Women's erratic eating affects children - page 2

10 months ago 26th Dec 09:00

Orbach said: “People eat when they aren’t hungry because they are bored, anxious, angry, conflicted, nervous, sad or overexcited. The feelings don’t get dealt with”.

She added: “It shouldn’t surprise us that when children become independent eaters they reflect what they have learnt [from their mothers], not only in their eating choices, but in the emotional feelings of safety, anxiety, fear, pleasure or satisfaction that go with food”.

She also insisted that tackling eating issues early on in a child’s life will prevent increased spending on treatments for obese adults in the future.

Stomach stapling and gastric bands contribute towards obesity’s estimated cost of £15 billion to the British economy. Obesity drugs, such as ‘orlistat’, which stops the body absorbing fat, and ‘sibutramine’, which suppresses people’s appetites, cost the National Health Service £47 million each year.

Orbach argues that increased spending on health visitors’ training would help women to develop healthy relationships with food, and would be more cost effective than treatments for obesity-related diseases later in life.

She said: “Helping mothers to come to grips with their own eating difficulties is surely the sanest and most effective way to help two generations in one go”.

Sir Donaldson agrees that parents should be encouraged to take an active interest in solving Britain’s obesity epidemic, but outlines in his report that the word ‘obesity’ has become such a taboo that it is often difficult to engage parents to take more responsibility.

He states that parents at a recent focus group preferred the term ‘very overweight’ compared to ‘obese’, and that child health professionals are concerned that ‘obese’ children will be bullied and stigmatised.

He said: “Precisely because body size has become a personal, social and political issue, the use and meaning of words to describe it is important”.

Orbach refutes that the term ‘obese’ is only unpopular amongst parents who are in denial about their child’s health issues, and instead believes that because ‘obese’ is defined as a disease rather than a body size classification, people are more reluctant to use the term.

By Kay Taylor