The influence of family habits on a person’s body weight

You can often see parents and children suffering from the same ailment – a tendency to overweight or obesity. Data on the development of obesity in children living with foster parents are especially interesting. Here we cannot talk about a hereditary predisposition to overweight – just adults, prone to overweight, overfeed their children. It is only natural that nutrition and body weight are interrelated. Often, overeating of children is due to the fact that grandparents try to “shove” them food, which they themselves especially love.

Nutrition, body weight and habits in the family

Deviation from the ideal body weight is often associated with the family’s eating behavior and it is believed that it is inherited in the same way as a predisposition to dysregulation of energy metabolism. The family’s dietary habits are of great importance, in particular the tendency to fatty and sugary foods. In women, obesity is more common than in men, and this is due not only to their genome (as mentioned earlier), but also to the fact that cooking and the formation of family eating habits belongs primarily to a woman.

Parents’ eating behavior affects the child’s constitution. Even cooking habits can play a role. When preparing food, the mother constantly tries it – so you can “try” on 1000 calories, or even more. This habit, like many others, she will pass on to her daughters. In addition, overweight nutrition should be as balanced as possible, and not just tasty.

The tendency to use a large amount of fat in cooking, adding sugar to salads, borscht and other dishes become an example for girls: in adulthood, they actively use their mother’s recipes. Thus, it can be argued that vicious eating behavior is to some extent inherited.

Irregular and monotonous diet and body weight are interrelated. Parents form in their children an inclination to one food and a denial of another. It is useful to think about the family’s meals for the week in advance in order to create a varied menu, but not everyone does this. Some products in the family are considered more preferable. Sometimes parents don’t have time to cook vegetables, and they use pasta and cereals. This forms the child’s monotonous eating habits. Some parents teach their children to eat sausages and wieners instead of feeding them meat. At the same time, they do not think about the fact that sausages contain a lot of hidden fat.

Fat tends to improve the taste of food by dissolving the aromatic substances in the food. This encourages the use of large amounts of fat in cooking. Recently, people have often replaced butter with vegetable oil, although butter contains 72-85% fat, and vegetable oil – almost 100%. Having started to recover, people wonder how this could happen – after all, they gave up fatty butter in favor of “lean” vegetable oil.

A mixture of dried fruits and honey is recommended to be used as a vitamin supplement. However, a recommendation that is right at the base can lead to excess weight, since this mixture is a concentrate of high-energy substances. If you use it in large quantities, and not instead of breakfast or dinner, but at the same time with them, then you will definitely not be able to lose weight.

Dried fruits are generally high in calories. So, 12 g of dry apples correspond to 100 g of fresh apples; 13 g raisins – 110 g fresh grapes; 7 g dried apricots – 100 g fresh apricots. So, if you eat 500 g of raisins, which is quite easy, it will correspond to almost 4 kg of grapes.

Improper nutrition

Family eating habits are important. The amount of food consumed often depends on the abundance of meals and their serving size. In houses with a high food culture, the hostess herself distributes the food, putting it on plates to family members. Where eating habits are disturbed, food is served on large dishes, and then laid out in large plates, which already provokes an increase in appetite. The causes of malnutrition can be different, but in any case, parents need to identify them and take measures to correct the situation.

Sometimes a small plate can help a person lose weight. It is not for nothing that some nutritionists recommend putting as much food as you want on the plate, and then putting half back into the pan and putting it out of sight. You should not “eat up” for children or eat while watching TV, as this increases food intake. You should not sit on the couch during lunch, breakfast or dinner – you may want to take a nap after eating.

Frequent “snacks” (mostly sandwiches) sometimes become a bad habit. Many parents teach their children to visit McDonald’s, and in vain. It is known that dietary habits in the United States have led to obesity in 30% of the population. There is evidence of the frequent development of obesity and diabetes in Mexicans who moved to the United States, where they adopted the eating behavior of local residents.

Eating disorders are one of the most important triggers for deviations from ideal body weight.