Bob McCoskrie: Onus on parents to set healthy example

A survey published in the New Zealand Medical Journal shows that children are not eating enough bread, fruit and vegetables, but plenty of chips, muesli bars and sugar-based drinks. The blame game continues - from McDonald's to school tuck shops to TV advertising.

Should we blame parents? Research from the Boston University School of Medicine indicates that children of authoritarian parents are six times more likely to be overweight than the children of parents who mix freedom with clear rules.

The researchers reason that browbeaten children turn to comfort eating as a means of escape. The research also indicates that children of neglectful and permissive mothers are twice as likely to get fat.

Should we blame breast-feeding mothers? An extended study of parents and children, supported by the British Medical Research Council, found that bottle-fed babies who start eating solids early are more likely to become obese children. The researchers believe that breast-fed babies are good at regulating their milk intake in relation to their needs. But mothers who use bottles may be anxious for their baby to finish them and when they start a baby early on solids - before six months - they may not reduce the amount of milk given by bottle.

Perhaps we could blame TV. University of Otago research published last year indicates that television viewing in childhood and adolescence is an important predictor of becoming overweight.

The lead researcher says: "The strength of the association we found with TV viewing was greater than that commonly found for the effects of nutritional intake and physical activity."

An Auckland University of Technology researcher told us a year ago that children who stay up late may be packing on extra kilos because they get hungry and head to the kitchen on the way to bed and that kids who sleep less than nine and a half hours on week nights are twice as likely to be obese as those who sleep at least 11 hours.

Dr Robyn Toomath, from Fight the Obesity Epidemic, says the link may be that those who go to bed late have been watching television, "not that they are staying up late or hanging around the kitchen. TV is full of ads to eat food and we know that when you watch all those ads you eat food, and studies show you eat the food that's being advertised".

And what about working mothers? In a working paper titled Maternal Employment and Overweight Children, the Joint Centre for Poverty Research at the University of Chicago suggests that mothers who work the most hours a week are more likely to have overweight children than those who work fewer hours or who do not work at all.

But surely poverty has something to do with it? Families struggle to afford vegetables, fruit and healthy bread. Pies, fizzy drinks and big packets of chips are only $1 each.

That is probably why Waikato District Health Board's Project Energize found that children were more than twice as likely to be obese at the age of 10 if they attended schools in the poorest three income deciles than if they went to schools in the richest three deciles.

Two out of every five 10-year-olds in the poorest schools were overweight. In the richest, only about one in every 20 was obese.

Then the Auckland City Council transport chairman said that local government had a lot to answer for by planning "obesogenic environments" - "fat cities" with few parks and recreational facilities, busy roads and narrow footpaths. Australian research shows a link between city planning and obesity.

English research from the University College London found that modern parent's hands-on style may be doing their children's health no favours as well. It highlighted the falling numbers of children in Britain who were walking to school - a major issue in New Zealand, too.

Plenty of blame, but what about a solution? Jennifer O'Dea, a senior lecturer in nutrition and health education at the University of Sydney, summed it up best when writing last year in Nutrition and Dietetics: "Recent research suggests that parents are still considered by children and adolescents to be the gatekeepers of the family food supply and that parents act as important role models for children's eating behaviours."

She is right. There are plenty of contributing factors to obesity. And there are plenty of possible solutions including bans, special taxes, legislation, and advertising campaigns.

But surely the ultimate way to promote healthy eating - and exercise and sleep patterns - is through parents.

If parents believe in the benefits of healthy food, and are prepared to overcome factors such as cost, preparation time, pressure from children, and lack of convenience, we will start to see progress.

Parental authority, and example, will be the best place to start towards a solution.

* Bob McCoskrie is national director of the Family First Lobby