Fat children are more likely to have their father to blame for their weight problem than their mother, a new study shows.
Research by Australian child health experts has revealed that fathers who are disengaged or do not set clear limits for their kids are more likely to have heavier children.
Dads who did lay down boundaries generally had children with a lower body mass index (BMI), the study of almost 5000 youngsters found.
Surprisingly, a mother’s parenting behaviour or style apparently had no impact on whether a child was overweight or obese, according to research by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne.
Categories: gender & feminism, health, relationships
Pamela Denoon Lecture 2016: Nelly Thomas 
DUFC #69 
Tis the season of food guilt 
Hoyden About Town 
Surprising because kids spend far more time with their mothers? Surprising because mothers generally buy and prepare food?
So yes, I’m surprised.
Ha, I shall blame him if my children are ever overweight. I shall steadfastly ignore all other conflicting evidence. I could be a RWDB if I tried hard enough.
My emphasis was because clearly the researchers expected to find yet another correlation with mothering to start adding to the mother-blaming pile (mothers used to be blamed for making men gay, too, remember?).
Of course I’d have to look at the study properly to find what it considered to be distinct mothering ‘behaviours’ or ‘styles’ that it ruled out as having a correlation with children’s avoirdupois.
Oh, they can still blame the mothers. After all, they chose these disengaged undads to father their children, didn’t they?
There is always a way to make it the mother’s fault.
Fire Fly actually brought this study to my attention on my post at Shrub, from an article in the SMH. What I found fascinating that wasn’t covered in the NZ article is that the parenting styles seem to come from self-assessment. I haven’t been able to find anything on the study proper, but if that’s their sole measure of parenting styles, I must admit I’m a little suspicious.
I think perhaps it’s the NZ Herald that is surprised, not the researcher. Later in the Herald article the researcher is quoted:
“Mothers are often blamed for their children’s obesity, but this study suggests that for more effective prevention perhaps we should focus on the whole family,” Professor (Melissa) Wake said.”
This sounds to me as if she might be glad to have found a good reason to not hold mothers solely responsible for their kids eating habits (even given kate’s excellent point).
The word “surprisingly” seems to be a comment by the journalist – and a nasty one at that. And possibly more dangerous than if it actually were from the researcher, as most of us will read the paper/website before we read the research report(if at all).
We can argue about this over lunch – see you tomorrow 🙂
Whether it was the journalist or the researchers who characterized it as “surprising,” it still suggests not only an expectation that fat is the mother’s fault, but an expectation that most people reading the article will be equally surprised to learn it’s not. Boo.
I wrote:
Apparently I was inadequately cynical; it’s the fault of all women. And it took less than 24 hours! Feminism Causes Obesity? quotes this study, and goes on:
I see that Cursor is well acquainted with Ms Strawfeminist, speculating that feminists will spins the study thus:
Right, silly me thinking that the study might actually suggest that dads in a two parent home should spend more time with their kids without mum having to be along because “she understands the kids better”, and that non-custodial dads should emphasise outdoor time together instead of just buying the kids consumer electronics.
*nods* I wanted to write something on his comments, but I couldn’t trust myself to not be abusive
Something along the lines that, actually, feminism is empowering for males (for dads, anyway), because it can make them think about what being a dad is about, and, done right, leads to more interaction with the family. To realize that raising children is not the woman’s job, but that it’s a shared responsibility and that you have to take responsibility.
His argument that feminism devalues men, or somehow makes them irrelevant, is tosh. Heh: he is whining that it’s all women’s fault that he’s not the man he should be. He doesn’t see how ridiculous that makes him look. I am reminded of Adam pointing the finger at Eve and saying “It was the woman you gave me! It’s her fault!”. And I am sad to say that, looking around at his site, if he’s coming from where I think he is then he’s completely missed the point. A lot of these muppets don’t seem to know the line “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church”. That attitude is completely antithetical to any male supremacy bullshit.