Study: Kids' weight increases when mom works more

[Rage for Order]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/02/04/children.bmi.moms/index.html?hpt=Sbin

The length of a mother's employment is associated with an increase in her child's body mass index, according to a study in the journal Child Development.

It's not the first study to suggest that moms' working hours and kids' weight might be related, but it's likely to peeve some mothers.

"It's not causal, it's an association," said lead author Taryn Morrissey about the trends.

"Nobody found a single smoking gun as a cause of childhood obesity. We found quite a small, but (statistically) significant increase in the body mass index of children. This increase is associated with maternal employment."

Morrissey and her co-authors observed the increase in children's BMI -- which, at third grade, was approximately a 1-pound gain for every six months the child's mother worked. The weight gain was cumulative and the link became stronger as the children matured into fifth- and sixth-grade in the analysis of 900 children.


***more at the link

[SmileyRose]

1. What's sad is that this is not necessary.

It's not Mom working that's the problem, it's the convenience foods kids are getting.

My siblings and I had to get ourselves out the door in the mornings and in the door in the afternoons. When Mom left a pot of plain oatmeal on the stove for breakfast and fruit out, she knew we'd eat the fruit and not load down the oatmeal with tons of sugar AND leave the pot soaking before we leave. Kids now are raised on sweet everything. If it's oatmeal they are most likely to get highly sweetened microwave packets than real oatmeal.

We also walked or biked 2-4 miles each way to school. We didn't have video games, computers and a whopping 3 TV channels so it was more fun to go outside and run around with the neighbor kids.

The only reason Mom working would even be an issue on weight now is that she's not there to get the kids up off their butts and doing something physical - or eating oranges instead of orange candy.

[SoCalDem]

3. and when most homes were NOT airconditioned, it was BETTER

to go outside than to hang around indoors, where Mom would often say stuff like "Go fold the laundry", or "vacuum the carpet", or "take out the trash". It made sense to do that homework fast, wow her with the details of the school day and then split before she remembered that there was laundry to fold/wash/put away:evilgrin:

[SmileyRose]

9. LOL

Yep - I see we had the same MOM :) :)

[SoCalDem]

12. Sis !!.. the worst was "Go watch your brother..take him with you!"

:grr:

[Darth_Kitten]

4. Well, maybe then DAD could help more?

:sarcasm: ;)

[SmileyRose]

7. Actually

in most families I see with Mom working early and late it usually means Dad is working even longer hours. Of course there are exceptions, like single Moms or Moms who have the career and Dad is the secondary wage earner - but most of the time the only reason Mom works during the time the kids are smaller is purely out of financial need. A function of wage depression.........

[Darth_Kitten]

13. note my sarcasm...

:) Articles like this always make it Mom's responsibility to do everything, and actually, in most households, they are the ones responsible for all the childcare. If Dads pitch in and share the responsibility, then good for them, but that's what you should do when you are a parent.

These articles do nothing more than blame Mom for everything. :(

[SmileyRose]

15. Oh sorry, I was being a little obtuse I guess.

I got the sarcasm - and I agree - drives me nuts when I hear a man say "I'm babysitting my kids tonight". Er, huh?

[K8-EEE]

21. +1!!!!! nt

[Darth_Kitten]

36. No, of course not. :)

I see that so much "he's babysitting", er, no, it's his own kids. :) Drives me nuts, too. ;)

[Bonobo]

18. Not necessarily. Dr. Gabor Mate believes it may be due to early stress and its neural effects.

Over-eating comfort foods, drug addiction and stressed children may be much more related than you think.

http://www.amazon.com/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addiction/dp/0676977405

[SoCalDem]

2. More from the "duh!" file

When most Moms were stay-at-home Moms, kids' food intake was carefully monitored.

Mom did the shopping, the cooking and the "watching".

