To Keep Kids Slim, Stay Flexible in Parenting

You have your child's best interests at heart. So it makes sense to come down hard on your child's eating if weight is a problem, right?

Not so fast. Before you demand that your child give up cookies or potato chips, chew on this: Kids who have strict mothers are five times more likely to be overweight than kids who have flexible moms, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics.

Researchers gauged the impact of four parenting styles on children's weight. They found that kids with authoritarian moms—those who enforce rigid rules—face the greatest risk of being overweight in first grade. The children with the next-highest risk have moms with an indulgent, permissive style or moms with an uninvolved, neglectful style. Kids in those two groups are twice as likely to be chubby as kids whose moms have the best parenting style: authoritative. These flexible moms are firm but adaptable.

"The study suggests that parents concerned about their children's weight may want to strike a balance between setting limits and being sensitive to their children's needs," says Kay Rhee, M.D. An assistant professor of pediatrics at Brown Medical School in Rhode Island, she helped write the study.

So you should have rules, and know when to bend them.

Dr. Rhee says you can take some simple steps to improve kids' eating habits:

• Model good eating and exercise habits to help your child form healthy routines that will last a lifetime.   

• Set guidelines for children, but let them make some decisions. For instance, give them a variety of healthy choices and let them pick which ones to eat.

• Offer children healthy foods even if they don't like them. Kids may need to try new foods a few times before they gain a taste for them.

• Make healthy eating a family affair. Encourage children to help you cook and eat at least one nutritious meal a day together as a family.