Children, Grownups, Stress, and Obesity (Part 2)

Sliding

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at the “Stress in America” surveys of recent years, as interpreted by the American Psychological Association. One disturbing finding, as we discussed, is that parents questioned in that particular study seem strangely oblivious to any realization of mental and emotional pain in their own children.

This is especially true when the children’s stress results from observing and feeling the effects of their parents’ stress. Of the moms and dads who responded, about 70% were complacently convinced that their own stress levels didn’t affect the kids.

But they are mistaken: 90% of the kids, and that’s almost the totality of the sample, reported an acute awareness of parental stress. If a wigged-out mother or father were the only thing on the horizon to worry about, that would be bad enough. Unfortunately, children and teens have a multitude of serious and sometimes shocking reasons to experience harmful stress. They may not worry about the same things that adults do, but they have plenty of cause just the same.

Early last year, a Cornell University study showed that stressed children tend to become obese adolescents, and the researchers isolated some of the causes for the young people’s unease with the world. The poverty levels of the families were taken into consideration, as well as overcrowded and substandard housing situations, exposure to violence, lack of access to resources, and general “family turmoil.”

Journalist Susan Kelley-Cornell quotes one of the study authors, environmental psychologist Gary Evans:

There’s some evidence that parts of the brain that are vulnerable and sensitive to stress, particularly early in life, are some of the same parts involved in this self-regulatory behavior… If it’s the cumulative impact of stress on these families that is important, that means an intervention that only looks at one stressor — say, just drug abuse, which is how most interventions are designed — is doomed to fail.

For girls it’s even worse. They are not only more sensitive to conditions in the family’s emotional environment, they are more likely to respond with binge eating and other undesirable behaviors that lead to obesity.

Summarizing a study on cumulative social risk and obesity, Dr. Vincent Iannelli wrote that a girl of toddler age might escape unharmed if only one social stressor is present in her life, but when the stressors start to pile on, the prognosis worsens dramatically and she will likely become obese by age 5. Food insecurity and housing insecurity are precipitating causes, as is physical abuse. Not surprisingly, little girls also experience a lot of stress when the mother is depressed and/or habituated to alcohol or drugs, or when the father is in jail.

Dr. Pretlow says:

Do not individuals typically get drunk to numb pain or smoke two packs a day as an antidepressant and to cope with stress, rather than for casual recreation? […] Stress is always present, hence people may be oblivious to the fact that they are easing pain with pleasurable foods.

But while parents themselves might be oblivious to their improper and inappropriate use of food as psychiatric medicine, kids are all too well aware. One basic human trait that shows up over and over again in the yearly surveys is the “monkey-see, monkey-do” tendency. This is another built-in survival trait for young mammals everywhere, who observe the activities of adults and imitate them, thus assuring their ability to procure food, choose or create suitable living quarters for themselves, protect themselves from with enemies, and so on. Unfortunately, they can’t help following the adult example, for better or worse.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Key Findings,” APA.org
Source: “Stress raises kids’ risk for teen obesity,” Futurity.org, 02/02/12
Source: “Social Stressors and Obesity in Young Girls,” About.com: Pediatrics, 04/18/12
Image by amslerPIX (David Amsler).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

FAQs and Media Requests: Click here…

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Obesity top bottom

The Book

OVERWEIGHT: What Kids Say explores the obesity problem from the often-overlooked perspective of children struggling with being overweight.

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Dr. Robert A. Pretlow is a pediatrician and childhood obesity specialist. He has been researching and spreading awareness on the childhood obesity epidemic in the US for more than a decade.
You can contact Dr. Pretlow at:

Presentations

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the American Society of Animal Science 2020 Conference
What’s Causing Obesity in Companion Animals and What Can We Do About It

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the World Obesity Federation 2019 Conference:
Food/Eating Addiction and the Displacement Mechanism

Dr. Pretlow’s Multi-Center Clinical Trial Kick-off Speech 2018:
Obesity: Tackling the Root Cause

Dr. Pretlow’s 2017 Workshop on
Treatment of Obesity Using the Addiction Model

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation for
TEC and UNC 2016

Dr. Pretlow’s invited presentation at the 2015 Obesity Summit in London, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s invited keynote at the 2014 European Childhood Obesity Group Congress in Salzburg, Austria.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2013 European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, UK.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2011 International Conference on Childhood Obesity in Lisbon, Portugal.

Dr. Pretlow’s presentation at the 2010 Uniting Against Childhood Obesity Conference in Houston, TX.

Food & Health Resources