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Do Parents Discriminate Against Overweight Kids?
Do overweight kids face bias at home?
Do parents discriminate against kids who are overweight, even when those kids are their own?
A recent study by researchers at the University of North Texas in Denton, published in the journal Obesity, has found that, at least as kids get older, parents are less likely to help their overweight offspring in two key ways – buying a car and paying for college — than they are to help children who are not overweight.
“No one is going to be surprised that society discriminates against the overweight, but I think it is surprising that it can come from your parents,” study co-author Adriel Boals told Reuters Health. “Similar to college tuition, purchasing a car during the college years is a major expense and investment that parents can choose to provide assistance with or not.”
Boals offers two possible explanations as to what might be going on. “One could just be from an evolutionary standpoint; parents may be less likely to invest resources in offspring they believe are unfit,” he told Reuters. Or it could be that parents are just reflecting our cultural bias against people who are overweight. “I don’t think the parents are doing this knowingly,” he added.
This dispiriting study leaves us wondering if parents of younger kids who are overweight unwittingly discriminate as well. You’d like to think that we parents give our children unconditional love and support. But of course, we’re humans with responses we may not always be aware of – let alone in control of.
What do you think? Is it a cultural bias at play? Do you think the whole “War on Obesity” thing is hitting a little to hard, a little close to home? Or is something else going on?
Photo: robad0b
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0 Comments
JEssica commented on Sep 24 10 at 1:33 pmThis only proves one thing, there are a lot of lousy parents.
Linda commented on Sep 24 10 at 2:32 pmI agree, Jessica. Is it really all that shocking that the parents who fed their kid in to obesity in the first place aren’t all that supportive? Poor kids. :(
Carrie M. commented on Sep 24 10 at 3:42 pmGood points,ladies.
Jessie commented on Sep 24 10 at 6:33 pmThis is sad and it is not the fault of the child. The food has been filled with chemicals that breakdown the gut acid and cause diabetes and obesity. This has been proven by a filmmaker. The drug comapnies get richers if the people get fatter! A filmmaker has been reversing diabetes and obesity in children and adult WITHOUT medications in now 10 countries
just google SPIRIT HAPPY DIET
Rebecca commented on Sep 26 10 at 11:14 pmI’m curious as to whether this difference would still be apparent when the parents are also obese.
Sad study. :(
SE commented on Sep 28 10 at 10:56 amThis write-up and the first link don’t give enough information to judge whether the data are valid or what the imply. Obesity is more common among people in lower income groups, after all–so does that explain why overweight young people got less financial assistance? Nothing I’m seeing here suggests that the same parents favored their thin children over heavier ones: merely that in a group of college students, the heavier (perhaps poorer?) ones got less help from home.
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