Fat kids? Blame dad

I remember reading a study that said dads tend to play more actively with kids (i.e. rough housing, rolling around, chasing etc.) Considering that this type of activity from an early age could help build a lifestyle of exorcise (in the form of active play), it might make sense.

The article doesn't ever really say that the father's role in meal time is to blame. (It says, "Dads who did lay down boundaries generally had children with a lower body mass index, said the study by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne." No mention of what type of boundaries.)

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I will say that dads who take the easy way out by feeding them when they demand excessive eats, rather than redirecting them or letting them be disappointed, contribute to their kids' overweight. I've seen this quite a bit. It's true for moms too, but I think moms tend to have more invested in keeping the kids in line - they are usually "full time," while many dads spend very little time giving kids their full attention.

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I'm just wondering what the study would say about our kids and my husband. He's equally involved with each of them and we have one child who is skinny as a rail and the other one who is very chubby. He plays the same with each of them and they live by the same rules.

Needless to say, I'm thinking this study is just another one in the parenting/child market that will come out to be disproved later. It's hard to know what to believe now days with all these studies out there. But my kids have already disproved this one for me.

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Studies show that brown eyes are a risk factor for night blindness,yellow teeth are a risk factor for lung cancer,funny ear lobe creases are a risk factor for heart disease and gray hair is a risk factor for almost everything. Thus;colored contact lens,teeth whitener,plastic surgery and hair dye would prevent these diseases.
All that the term "risk factor" means is that a researcher has found a "correlation" betweeb two variables.Risk factors are not the same as risks. Risk factors do not CAUSE anything except creating FEAR AND SCARES and more money for reseachers to do more un-needed research.

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Come on now. Hasn't anyone noticed that a child tends to follow the parents size as to thier weight, hieght, eye color, and such.I come from a family where dad was skinny and mom was heavy. I was always much smaller than both my brothers. A nd I was the middle child. I think we should do a study to find out how much money is wasted doing studies resulting in rediculouse statistics.

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Their may be a little truth in this,If a child is not getting the attention he needs from his father he may over eat because it makes him feel better. But I also believe it has a lot to do with when the Mother is pregnant if she over eats, and after the child is born, if she feeds him or her too much. I have a friend who, when she was pregnant felt that she had to eat alot. if you said anything she always would say I'm eating for 2. When she had the baby It was a fat baby. and she continuned to feed that baby alot, now he is in the 5th grade and is a very overweight child. this mom needs to remember that when she is pregnant it is a very tiny person who doesn't need much.

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I feel good reading this article. I was feeling severely guilty, that I am a very weak mother, having less influence on my son. Two years back my husband made my 9 years old son, eat 223 doughnuts in a year. I was getting angry& feeling frustrated & vulnerable. Soon after that in blood test we found out that our son has cholestorol. After that my husband stopped feeding him doughnuts. But still our son is getting spoiled by my husband. I am a housewife & we are not finacially well off Some days even when we dont have enough grocery my husband spend money on buying him new games of 60 to 87 $, Play station1 & 2 movies with 20$ spending besides movie tickets. Some times my husband does all these things with borrowed money. My constant explaining our son about saving, finacial wisdom, health & Also setting an example for him has no effect on him. That makes me feel that I have very weak personality. I also remained constantly worried about my sons future.

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A brain puts people at risk of insanity. Hopefully, my parents endowed me correctly. If my brain is too small, I will go crazy trying to interact with an overly complicated world. If my brain is too big, then I will go crazy trying to understand the world. Either way...

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I concur. My dad has always been the one to let us have one more snack, and even if he didn't, he sure didn't stop us. He also says we should eat less junk food, but somehow, it always ends up being in the house, even when my sisters aren't tagging along.

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Here is another tasteless article that shifts all the blame to the father. The mother is also to blame for their over weight chrildren. What you are forgetting is that genes also play a roll on kids being over weight. Kids that stay active instead of watching TV all day will not be over weight.

So, don't come down hard on fathers, come down on the mothers and the school system too.

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hmmmm how come noone everrrr mentions that it is very expensive to eat healthy! junk foods are soooo cheap and poor familys HAVE to buy this kind of food to feed their familys. ever try dieting, and eating only good things, dam a loaf of wheat bread is 2 - 3 dollars.......you can get a bottle of soda for 60 cents, but milk is close to 4 bucks.....come on now all you survey takers, STOP BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE........its the high cost of living in this free land of america! with all the taxes, and gas prices, and expensive healthcare and meds, oh god that is a joke, who can afford all this!

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Oh, PUHLEEEZE! Just from the title on the AOL Home Page ("It's Not Her Fault. Fat Kids? Why Dad's To Blame."), I already knew this was going to be another AOL article pertaining to family or relationships where the problem is once again - guys, altogether now - ALL THE MAN'S FAULT. Kids are morbidly obese today because BOTH parents are too indulgent and are ruled by their children (which is eerily reminiscent of the Roman Empire prior to its downfall)! Just as you need diet AND exercise to lose weight, conversely, a lack of a healthy diet (GENERALLY provided by the mother) combined with a lack of physical exercise (GENERALLY provided by the father) contributes to obesity. And since when is it up to the father alone to set limits for the child(ren)?! Both parents are EQUALLY responsible for setting limits in not just diet, but in all aspects of the life of the child(ren). So this garbage about childhood obesity being the fault of the father is just that, garbage; typical, male-bashing garbage, courtesy of AOL!

