How mother who works can lead to a fat teen
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:36am GMT 22/11/2007
Children whose mothers go out to work when they are aged between five and seven are more likely to become obese teenagers than those whose mothers stay at home, a study claims today.
The research shows that those children whose mothers work during the years when children develop their eating habits are up to eight per cent more likely to be overweight by the age of 16.
The author of the report suggests the age is important because it is when children start school and the stress could lead them to eat more “comfort food”.
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If they are going home without close parental supervision, they may be helping themselves to food from the fridge.
The study, by Bristol University, suggests for the first time that it is not full-time work per se that influences a child’s weight, but when that work takes place.
Stephanie von Hinke Kessler Scholder, the report’s author, said: “First of all, food preferences and habit formation in children might develop around the age of five. Children learn what they like to eat.
“Also, mid-childhood is the period when children start school and perhaps the combination of mothers starting work and the child starting school is affecting the child’s weight.”
Her research, funded by the Economic and Research Council, says such children are five to eight percentage points more likely to be overweight at 16.
“This is a substantial increase relative to the overall proportion of children overweight at 16: 10 per cent for children born in 1958 and 12 per cent for those born in 1970.”
However, full-time working mothers of younger or older children do not to need to worry. The research says there is no evidence that part-time or full-time work at earlier or later stages of a child’s life leads to obesity at 16.
A rise in obese teenagers coincides with significant increases in the number of women who go out to work; the rate for women aged 16-59 rose from 59 per cent in 1971 to 74 per cent in 2007.
Previous studies have suggested various reasons why children are fatter when their mothers work.
One is that fast food is more likely to be served at home because a tired mother has less time to prepare fresh food.
Another theory is that children in nurseries or schools are not eating healthy food.
But Miss Scholder said educational establishments had made a significant attempt to introduce healthy food.
Her research is based on two large studies - the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study. Both examined 13,000 children born in a single week of the year and followed them through to adulthood.
Miss Scholder said full-time working mothers of children under five had less to worry about, but if they continued working when their child turned five, obesity was likely to be more pronounced later compared with the child of a mother who started full-time work when it was five.
There was no evidence that part-time work had an effect on a child’s weight.
She said: “I am not suggesting for a moment that mothers don’t work, but it is important that they are able to spend enough time with their children and be at home with them when they eat and this means more flexible working being made available, like working from home.”
I’m not suggesting that women don’t work either. What I see from this is parents (both mom & dad) are working too much because of the economical demand on society and do not have time to prepare healthy meals. We all know that McDonalds are quick and make the kids smile, so we do it because we don’t have a lot of time to make them full and smile at the same time. This is not to fully blame parents or society, this is done to make us aware. I hope the government realized what “fund the child” policy could really do to help parents.
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