Question 3
What do you believe are some of the factors that family meal frequency was reported higher with opposite sex parents/adolescents dyads?
posted by Meredith @ 6:06 PM
15 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.
15 Comments:
Commonly young children look up to their parent of the opposite sex. The participants may listen to the parent of the opposite sex more so than the other parent. This could affect how often they make it home for family dinners (if they have them). Also, depending on the sample, there could have been a great deal of participants with single parents in the study.
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Typically children develop a bond with their parent of the opposite sex because they are beginning to develop their own identity and they benefit from having a different perspective or approach on life. Often times a child and parent of the same sex (mom and daughter) already feel like they have a close bond or tie to each other, which is why they feel the need to please their other parent (of the opposite sex) and are likely to mind them better than their parent of the same sex. This might be one reason why family meal frequency is higher with parents of the opposite sex in this study.
Liz you made a good point about how some of these participants may only have had one parent. It is possible that a child of a single parent (possibly a divorce) may even blame their parent of the same sex for the separation and that could result in the child only minding their parent of the opposite sex. There are many factors that could affect these results and I thought this article was very interesting.
This is a very difficult question to answer and I honestly think there could be a wide variety of reasons why these particular results occurred. It could have been what Liz and Melanie are suggesting that adolescents have a higher respect for the parent of the opposite sex but it could also be that having an authoritative parent of the opposite sex could intimidate the child more into participating in the family meals. I honestly don't have a proper answer to this question and if you were to ask me, I would think that the opposite sex dyad was a significant coincidence and not a fact. However, I am very intrigued to why this occurred!
I am stumped by this question as well. Perhaps the males students felt that their mothers were more demanding and pushed for family meals more than their fathers did... The single parent issue could have been a factor in these responses.
Bethany, I like the term 'significant coincidence' :) That could be the cause of these results! If the results were reported significant at the .05 level, there is always that small chance that the responses occurred by chance.
Many parents work various shifts depending on their job or career. This could play into the occurrence of meal time as well as the parenting styles as these varying shifts create different time spent with the kids between the mom and dad. Liz makes a great point in saying that the participants may look up to their parent of the opposite sex. More single-parent households exist today than ever before. This fact could correlate with the opposite sex parents/adolescent dyads.
Bethany, I think you make a great point. It could be a variety of reasons why these results occur, one of which could be that an authoritative parent of the opposite sex could be intimidating and cause a child to partake in family meals. I also like the term ‘significant coincidence,’ and definitely believe it could apply here as well.
I think Amy has a good point. Many parents are working and this can affect mealtimes and even parenting styles. I also agree with Bethany, that this may just be a significant coincidence. In this situation, it may have been helpful to have the parents complete the survey, as well.
I am not exactly sure why the meal frequency would be higher in the the opposite sex dyads. Like Sarah said, maybe the child thinks their parent is more demanding of them or they look up to and respect that parent more. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that this happened. I really can't think of any other possible explanation for why this would occur.
Honestly, I am not sure why this occurred. I would have thought that same sex parents would have had a higher influence on the child. I suppose it could have been that the children had close relationships with the same sex parent and they had more demands from the other parent but it would really depend on the child. Some parents are closer with the opposite sex parent than the same sex parent.
I agree with many of the other interns, there are several reasons as to why this occurred and coincidence could be one of them. A replication of this study would be interesting, to see if the results came up any different.
I'm stuck on this one. I think that it may have something to do with, like Bethany said, feeling farther away from a parent of the opposite sex and so may be more influenced by them because they are unsure about their relationship with the parent and thus more willing to follow their instructions. I also wonder if it was a coincidence, but that is why p values exist in the first place. This is definitely a tricky question.
~Anna
I think children do look to the parent of the opposite sex as more of an authoritative figure than that of the same sex, whom they probably identify more with. I do girly things with my mom all the time and I feel like I can talk to her more, but I do tend to listen to my dad more when he is putting his food down about something. Other than that, I am not entirely sure why this effect has been found.
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