which many pupils have been labelled as
overweight or obese.
Eric Robinson of
Liverpool University and Angelina Sutin of Florida State University
analysed two large studies which track child development.
In
the first study, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, tracked
the weight of children in 4,983 families from the ages of four or five
until 14 or 15 years old.
During the course of the study, parents
were asked if they considered their children to be either underweight,
normal weight, somewhat overweight and very overweight.
The
authors write 'children who were perceived as being overweight at age 4
or 5 gained more weight over the next decade, in part because they
perceived themselves to be overweight.'
The
children also 'made more attempts to lose weight through dieting at age
12 or 13 than the children who were perceived as normal weight earlier
in childhood.'
One in five children in the study were overweight or obese – although 86 per cent of their parents thought they were 'normal'.
In
the second study of 8,568 families –the Growing Up in Ireland study –
followed children at two points in their lives – at the ages of nine and
13.
At both ages, parents were interviewed and
similarly asked if they considered their child to be underweight,
overweight or normal.
The authors said the second study found the same result as that in Australia.
Compared
with children whose parents perceived them to be of normal weight, the
children seen as overweight at age nine 'gained more weight by age 13'.
Just as in the first study, the children labelled as overweight had also made more attempts to diet.
Many
of the parents did not see their children as overweight – even though
the body mass index of a third of the children showed they were
overweight or obese
Of these overweight
children, more than half (55 per cent) were identified as being of
normal weight by their parent, while 44 per cent were accurately seen as
overweight.
In both studies, the
authors controlled for factors such as parents suffering from depression
and being overweight and obese themselves.
In
conclusion the authors write: 'Across two studies, we replicated the
finding that children whose parents perceive them to be overweight are
likely to gain more weight than peers who parents do not consider them
to be overweight.'
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