Policing Johnny's Diet

QUESTION:
Will restricting sugary food give my child a raging sweet tooth?

ANSWER: Tight control of a child's diet may indeed backfire, especially if a parent's motivation isn't good nutrition but to keep her child from getting fat.

After spending years studying the development of girls' eating habits, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas have found that restricting foods—especially those high in sugar or fat—can encourage a tendency for kids to indulge in snack foods, even when they've just eaten a full meal and contend they aren't hungry.

While most girls will nibble when given the chance, those whose parents are controlling tend to eat many more snack calories than those with more liberal parents. By the ages of 5 and 7, girls with domineering parents are more than four times as likely to be overweight. "Children should be allowed to decide whether and how much they will eat," says Jennifer Fisher, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor.

Parents should also analyze why they want to control their children's meals. A study published in Appetite found that parents are often motivated by their own difficult relationships with food, not whether their children are eating well. Parents who are dissatisfied with their own bodies tended to meddle most in the meals of both their sons and daughters. A parental history of eating disorders was a predictor of outright food restriction for daughters.

With nearly 25 percent of children labeled obese, the pressure is on parents to teach their children about good nutrition. The best way is to lead by example and give children repeated opportunities to learn to like a wide variety of healthy foods, says Leann Birch, professor of human development at Penn State University. Says Birch, "They're going to learn to like high-fat, high-sugar things without any help from you."

The bottom line: Parents should be responsible for providing healthy food for their kids. However, strict menu control may only fuel a desire for junk food.