This is one of those headlines that I place between interrogations because I don't believe them too much. A systematic review of different previous studies seems to conclude that parents' eating habits have little influence on children's habits.
Does this mean that we should not worry about providing our children with healthy eating habits? Definitely not, because if there are good bases it will be more difficult for them to fall into harmful habits.
Many times we have talked about the importance of the paternal example, and this is no exception. Other studies confirm that children of families with worse eating habits are more obese, and that eating as a family is healthy for everyone.
Researchers at the University of Baltimore think that parents' habits have little influence on what their children will eat, because in this sense They eat much more weight what they eat in school canteens and the group of friends with whom they go out.
This is reflected in an article published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, which has compiled and compared everything published on the subject from 1980 to 2009. The conclusion is that the similarities between the dietary habits of parents and children are few.
The reports have been collected not only in the United States, but in various countries, and they all agree that, contrary to what we think, the children do not copy the parents when choosing how they feed. The food sold in their environment, what they eat in school canteens and the habits of their circle of friends are much more decisive in determining their future habits.
And, although the full study cannot be accessed and the ages of the children do not appear, they are supposed to be somewhat older, since it seems that in the course of the years the exemplary role of the parents loses a lot of strength in what refers to food.
But it seems to me that our young children do not go out with friends to snack what they want ... for now. Many do not go to school canteens and neither, in theory, are they buying the food themselves in vending machines, but just in case it is not bad that the goodies, the industrial pastries and the soft drinks disappear from the schools.
The importance of an adequate school menu, as we have commented on so many occasions, it is also evidenced with this data. The prevention of obesity is done from school, from the family, health, and ultimately the whole society.
With all the above, we will put our grain of sand (which I do not think is so small) and at home we will continue trying to set an example of good eating habits to children, just as we try to give positive examples in so many areas. That there will be time when they grow up to be presented with the possibility of taking different paths (or not) and choosing.
