Childhood Obesity Can Be Linked To Not Eating Dinner With Parents, According To Korean Society For The Study Of Obesity
According to a research conducted by the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity (KSSO), 22.4 percent of South Korean children who do not eat with their parents during dinner are obese, while those who do only account for 5.1 percent of childhood obesity, reported The Chosun Ilbo on Thursday.
The study is the first-ever that has found relation between childhood obesity and domestic living patterns.
The KSSO studied 3,281 children between ages six and 11 and their parents, as well as their nutritional intake from 2009 until 2013. The team also conducted a survey on 1,000 parents of elementary school children this year.
They have found that mothers who drink more than one carbonated beverage per week increase the risk of their children being obese by 1.6 times. Families who also eat out over 5.5 times a week were found to consume 204 kcal a day more compared to families that eat at home.
"The problem is that children who do not have dinner with their families often eat fast food, which is high in calories and low in nutrition, and don't get enough exercise after their meal," said Kim Dae Jung, a doctor at Ajou University.
The European Food Information Council also noted on September 2012 that the eating habits of parents and caregivers play a big role directly and indirectly on influencing the food preferences of children, which could later on increase their risk of becoming obese.
As parents are the children's primary role models growing up, they tend to adopt their behaviors, including their eating habits. It is therefore paramount to a child's developmental stages that parents set good examples.
Children are more likely to become open and adventurous to trying new and unfamiliar foods, such as vegetables, if they observe someone else eating them.
"If children eat alone, they don't acquire a proper taste and only want salty, sweet or spicy foods," said Chung So Chung at Konkuk University Medical Center. "Eating together as a family is not just important from a purely nutritional point of view but also impacts what children learn about food."
According to Korea Herald on Oct. 12, 2014, one out of four South Korean boys between ages five and 17 suffer from obesity, a rate that is alarmingly higher than the OECD average.
Even more alarming is that 63.3 percent of parents with obese kids admitted that they do not take measures to control their child's nutritional intake, while 44.4 percent said they do not encourage any form of exercise.
