Question 1:
In your opinion, why was the maternal effect on adolescent eating patterns not statistically significant, and what factors do you think led to this conclusion?
posted by Myra Davis @ 1:04 PM
30 comments
ISU Dietetic Internship Journal Club
Objective: To become familiar with current scientific literature on a variety of nutrition topics and to gain experience in gathering, organizing, critically evaluating, presenting and facilitating group discussion of the literature and the implications to practice.
30 Comments:
Adolescents have different biological needs than their parents when it comes to energy and nutrients. This could be one reason why the results were not significant. Furthermore, adolescents may be more prone to skipping meals, snacking, and simply choosing unhealthy foods, which could have had an effect on the results of this study. The school environment alone could be a factor, because most of these children were receiving free lunches, whereas the mothers were eating at home, on the road, etc. Another interesting point is that 61% of the study's population reported being a part of a food assistance program such as WIC or food stamps. The mothers may think they have to "feed their children before they themselves are fed." Also, the study was conducted in one city, one urban area, and involved only African-Americans. Other studies related to this topic have seen more significant results.
I think that there could be a variety of reasons why there was no effect on the adolescent eating patterns. I would question whether or not the mother is eating with the children or if they are eating at separate times. I would also want to know how consistent meal times were and their eating schedules. I think it would also make a difference if the family is eating out a majority of the time or if they are eating at home more. In this study, it showed that what the adolescents consumed had no effect on what the mother is consumed. It may also be possible that the mother is unsure how to teach the children how to eat more nutritiously. I think that childrens eating habits are more than likely going to chose the more unhealthy options, but then again children need much more nutrients as they are growing and developing. It is also likely that the income and/or education level of the mother could play a difference in this study. I think more studies should be done relating to this topic on maybe a different population group.
Brittney-
I like what you said about the mothers may think that they have to feed their children before they feed themselves. I think that is a good point and probably happens often. That is why it is benefitial to have programs such as WIC and foods stamps available to mothers in need. It's also important to note that many of the cheaper foods in the stores tend high in fat/calories and often times junk food is bought instead of healthier options because people want to get the most for their money.
I believe that the reason the maternal effect on adolescent eating patterns are not statistically significant was mainly due to meals consumed away from the home. Eating away from home would include school lunch as well as the family eating out. If the family is eating several meals out of the home the maternal effect would be lessened. If the mother is making the meal at home it is more likely that the eating patterns would be more closely related. This way the mother child eating pattern would only differ in the amount of food consumed rather than the type of food consumed.
Brittney,
You make a good point about adolescents having different biological needs. The typical teenager has a significantly higher caloric need than an adult. They are also typically not as concerned about their weight yet, because they are more likely to be thin.
Certainly, there could be many possible explanations as to why the maternal effect on adolescent eating patterns resulted in insignificant outcomes. Due to the fact that this study was based off of adolescent and parental surveys involving food frequency questionnaires, I have to question the accuracy of the participants’ actual dietary intake as compared to their reported dietary intake. I think that it is safe to say that adolescents are much less aware of the food in which they actually eat. On the other hand, adults (especially mothers) typically have greater knowledge pertaining to health and nutrition when compared to that of an adolescent. Therefore, it could be that the adolescents in this study more so over-reported their dietary intake whereas the mothers in this study more so under-reported their dietary intake.
I think the maternal effect wasn’t significant because of the lack of time spent together that involved eating. Since majority of these adolescents were not just eating lunch but breakfast as well at school, their mothers had less of an impact on their food choices since they weren’t present to choose their food for them. Most children are going to be more inclined to choose the pizza option for lunch than the healthier option when it’s left up to them to decide. Also, it was shown that those that were given money to buy snacks unsupervised were more likely to have unhealthy diets. The adolescents in this study were making food choices for themselves, which can often lead to poor decisions since they go by taste not by if it is healthy or not.
The maternal effect on adolescents diets was most likely proven to be statistically insignificant due to low mother participation. The amound of data collected may have been too small to accurately represent maternal effects on their children's food choices. In addition, the type of data collection used (food frequency questionnaires) leaves excess room for error. For example, if a bag of cookies is evenly consumed by a mother and a child, the mother may mark that she has cookies sparingly if she ate them all in one sitting, while the child marks that she has cookies often because she had one serving multiple times during the week. Likewise, each family remember may recall the number of times he/she ate a specific food differently than the other family members, causing incongruencies in the questionnaires. However, the completed research does state that there is no correlation between parental and child eating habits, which could easily be explained by the absence of parents in a child's 8 hour school day for 3/4 of the year.
I think the maternal effect on adolescent eating patterns was not statistically significant because teens often pride themselves on being different from their parents. They also spend a lot of time away from the family due to sports, friends, or other social factors. This is a time when adolescents are trying to figure themselves out and make their own decisions with regard to clothing, hair style, and food choices. Peer pressure may also have an effect.
Colin, good point about eating away from home. Adolescents do eat at school and, in my experience, not many bring a lunch from home. People I went to school with enjoyed a lunch made up of french fries and ice cream! I'm pretty sure mom's aren't eating that for a meal!
These subjects are probably not eating most meals together. The adolescents spent a lot of time away from Mom, consuming meals and snacks at school and with friends.
Katherine,
You made a few good points I didn't even think about. Like teens striving to be independent and make their own decisions. At that point in time adolescents don't want to model their parents most of the time.
