Jerica Berge

Parents who perceive their child as overweight may also engage in weight conversations with their child, such as telling their child that they are fat and need to lose weight, or, a parent may engage in food restriction behaviors if they perceive that their child is overweight.

When parents use restrictive (e.g. keep food from children) or pressure-to-eat feeding practices (e.g. try to get kids to eat more food), children have an increased risk of being overweight, when a new child is introduced, parents may relax their preoccupation with the older child’s eating behaviors, allowing the older child to respond to their own satiety cues and self-regulate their eating.