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I majored in PE in college, so did my husband. We have 4 children, three are thin, one is chubby, we are both at a reasonable weight after 50 years of marrage. When we were in college there was a BIG study put out that stated factualy that children who had PE classes EVERY day would be better at academics and certainly have less fat!! Why we constantly try to re-invent the wheel so to speak is beyond me!!

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Well, in my family that would be a crock. I have 4 healthy "thin" kids who eat excellent choices of balanced foods most of the time and not much junk food. They all are extremely active. 2 of them would easily pick a piece of fruit rather than a candy bar. Their father isn't hardly in their life and eats like crap in general. By the way, he is overweight and was for part of his childhood. He NEVER excercises either. Sooooo if that research is true.. shouldn't I have 4 fat kids????? hmmmm I would say that he doesn't have the stronger influence and that research is bologna. :)
people need to stop having to have an excuse for everything so it makes it ok to be fat or brat or whatever. It's a choice to eat well or not.. be active or not.. and basically... to train your kids or not.

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Whatever happened to genes being an important factor in having overweight children? Also I haveread that if you were a fat baby, that meant you had more fat cells. Thus, you were prone to have weight problems later on . J.J.

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I have to beg to differ here, at least on this point.I know a family where both the parents are overweight and the mom and the grandparents are the ones who let him eat whatever and whenever he wants.They also make him eat when he does not want to eat and then discipline him if he does not. he is overweight and has high cholesteral at 5 years old.

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This a PS. It is very possible to eat at a reasonably cost when you cook from scratch. Our daughter-in-law does it as does our single parent son. Both have slim, trim kids who play outside a lot. We are responsible for our own behavior, unless of course we are celebraties then NOT.

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In our case, this study is entirely accurate. Pediatric charts place my step-son at 20% overweight. My husband finds it almost impossible to set limits for his son, and buys him almost anything he wants regardless of how age-inappropriate, or expensive, it might be. He is 11, and has a Play Station, X-Box, older Nintendo, several hundreds dollars-worth of video games, a $350 Ipod, a Portable DVD Player, his own laptop, his own top-of-the-line cell phone, $500 glasses, and he spends two months in Europe every summer! And NO, we are not wealthy!

Furthermore, my husband places no limits on his son's eating. He is allowed to eat whatever he asks for, in whatever quantities he desires. He is encouraged to participate in sports, but that doesn't counteract his limitless diet.

Finally, my husband never reprimanded for anything, even when it affects our family in a minor or major way. In fact, if I correct him about anything, he tells his parents that I'm a witch (which I certainly am not). Obviously I'm resentful about this issue, but I also consider it a prime example of the problem described in this article. And I don't 'act' on my resentment. My behavior towards him is as kind and receptive as I can possibly make it. In fact, I'm afraid of him due to the 'behind the back' talking he does, and its effects on our family, and on me personally.

Incidentally, my husband's approach with our daughter is entirely different. He seems overly concerned with maintaining his son's approval, and overly-coddles him due to the 'trauma' of having gone through a messy divorce EIGHT years ago. Since our daughter is still within a married family unit, he doesn't have this same concern for her. Although I do wish he would coddle her more. Balance it all out between the two kids.

As to an explanation for the father having more influence than the mother, I suspect that it has to do with parenting styles. IF the father is, in fact, setting boundaries/limits, then the male style of doing so seems different than the female approach. In general, fathers are more firm in their parenting styles. They seem less sensitive to the child's emotions and more focused on the actual behavior at hand. Thus, they are less prone to sympathize with the child's response to the discipline measure, and can implement it more effectively (i.e. children respond to it better, and learn to set their own limits).

Of course this only applies to father's who are, in fact, setting limits for their children. And I'm sure there are exceptions even within that category.

Some of you may consider my comments politically incorrect, or gender biased. But some of you might forget about what's PC, and see that there is truth to my observations about parenting styles.

Enough from me. This topic set me off.

JG

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I'm sorry, I'm not buying this article at all. Number 11, (Kay), you're right! If everyone would get their kids out of the house and up off of their asses, having so many fat kids in this country wouldn't be an issue at all, and certainly would stop all the finger pointing that's going on. This is so much crap! Now father's are solely to blame? This is ridiculous. If kids are fat, which so many of them are nowadays, it's because they're not exercising enough, period! If they'd get out of the house more and do more, they'd eat less, and lose weight, and it's actually easier to turn a kid's diet around when they are being more active. Just as it's become with so much else in this country, this is another fine example of moving and shifting blame where it doesn't belong and does not address the real problem at all. Let's get real, kids are fat because they're lazy and because parents are lazy---not just dad!! I realize everyone is working and busy, etc., but good old fashioned exercise helps with stress and fatigue too, not just with losing weight. Just think, if we'd all spend more time outside, enjoying some fresh air and exercise, then maybe we'd stop sitting around whining about why little Tommy and sweet Susie are so fat and who's to blame for that. Get your kids off their asses and join in with them for some easy exercise, such as walking or riding a bike and guess what, you might just find that it's fun, and there's good quality time together to be had by everyone involved, and then articles like this one would cease to exist, which again, doesn't come close to addressing what the real underlying problem is--not by a long shot. Becky

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I can relate to this, especially if the father, has lefted; through divorce. Especially if he doesn't have any contact with his sonor daughter. More so his son, because they do need a father in their life.

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