I think there's no question that meals away from home (often both breakfast and lunch) combined with peer influence are the main contributors to the fact that the results here are not statistically significant. Teens tend to consume what their peers do when there is no chance for parental comment or influence (in other words, when they're at school!). When there is only one meal left a day to consume together, it becomes really difficult to establish eating examples for your kids and then try to maintain them. Also, for the families where the moms are working, it's possible that the mother's work schedule means they are not home at the usual dinner hour, leaving teens to eat on their own. This would mean no meals together at all, at least when school is in session.
One thing to consider in this study is that these were single moms and who knows what their work schedules were like. They could leave for work early in the mornings or not be home till late. Either of these factors would play a role on the maternal effect. Also with the kids mostly being on free or reduced lunches they are limited to the choices-for example if they are having meatloaf one day and the kid doesn't like meatloaf they might not have the ability to pack a lunch like a kid with parents that make more money. This could lead to more snacking on unhealthy foods later in the day.
Anna,
I like the fact that you brought up the food frequency tool used. How accurate were the moms really without a trained researcher to help them fill it out correctly?
Adolescence is a time of trial-and-error. Dieting and exercise are often new fronteirs for teenagers, and are often highly experimented with. It is also a time of rebelion; they finally can use their own money to buy what they want! Also, like I have said before, adolescents are highly influenced by their peers, who may be trying out the newest fad diet, or "bulking up" for football, and put pressure on their friends to do the same. For these reasons, I don't think the maternal effect on food habits is nonexistant, but more of being overshaddowed by the trials and tribulations of high school.
The study indicated that there was a low participation of adults so that may have skewed the results. Something else to consider is how other factors may play a larger role in a child's food choices than a parent does. Those other factors could be the friends they hang around, the food choices being offered at school, and taking a look at how often the child actually eats a meal at home.
Kat,
I like your thought on how kids pride themselves on wanting to be different from their parents. Also kids now a days have so much stuff going on that they usually eat on the run. That could be a major factor in why the study didn't find a significance.
I think many factors may have contributed to the results of this study. For one, the adolescents are probably eating many of their meals away from the mothers (i.e. at school, out with friends, at home when their mother is at work). Because of the lack of time spent eating together, the influence of the mother on the adolescent's eating habits are probably less than the influences that their peers have on them. In addition, there is often a difference in food preferences between adolescents and adults, as the adolescents tastes have not fully matured. Also, inaccuracies may exist within the results of the food frequency questionnaires.
In my opinion, maybe the mother is not around to influence the child in making decisions. Children are now eating breakfast and lunch at school, so there are two meals the parent is not involved with. Kids are heavily influenced by their peers so it would make sense there is a significant relationship between the two.
Susan
Sammy,
I agree maybe there is a education factor missing. The parents may very well not know what to teach the children to eat. If they don't know then they are probably not eating healthy either. I think the behavior has to be modeled by an adult.
Susan
One point that I would like to make is that the study never got into what kind of Food Assistance Program. There is a difference in what is offered through WIC compared to Food Stamps. The availability of food from either of these programs would drastically effect the consumption from both parents and children. In addition, all I kept thinking while reading this article is why did they never look into how the children were psychologically effected by mothers weight.
I think it would be very difficult to establish a strong connection between what a child eats and what his/her mother eats if most meals are not eaten together. Most of these adolescents eat both breakfast and lunch at school with their friends and not at home with their mothers. Several studies have shown that peer groups have the strongest influence on a teenage subject. I can only guess that this same effect is present when considering nutrition behaviors and compounded by the lack of meals spent with family.
Jennifer--
GREAT comment about the possibility for error in the mothers' returned FFQ. The possibility for error here is larger than ideal, that's for sure.
Allison-
I agree with your comment about peer influences and the parents not being able to control what goes on when the child is not at home. But that makes me wonder if all parents were educating there children to make healthy food choices at a young age if there would be any problems with eating habits when parents were not around.
There are many reasons as to why mothers did not affect their child's nutritional status. Like most of my peers have mentioned, children eat many meals away from home. In a lot of cases, they eat breakfast, lunch and snacks away from home, leaving only one meal (dinner) to be influenced by a parent. The children and mothers also have very different lifestyles which will affect how they are eating. The child may get more food because it is more readily available in the schools, whereas the mother would have to find her own food.
Rachel,
I think you made some very good points. We hear more and more that families no longer sit down for meals, but rather grab and go at their convienence. This is probably the case with several mothers and their children in this study, especially if they are single mothers, leaving less time to sit down and eat with the family. Like you said, with less adult supervision, kids will choose the less healthy option because it "tastes good." Even with adult supervision sometimes, the most healthy options are overlooked and taste rules.
Alison,
I liked your comment about mom's work schedules. I didn't even take that into consideration. If they work later shifts (say until 7 or 8 pm) then the adolescent might not even eat a meal with their mother at all. The mom could try to influence their dinner choice by what they have in the house, but that still isn't much of an impact. If you add this with the meals at school, its no wonder there was no real connection with their results.
Shelby,
I agree that it would have helped to know more about what specific types of food assistance programs were being used - also, WIC keeps being brought up, but isn't this a program that benefits mothers and kids up to age 5 only (and this study focused on adolescents!)...something doesn't fit here.
Also, I can tell you from experience that regardless what a child is taught at home about food when they are young, a lot of it goes right out the window when that same child is on their own (say, in high school) for the first time! It is incredible how influential fast food places and snack machines become even when a child knows better! (Obviously, I'm thinking of my 17-year-old here). I'd love it if school systems would summon up the courage to truly ban snack and drink machines of any kind and then really focus their efforts on a quality breakfast/lunch program that involved kids. I think this would make an incredible difference not just in kids' attitudes but in their scholastic outcomes.
Shelby-
Good thought on the types of food assistance programs being offered to the subjects. I had not even considered that aspect when I was looking at this case.
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