Are Working Moms Driving Childhood Obesity?

The concept that working moms may well play a noticeable role in the development of childhood obesity is indeed one that is suggested by Angela Pinot de Moira and colleagues from University College London, UK, in a paper just published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The premise is straightforward: 1 of the most dramatic demographic shifts in the last decades has been the proportion of moms that work. From becoming the exception in the 60s, to becoming fairly a lot the norm for the majority of mothers these days, this demographic shift has undoubtedly had profound effects on family life.

Not surprisingly, some have argued, that not having a parent at residence (and traditionally this utilised to be the mom) could really much improve the risk of weight gain in offspring.

Therefore, not only do “latchkey kids” have more freedom to eat unhealthy foods and spend afternoons slumped in front of the TV or laptop or computer, but lengthy hours at work can also leave moms (or dads) short of time to prepare healthy family meals (ergo the dramatic rise in quick food and family restaurants).

In addition, working mothers (or dads) may possibly also have to drive their young children to school rather than have the time to walk them there and working parents definitely don’t have the time to watch over their kids on the playground all afternoon or be at home in case their youngsters scrape a leg falling off their bikes or get beaten up by the neighborhood bully.

So is this hypothesis borne out by the information?

To address this question, the authors examined members of a 1958 British birth cohort (age 7 years, n=8,552) and offspring (ages 4-9 years, n=1,889) born to mothers under age 30 years to establish whether risk aspects for childhood obesity have changed over time (1965-1991).

The authors discovered that the prevalence of overweight/obesity had increased by much more than 50% between generations and that parental BMI was strongly associated with offspring BMI.

But perhaps more interestingly, full-time maternal employment turned out to be positively associated with offspring BMI in childhood with an improve of .four-.five units in kids with working moms. This relationship was in fact stronger in the offspring than in the original cohort.

Maternal employment was discovered to have increased by far more than 30% across generations, as a result of which, the population attributable risk maternal employment increased from three.1% to 7.8% across generations.

In addition, the authors noted that smaller family size and fewer younger siblings were also associated with increased childhood BMI.

As argued by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in their bestseller “The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke”, even if all kinds of problems may possibly be linked to working moms, simply asking moms to stay at house is neither feasible nor socially desirable (incidentally, both authors are working moms).

Rather, other measures, which includes appropriate and cost-effective day care, accessible and supervised right after-school activities and more flexibility in working hours might help moms (and dads) greater meet the demands of their youngsters, thereby hopefully lowering their risk for obesity.

Dr. Sharma feels what his readers believe of this hypothesis and what (if anything) can (ought to) be completed about it.