Just one more ... please? Guarding the cookie jar may not be enough to keep your kids slim. Researchers asked 7-year-old girls questions like “If you ask for a snack, does Mommy let you have it?” to gauge how tightly parents regulated food, while at the same time having parents rank their daughters’ level of self-control in eating. Among girls with less self-control, those whose parents tried to restrict their eating gained the most weight on average. Limiting certain foods may make them seem tastier and lead to overindulgence, the researchers suspect. Perhaps it’s the age-old appeal of eating forbidden fruit. Or cookies.
Source: Journal of Pediatrics, published online July 10, 2009