CNN reports on a study which finds that a disproportionate number of first-graders are overweight when they have authoritarian parents -- the most strict form of parenting.
Strict mothers were nearly five times more likely to raise tubby first-graders than mothers who treated their children with flexibility and respect while also setting clear rules.
But while the children of flexible rule-setting moms avoided obesity, the children of neglectful mothers and permissive mothers were twice as likely to get fat.
The article, while somewhat carefully worded, does lapse into the correlation/causation fallacy: does strict parenting cause the weight problems? What if having overweight kids drives parents to authoritarian methods? Or what if families that feed their kids too much also tend to be stricter?
Here's the abstract for the study. The researchers are much more careful here, indicating that "Children of authoritarian mothers (n = 298) had an increased risk of being overweight, compared with children of authoritative mothers (n = 179)."
This data can't tell us whether strict parenting causes overweight kids. However, the correlation by itself is quite interesting -- and indeed it's plausible that something about authoritarian parenting leads to childhood obesity. Do you have any ideas as to why this relationship might hold? Let us know in the comments.
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"Clean up your plate or else!"
Authoritarian parenting leads to development of External Locus of Moral Authority, i.e., the victims rely on others (e.g., God, priests, parents, the President) to define what is right or wrong. As they get developmentally stunted, i.e., do not develop the Internal Locus of Moral Authority, they do not behave well because it is their second nature but because they are afraid of punishment. Thus, they are constantly tempted to do bad stuff and do not know limits, be it sex, violence or anything else. Eating is not considered sinful, so there is no fear of punishment for overindulging. That, coupled with no sense of when it is time to stop (when the plate is clean), and lowered ability to sense their own bodies (hunger/satiation) as it was never developed, leads to obesity. Look at Hastert, Gingrich, Cheney...
The above was not stated with certainty, but is an attempt to think of a possible causation. The only part that has been researched is that kids forced to clean their plates have no idea when they are not hungry any more. The rest (about loci of moral authority), though supported by a lot of research, is still contentious, and the connection between the two is mine.
There was a show on PBS a while back (Nova maybe or SciAm Frontiers?) that showed research into the difference in attitude to candy between young kids who had strictly controlled diets and those who were allowed to help themselves to candy whenever they wanted.
They started the kids off in a room with lots of great toys to play with. Ten minutes later, once the kids were engrossed in the toys, the researchers brought in a tray of tempting candy. The kids who had grown up with very restricted access to candy jumped on the tray and started to guzzle it all down--binging behaviour. When the did the same with the other kids, they barely noticed the tray and kept right on playing. It was a very striking difference.
It would seem quite plausible that authoritarian parents are more likely to heavily control their kid's diet. And in doing so, they could be unwittingly enouraging their kids to binge on the bad stuff whenever they get the chance.
I'm going to go with tacitus here. Even beyond childhood, restrictive diets lead to binge eating tendencies. Authoritarian parents may impose very strict limitations of food in the house, leading children to overindulge compulsively when they're at a friend's house or at school (the thinking being that you have to eat it quickly before Mom catches you). I'll bet there's a higher instance of bulimia, too.
Not that I'd know from experience, or anything.