Home Environment Does Influence Behaviors

This may come off as a no-brainer to some, but researchers at Duke Medicine have taken this general statement and focused entirely on children’s health, as well as dietary and physical behaviors. According to the study, parents who encourage their children to exercise and eat well, and model those healthy behaviors themselves  are more likely to be active and healthy eaters. Note the key point of the parents modeling that behavior. It’s easy to preach health but it’s important to lead by example.

The study was focused on mothers and obesity. From The Times of India:

In this study, lead author Truls Ostbye and his colleagues examined the relationship between the home environment and behaviors related to obesity -dietary and exercise habits – among preschoolers.

The researchers studied data from 190 kids, ages two to five, whose mothers were overweight or obese.

They collected information on the children’s food intake over the past week, with foods rated as junk food or healthy food. To gauge their levels of physical activity, the children wore accelerometers for a week, which measured moderate to vigorous physical activity as well as sedentary time.

The mothers reported information about their children’s environments, including family policies around food and physical activity, accessibility of healthy versus junk foods, availability of physical activity equipment, and whether they model healthy eating or exercise for their kids.

The researchers found significant associations between these environmental measures and the preschoolers” physical activity and healthy versus junk food intake.

They concluded that to promote healthy behaviors in children, a healthy home environment and parental role modeling are important.

Their study was published online in the International Journal of Obesity on June 18, 2013.