Introduction
Childhood obesity has emerged as a significant global health issue, especially for young children in preschool. In recent decades, preschool-aged children have shown a fast rise in the incidence of childhood obesity and overweight. As it is well recognized that parents and guardians significantly impact their children’s growth from infancy to maturity, this article examines the parenting approaches and dietary habits that contribute to childhood obesity. Researchers have examined parenting styles and dietary habits as possible indicators of obesity in preschoolers (Yavuz & Selcuk, 2018). However, the best parenting approach and feeding technique must be chosen based on the environment in which the kids will grow up.
While controlling for temperamental negative affect and parental BMI, research was done to evaluate the distinctive roles of mother parenting styles and maternal feeding practices in the weight status of Turkish preschoolers. It mainly focused on the following elements; (Yavuz & Selcuk, 2018).
- Parental child feeding practices include limiting, pressuring them to eat, and watching them.
- Parental styles that are authoritative and authoritarian
- Temperament
Preschoolers from two groups—one with normal-weight children and the other with obese children—were used as samples for this research. There were 61 kids in each of the two groups (29 girls in each group). The sample was utilized to assess mothers’ background, parenting techniques, children’s temperament, mothers’ body mass index, and obesity status. Through convenience sampling, the participating families were selected from preschools. SPSS was used to conduct the data analysis and questionnaire data gathering (Yavuz & Selcuk, 2018). ANOVA was used to compare the two groups’ differences in the research variables, and Pearson correlation analysis was utilized to look into any relationships between the variables.
Mothers reported somewhat negative emotional levels for their kids in the study’s two samples. The children in the two groups showed comparable levels of negative affect, according to ANOVAs. Although mothers of overweight children conveyed significantly greater heights of authoritarian parenting than mothers of children with normal weights, there were no substantial group variances in maternal-child feeding practices and parenting styles. The factors showed no sex differences. Correlational research revealed significant positive connections between child BMI, temperamental negative affectivity, and authoritarian parenting. While the second group’s negative affect did not substantially forecast the kid’s obesity/overweight status, the first group’s maternal BMI was connected to the kid’s load status. A kid with an authoritarian parenting style and a high BMI was more likely to be fat, controlling for all other factors.
Conclusion
The encumbrance status of preschool-aged Turkish children was examined in this research, which also took into account the negative emotional experiences of the youngsters. The findings showed that moms who reported more authoritarian parenting styles did not exert as much stress on their kids to eat and had greater BMIs were likely to produce obese offspring (Yavuz & Selcuk, 2018). However, in addition to particular child-feeding habits, the authoritarian parenting style also emerged as a significant risk factor for the development of overweight disorders in preschoolers. Authoritarian parenting did represent the highest risk factor for childhood obesity issues among the factors evaluated; it was associated with an increase in the risk of obesity in Turkish preschoolers.
References
Yavuz, H. M., & Selcuk, B. (2018). Predictors of obesity and overweight in preschoolers: The role of parenting styles and feeding practices. Appetite, 120, 491-499.
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