After breakfast (real food again), they took a packed lunch with them to school (often leftovers from last night's dinners or sandwiches, fruit & a thermos of milk

Meals were "real-food", because Mom had the TIME to prepare real food, and was at home when the kids arrived there from school. She did not hand them a bag of Doritos , an X-box controller, and plunk them in front of a tv.

She gave them a snack and made them do homework, and then made them go outside until dinner time.

Kids did not walk home to an empty house, full of electronic toys, junk food & soft drinks.

Kids were not shuffled off to pre-school/post school sitters who fed them the cheapest/starchiest/sugariest snacks they could find.

Meals were not kamikaze drive-thru missions for buckets of fried wannabee-food, eaten with plastic sporks, from styrofoam/waxed paper wrappers, or cardboard boxes.

[liberalhistorian]

6. While you make some very valid points, a lot of at-home

moms fill their kids up with junk and don't make them do much work, also. I've seen it personally and professionally. Drives me crazy, but they aren't my kids so I don't really have the right to say anything. And dads need to step up to the plate here, too, why is it all on the mothers, as usual?

And what about single mothers who MUST work? I was a single mother, but I lived with my parents and my mother was a huge help in that regard, we didn't even let him have soda pop except on special occasions. But it would have been so much more difficult had I been entirely on my own.

[SoCalDem]

11. my poor boys did not even know that jelly existed until MY MOTHER

put jelly on their toast in day :grr:

I was never a fan of sticky fingers, so we had a no-jelly zone at our house.:)

They all grew up on plain tea with lemon, and soda pop was only for picnics or drive in movies..outside the car.. NO ONE was allowed to eat or drink in the car:)..or in the living room or bedrooms.

Yes..we were "mean" parents:)

[csziggy]

16. Yesterday CNN had a report on tips to help families live on one salary

Their main money saving tips were to make coffee at home, go to matinee showings of movies, and have stacations with day trips from home.

I kept thinking - how about making food from scratch instead of buying expensive boxed crap? How about skipping vacations?

Back when I was a kid, Dad was a consultant in a cyclical industry, so some years he didn't get much work. For a while Mom worked and since Dad worked from home, he cooked, checked on us kids, made sure we did our homework and became a stay at home Dad before it was trendy. Neither of my parents made a big deal out of it. They did what was needed to keep the family going and us kids safe and healthy.

Then, dinners were cooked from scratch, lunch was sandwiches, breakfast was not boxed cereal. We ate out maybe once a month and that was usually because Grandmother was taking us out. Going on vacation meant going to relatives' homes and sleeping crowded into cousins' beds or driving along on Dad's business trips and fitting in whatever might interest us kids along the route. That is how we managed exciting vacations to places like Yazoo City, Mississippi or Marion, Alabama.

Since we lived in Florida near tourist destinations, relatives came to visit us. They'd stay with us and we'd show them the best attractions and find good deals for them. In return, they'd pay our way in - that was the only way we got to see places like Busch Gardens, even though it was only a 45 minute drive away. Without those relatives, we spent a lot of weekends visiting free places like state parks or just staying home and making our own fun in the backyard.

[SoCalDem]

28. A vacation that has always stayed with me was a trip to Silver Springs FL

and The Sea-Quarium in Miami.. I think I was about 10..Years later as a young married couple, my husband and I went back to both, and even though those attractions were a bit "worn", they were just as enjoyable.

The glitzy, "packaged" attractions have never been interesting to me.. The little unexpected treasures we find along the way in life are always more special to me:)

We did the same with our boys as they grew up. We took vacations to Baja, not Acapulco.. They loved exploring the sandbars and wandering in and out of small stores at the market, while they practiced their Spanish.

