Diet advice has a negative effect on teens

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-6  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

PARENTS of overweight teenagers who recognize that their kids are too fat don't take steps to help them to eat more healthily or to be more active, but push them to diet - and this pressure is likely to backfire, a new American study shows.

Parents concerned about their child's weight should do more and talk less, Dr Dianne Neumark-Sztainer of the University of Minnesota said.

"Serve more fruits and vegetables, have more family meals, find ways to be more physically active, turn off the TV," said Neumark-Sztainer.

"Possibly more important is to talk less about weight and dieting," she added. "Teens are very sensitive about these topics, and are very likely to take a parents' well-intentioned comments as criticism. Parents are for the most part trying to help their children, it's just a sensitive issue."

Concerns have been raised that parents often don't realize when a child is overweight, Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues note in medical journal Pediatrics.

They analyzed information obtained from 170 parent-child pairs in which the child was overweight.

Fifty-seven percent of these parents said they encouraged their children to diet to control their weight.

But for both boys and girls, being encouraged to diet roughly tripled their likelihood of still being overweight five years later.

Past research has shown that teens who diet may actually be more likely to gain weight over time and tend to binge-eat more often, skip breakfast, and use other less healthy, and less effective, weight control strategies, Neumark-Sztainer explained.