Some vacations were driving cross-country from CA to KS & "visiting" friends in NM (sleeping bags on the floor) and OK (couches & bunk beds) on the way:)

Or the kamikaze all-nighter drive from SoCal to Lake Tahoe (Dad was up there working & I decided to surprise him).. They still talk about those trips.. especially the Tahoe trip because I decided to take a "short cut" for the last 24 miles of the trip.. I ended up with a stretch Ford Van with 3 boys who had slept all night & were quite energetic..(I , on the other hnad was bone tired from driving all night on a mostly 2 lane highway).. the short cut road? a LOGGING /FIRE road (many places were gravel)..straight OVER the mountain.. It took us FOUR HOURS to go 24 miles & in places, floored, I could go no more than 45 MPH,,and in others while riding the brakes more than I wanted to, I could go no slower than 50 as we careened down switchbacks..

That was truly the 24 miles from HELL.. There were no places wide enough to turn around, and no guard rails..

[csziggy]

29. We last went to Silver Springs about 15-20 years ago

I found the photos recently - I enjoyed the fish and the view into the spring as well as the animals the most, going by the photos. I've never been to Disney World - it just does not interest me. The last time we went to Busch Gardens it was a special package my parents had gotten - we got an individually led tour by one of the animal handlers. That was great since we got "introduced" to the animals and heard a lot about how they deal with them that the public normally does not hear. Some of the regular tourists were following our family around, listening. I think they should do more of this rather than the glitzy aspects.

Hubby and I generally like to go to wildlife and archaeological sites on trips. On our "honeymoon" we traveled from Tallahassee to San Francisco and back, stopping at places noted for bird watching and at archaeological sites along the way. I had a book that gave sites that were open to the public but not "parks" - we saw the Folsom site and other neat places that are not in most guide books.

On the way south from Santa Fe, we turned down a dirt road that went down into the Rio Grande Canyon with some scary switchbacks - nothing like your trip! When we went back in 1990 (the original trip was the winter of 1977-78) it had been paved and was lined with "ranchettes" - what a disappointment.

[SoCalDem]

30. I don't know where you live, but if you are ever in N. Calif, you HAVE to go here:

http://www.calgold.com/goldenparks/Default.asp?Series=100&Show=654

http://redwoods.info/showrecord.asp?id=476

[csziggy]

32. That is beautiful - thank you

We live in North Florida, outside Tallahassee. Our other CA trip was the "southern" route, through north Texas, NM, AZ, Death Valley, King's Canyon to SF, then down to San Diego and back along I-10 with a side trip to Big Bend National Park.

I'd like to take the train for the "northern" route west, maybe the Canadian Railroad through the Rockies, then back on the US one from Seattle to Chicago, with stops along the way. No telling when my budget and health will allow it. I'd hoped to do it sometime in the last decade, but the five major operations and degradation of my knees has taken budget and energy away from travel.

And then there hopefully be the "middle route, going through the center line of the country - Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. I hope I live long enough to see most of the states!

[CTyankee]

5. That's because those poor kids don't have their moms at home when

they get home from school. Their moms aren't there to fix them nutritious snacks and encourage them to go outside to play so they eat junk and get fat.



er, guess I'd better add :sarcasm:

[Dappleganger]

8. Sorry, but it's probably more related to their physical activity level.

What a bullshit study.

[Lance_Boyle]

37. Body mass and weight are more related to food intake than to exercise.

You don't lose weight by exercising - you lose weight by reducing calories consumed. Not to say that exercise is unimportant. In terms of health it is vitally important. But in terms of weight loss or reduction of body mass it is relatively unimportant compared to the impact of reducing calorie consumption.

[etherealtruth]

10. "Moms" ...... huh

I have no doubt when the parents in the home work "more" that obesity increases in children. I doubt that obesity increases if "Mom" works long hours and "dad" stays home or works part-time.

In single parent families .... I kinda doubt that children of custodial mother's that work long hours are any fatter than the children of custodial father's that work long hours (I do believe they both are probably equally prone to obesity).

[malletgirl02]

14. Many times work is not a choice

Many times work is not a choice, especially if the mother is a single mom. Are people willing to beef up the social safety net to allow mothers who doesn't have anyone else to help them stay home? I know there is welfare, but it is highly stigmatized. We have to change the way we look at social welfare in this country.

[killbotfactory]

17. Two parents working increases the likelyhood that everyone will eat processed foods

High in sodium, sugar, and fat. Low on nutrition.

Work eight hours or so a day and spend an hour making a dinner from scratch + cleaning up, or stop by a fast food joint or deli counter at the supermarket. Maybe microwave your dinner or cook a frozen pizza. I can't blame people for making the easier choice.

[Skittles]

20. I live on processed foods and I have never been overweight

I do exercise a lot

[Liquorice]

26. Some people are just naturally thin, but that doesn't mean processed

food isn't unhealthy for them in other ways.

[Skittles]

27. some people eat very healthy and still get cancer

I don't think it's as simple as you think; I believe that a sedentary lifestyle is worse for your health than eating crap, and doing both is deadly

[killbotfactory]

34. Great.

Now let's clone you, and feed your clone your same diet but decrease the amount of exercise to that of the average person. Your clone would most likely gain weight.

[Skittles]

35. nope

not if you watch how many calories you eat

Philly cheesesteak for dinner, and OMG IT IS FROZEN AND IN A BOX! Want to know how healthy I am? At 53 I was still swimming across lakes in September. :D

[laundry_queen]

19. I believe this.

I was a stay at home mom for 13 years. I usually made sure our meals were cooked from scratch, as were our snacks. We had a lot of fresh fruits and veggies. Now I'm a single mom going to school full time. Our diet has definitely suffered for 2 reasons - time and money. Not only do I not have the money to buy fresh fruits and veggies that may or may not get eaten, depending on my children's moods or whims of the week, but mostly I'm either at school, or I'm studying, or I'm driving them to something. I do try to cook from scratch on the weekends, and we sometimes eat at my parents' house which is always healthy stuff. At least they get a ton of exercise through dance, paper routes and the Wii fit games. Me, on the other hand.....:hide:

[FreeState]

22. Sexist and meaningless data...

from the article: "The father's employment was not measured in the study, because there were not enough stay-at-home dads in the study to make comparisons."

So why blame the working mother?

[snot]

23. Could we in fairness pls have studied this in terms of correlation w/ BOTH PARENTS' working hours???

I mean, it's outrageous that studies still ignore the responsibility of the impregnators.

Apologies for not having a better sense of humor about my own oppression in both workplace and home.

[FreeState]

25. The article makes the claim they couldn't find enough stay at home Dads for a control group

its beyond sexist IMO

[K8-EEE]

24. I kind of bristle at the "Damn you mom for working" insinuation

I myself have been in every situation: I've worked when my husband was out of work, been a stay at home mom for years at a time and at times both of us are working.

While it's true that it's better if a home has a HOMEMAKER.....why does everything always fall on the mom?? Men are not capable of grocery shopping or cooking?

My observation is that most people do the best they can given the situation they are in. It's true that when both parents are working there might not be as much time for grocery shopping and cooking, but people do what they have to do.

And yes, yes, to all you people who make a delicious nutritious dinner for 4 for $1.50 a day while working 4 jobs good for you. I know that when my husband and I are both working the Pollo Loco drive in seems like the answer to "what's for dinner" more often than when I am at home setting the dinner table as soon as the kids go to school. That's a luxury and not one that many families have these days.

[Birdzeye]

31. Exactly

My thoughts exactly. I've seen how having a mom at home is no guarantee that the kids will be well cared for and nurtured, and likewise, I've seen kids whose moms work outside the home who ARE well cared for and nurtured (by mom, no less!).

This business of blaming mothers for everything wrong with children has gotten awfully old. I remember my (stay at home) mom complaining - when I was still a kid - about how mothers got blamed for everything.

[Bunny]

33. I love those people with superpowers, who did everything perfectly.

These are the same ones who walked ten miles to school, uphill both ways. They didn't have computers, they played with sticks! And rocks! And they were damn thankful to have them! So, all you moms just get back in your homes and take care of those young 'uns. And make your macaroni and cheese from scratch, for chrissake. :eyes: