9 Ways To Get Rid Of ‘The Bitch In Your Head’

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We all have been paid a visit by that mean girl inside our heads—the one who tells us things like “You’ll never lose the weight” or “You always make mistakes; no wonder you can’t get a promotion.” But would you ever say things like that to a friend? “No. It would be too hurtful,” says Jacqueline Hornor Plumez, PhD, in her new book The Bitch In Your Head ($14; amazon.com). “So why would you do it to yourself?” Some people may think that voice is encouraging you to work harder, smarter, or just be plain better. “But most people are so used to self-criticism that they hardly hear The Bitch and have no idea how discouraging, demoralizing, and self-destructive she can be.” Here, Plumez shares a few ways she can hold you back—and what you can do about it.

RELATED: 12 Worst Habits For Your Mental Health

How to get rid of the “You Look Fat Bitch”

Make health a priority, and don’t feel bad about it
This “Bitch” makes women feel guilty about taking time for themselves, even if it’s for their own health, putting them in a no-win position. A real-life example: If you don’t work out, “The Bitch” says you look flabby. If you do work out, she says you are being selfish and “should” be doing other things. Be aware of this lose-lose position whenever you start to feel bad about exercising (or not exercising).

Foster self-acceptance
Focus on the things that you like about yourself when you look in the mirror—giving yourself a smile and a compliment. It also means not letting “The Bitch” berate you when you fall off your diet, but making a plan to avoid temptations in the future.

Take a day off
Went a little overboard on Brie during your healthy eating plan? Why not just say to yourself, “I had a bad day” instead of “I’m weak and fat and bad and bloated.” Weight-loss programs that don’t allow for occasional treats or “falling off the wagon” are unrealistic.

RELATED: 9 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

How to get rid of “The Work Bitch”

Take credit for your success, and don’t be afraid to ask for more
“The Bitch” in the workplace repeatedly holds us back, convincing us to accept less than we deserve out of fear. Self-esteem and self-confidence are built by absorbing compliments and believing them, not by attributing success to luck.

If work isn’t making you happy, change it
No matter what your field or level, if you have to force yourself to get out of bed each morning to go to work, something is very wrong. Don’t let her tell you everyone hates their job. That simply isn’t true.

Break the stress habit
Constantly checking your phone and working extremely long hours is unpleasant and exhausting, but it becomes a habit that’s hard to break. People literally get addicted to the adrenaline rush, the stress, and the feeling they are needed and important. Real life begins to seem dull by comparison until the habit is tamed or broken. If you can’t give yourself a free hour with your family or friends without checking messages, something is very wrong, no matter what “The Bitch” says. Schedule forty-five minutes with your phone off, and then check it for fifteen minutes—and turn it off again.

RELATED: Your Guide to Positive Thinking

How to get rid of “The Blame Bitch”

Stop wallowing in guilt
Even when you’ve made a mistake, torturing yourself with endless thoughts like, “You’re a terrible person!” or “You don’t deserve to be forgiven!” is merely self-indulgent. If you are really sorry about something you did, find a way to make an apology. If that apology would do more damage than good, find a way to clear your conscience without inflicting pain on another person.

Confront denial
If “The Bitch” is whispering, “They’re making a big deal about nothing” you’re probably in denial. And denial usually makes the problem bigger. Often an honest apology can help heal the wounds you’ve created, no matter what they are. You might not be forgiven, but at least you have tried to take ownership of the problem and make amends.

Regain your pride
If you want to be proud of yourself, do something that makes you proud. That can start with admitting your mistakes and making amends to the person you hurt—including yourself. Learn from your mistakes and live a life that gives you healthy pleasure and pride. And don’t ever let “The Bitch” say you don’t deserve that.

RELATED: 7 Strategies to Love the Way You Look

Want more? Follow @dr_plumez on Twitter.

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Nurse Sets Her Own Broken Legs While Trapped in Her Car After Crash

A 27-year-old Canadian nurse came to her own brave and painful rescue after a terrible car crash left her trapped in her vehicle for 14 hours.

Stacie Reis, of British Columbia, Canada, was nearing the end of a long drive home after visiting her sick grandpa when her car crashed 40 feet down a steep cliff not visible from the highway. She awoke in her vehicle with no memory of how the accident occurred, but realized her totaled car was upside down and her legs and feet were both twisted towards her left knee.

A neo-natal intensive care unit nurse at the University Hospital of Northern BC, Reis’ medical instincts quickly kicked into gear and she knew she had to do something.

“I noticed my feet were real broken,” she recently told Canada’s Global News while recovering in her hospital bed in Vancouver. “They were twisted to the side. My little nurse brain was like, you’ve got to straighten those up because you’re going to … lose your blood supply, and then you’re going to lose your legs.”

And that’s exactly what she did. Reis proceeded to lift her broken legs and physically straighten out the bones herself, telling local paper the Prince George Citizen it was “quite painful to do.”

RELATED: The Ultimate Car Safety Kit

She continued waiting for rescue through the night, in and out of sleep, until just after 8 a.m. the following day when she heard the familiar voices of her friends and family shouting her name. They had been driving up and down the highway looking for her. Rescuers trekked to Reis, broke the car windshield and pulled her safely up to the road on a stretcher.

Doctors later told Reis that her decision to set her own legs likely saved her from having them amputated. But her lower limbs were not the extent of her injuries, which also included a broken sternum, ribs, and pelvis, in addition to bruising to her heart and lungs, Global News reported.

It’s been six weeks since the crash, and Reis has now had five surgeries—according to a GoFundMe fundraising page set up by coworker Colleen Rea—including a muscle and skin graft to her right foot. Her friend set up the page to help collect money to go towards her “beautiful” and “bubbly” friend’s many medical costs. The page has raised more than $17,000.

It will likely be a year before Reis will use her legs again, according to the news outlets, but she has kept a positive outlook every step of the way.

“Smelling fresh air, even eating food after the accident—it’s like I’m a baby, it’s like eating it for the first time,” Reis told the Prince George Citizen. “You sure gain perspective when you’ve been in a life threatening accident.”

RELATED: Pain Level After Car Crash Could Depend on Your Genes, Studies Say

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Exercise, Supplements Like Fish Oil Won’t Keep Elderly Sharper: Studies

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Neither exercise nor supplements such as fish oil don’t seem to do much to help keep older folks mentally sharp, two new studies found.

The reports, published Aug. 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cast doubts on two strategies purported to keep older brains younger and healthier.

In one study, two years’ worth of moderate exercise didn’t seem to improve the brain power of people between 70 and 89 or lower their odds for dementia. Similarly, giving older adults fish oil or other supposed brain nutrients did not keep them sharper.

The exercise study, which involved 1,600 sedentary adults, “is the largest and longest randomized trial of a physical activity intervention in older adults who were not already active and were at risk of losing their ability to walk,” said Dr. Kaycee Sink, medical director of the Kulynych Memory Assessment Clinic at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

She and her colleagues found no significant difference in mild mental impairment or dementia among those who participated in physical activity and those who were assigned to health education workshops and arm stretching (13.2 percent versus 12.1 percent).

“Our results are contrary to what many people believe about the role of physical activity in preserving memory and thinking abilities,” Sink said.

Sink said the study raises questions about the role of physical activity in preserving memory and thinking abilities. For instance, how early do you need to start? How intense does the activity need to be? Will exercise help if your memory is already impaired?

“Even though I can’t tell you that walking is going to preserve your memory better than participating in mentally engaging activities, walking is good for you for many other aspects of your health,” she said. “So stay active — physically active, mentally active and socially active.”

Dr. Sudeep Gill, an associate professor of medicine at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, agreed.

“Overall, I think it valuable to encourage sedentary older adults to engage in regular physical exercise as there are many potential health benefits, such as improved heart health and reduced insulin resistance,” he said. “Indeed, the primary results of the study did find their structured exercise program protected against development of major mobility disability.”

The study’s two-year follow-up may have been too short to see an improvement in mental function, said Gill, who wasn’t involved with the study but co-authored an accompanying journal editorial. It’s also possible that the mental health tests were flawed, or the results could be a statistical fluke, he noted.

In the other study, Dr. Emily Chew, deputy director of the division of epidemiology and clinical applications at the U.S. National Eye Institute, and colleagues tested the effects of fish oil, and supplements of lutein and zeaxanthin on mental function.

The researchers randomly assigned more than 7,200 participants in an age-related eye disease study — average age 73 — to a fish oil supplement, or lutein and zeaxanthin or a placebo. Participants were also given combinations of vitamins C, E, beta carotene and zinc. They underwent yearly eye exams and mental function tests every other year.

The five-year study found no statistically significant differences in measures of mental function among those who took a fish oil supplement and those who didn’t. The researchers reported similar results for those who took lutein/zeaxanthin supplements and those who didn’t.

“From our point of view, it’s probably more important to eat a healthy diet,” Chew said. “Or perhaps at that age it’s too late to start taking supplements or improving your diet,” she said. “You are what you eat, you should start much earlier.”

Gill said these results weren’t surprising. “Most studies of specific dietary supplements have failed to show that they have any significant mental benefits,” he said.

Gill agreed that adopting a healthy diet might have more effect on maintaining mental sharpness than taking supplements.

More information

For more about dementia, visit the Alzheimer’s Association.

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Acupuncture Best for Hot Flashes in Breast Cancer Survivors: Study

By Emily Willingham
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Needles beat pills for treating hot flashes in breast cancer survivors, according to a new trial that compared acupuncture, “sham” acupuncture, the medication gabapentin and a placebo pill.

Interestingly, sham acupuncture came in second place for effectiveness, the researchers said.

Furthermore, the effects of acupuncture were “significant and enduring for hot flashes while gabapentin’s effect only happened when a patient was taking the medication,” said study first author Dr. Jun Mao, an associate professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The study was published Aug. 24 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Mao and his colleagues tested the treatments in 120 women who were breast cancer survivors. The women were enduring hot flashes at least twice a day.

Thirty women each received real acupuncture that also included a bit of an electric buzz or the inactive placebo pill, 32 women got sham acupuncture, and 28 women received gabapentin (Neurontin). The drug is typically used to treat seizures and nerve pain.

The women documented their hot flashes in diaries, noting frequency and severity, for 8 weeks of treatment, and then continued to keep track of their hot flashes up to 24 weeks total. The investigators used a hot flash score to see how much frequency and severity changed from when the study started to what the women reported at 8, 12 and 24 weeks.

Acupuncture had the greatest effect on overall hot flash scores at 8 weeks, when all interventions ended, followed by sham acupuncture and then gabapentin. At 24 weeks, 16 weeks after treatments ended, acupuncture was still associated with the greatest reduction in hot flashes. But even those who had sham acupuncture or placebo pills had steeper drops in hot flash scores at 24 weeks than those who took gabapentin.

“The placebo effects for both acupuncture and drugs are quite intriguing, as they both seem to persist over time,” Mao said. “The magnitude of the placebo effect for acupuncture is bigger than for the drug.”

The results with the sham acupuncture, which bested gabapentin, suggest that “there is more than a placebo effect with the sham acupuncture,” said Dr. Gary Deng, interim chief of the integrative medicine service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “There is a component of behavior of doing a sham procedure, so it psychologically may trigger a different kind of reaction from patients versus taking the placebo pill.”

Deng pointed out that clinicians have come to realize that the placebo effect is very important in treatment. “In fact, in clinical practice, every doctor uses it all of the time,” he said. “The so-called bedside manner or communication with patients — all of these enhance the effect of the patients feeling they’re getting something.”

No one is quite sure why placebos work for some people and not for others, said Deng. “It’s like psychotherapy,” he added. “Why does it work for some people and not others?” He suggested that differences in anatomy and genetics might be possible explanations, but said “there is a fertile field for further research.”

Some patients might wonder if acupuncture that’s helpful for hot flashes among breast cancer patients might be helpful for the hot flashes associated with natural menopause. But Mao pointed out that hot flashes in breast cancer patients are more common, more severe and longer lasting than menopausal hot flashes.

However, Deng said that both might have similar causes related to lower estrogen levels. “Breast cancer survivors have hot flashes because of hormonal repression,” he said. Menopause also is linked to declining estrogen levels.

One big distinction between the two populations, though, is that breast cancer survivors do not have the option of hormone replacement therapy open to them because those hormones are linked to breast cancer. Some women undergoing natural menopause still might have that option available. For this reason, most studies of acupuncture for hot flashes have focused on breast cancer survivors, Deng explained.

But should a woman undergoing natural menopause try acupuncture for hot flashes?

“For patients suffering symptoms, they can look for all kinds of possible solutions and are better off talking to their doctor to find out what’s most appropriate for them,” Deng said.

More information

Visit the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health for more on acupuncture.

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Mom’s Healthy Diet Linked to Lower Heart Defect Risk at Birth

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Women who eat healthy diets prior to pregnancy are less likely to have a baby born with a heart defect, researchers report.

Women who followed a very healthy diet were 37 percent less likely than those who ate poorly to have a baby with tetralogy of Fallot, a complex heart defect that causes babies to turn blue because their blood can’t carry enough oxygen. The women also were 23 percent less likely to have a baby born with an atrial septal defect, or a hole in the wall that separates the top two chambers of the heart, the study found.

Women and their babies benefited most from a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, whole grains and fish, with limited intake of dairy, meat and sweets, the researchers found. Foods rich in nutrients like folic acid, iron and calcium were also considered healthy, the study authors said.

“The more you went up in diet quality, the less the risk for severe congenital heart anomalies,” said lead author Dr. Lorenzo Botto, a professor of pediatrics and a medical geneticist at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

However, this study didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a healthy diet and a lower risk of heart birth defects. The research only showed an association between the two.

The study appears in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood (Fetal & Neonatal Edition).

Congenital heart defects affect one of every 100 newborns in the United States, and cause nearly one out of every four infant deaths related to birth defects, according to background information in the study.

“They are common, they are critical and we really don’t know how to prevent them,” Botto said.

The new study was inspired by earlier findings that a high-quality diet could reduce the risk of birth defects such as cleft palate or spina bifida, Botto said.

The research team evaluated data from almost 10,000 mothers of babies born with heart defects, and about 9,500 mothers of healthy babies. The babies were born between October 1997 and December 2009, and are part of the larger, federally funded National Birth Defects Prevention Study, Botto said.

Mothers were asked about what they ate in the year prior to their pregnancy. Researchers graded their diet based on how closely it followed the Mediterranean Diet and the Diet Quality Index for Pregnancy, a common diet plan recommended to expecting mothers.

The Diet Quality Index provides positive scores for grains, vegetables, fruits, folate, iron and calcium, and negative scores for calories from fats or sweets. The Mediterranean Diet emphasizes legumes, grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables and fish, and discourages dairy, meat and sweets.

Mothers who scored in the top 25 percent of dietary quality had a significantly lower risk of having a baby born with a heart defect, compared with those who scored in the bottom 25 percent, the study found.

Eating right appears to boost the mother’s health, which in turn boosts the likelihood that the developing fetus will be able to withstand genetic or environmental factors that might cause a heart defect, Botto said.

“We know that having a healthy woman tends to lead to a healthy baby,” he said.

The findings support the need for women to eat a healthful diet even before they have conceived, since birth defects can occur very early in pregnancy. If a woman waits to eat right after she’s pregnant, it could be too late, the researchers said.

“We know that birth defects happen in the very first weeks after conception. For heart anomalies, the first four to seven weeks,” Botto noted.

Dr. Edward McCabe, senior vice president and medical director of the March of Dimes, agreed.

“It would be great if all women of childbearing age, for their own benefit and their future child’s benefit, could be on an optimal diet,” McCabe said. “If not, then plan and get on a diet for a year before you conceive.”

By extension, this strategy also calls for strong family planning, so a woman can take the time to establish a solid dietary foundation for her pregnancy if she isn’t already eating healthy, he added.

“One of the key messages to me is the importance of planning to have a baby,” McCabe said. “Fifty percent of the babies in the U.S. are not planned. We really feel it’s important for women to plan their pregnancy, and we know it’s important for them to be on an optimal diet before they become pregnant.”

Despite the study results, both Botto and McCabe noted that at this time researchers still don’t know exactly why a healthy diet appears to provide such strong protection against birth defects.

“We don’t know why it works, but we know it works,” McCabe said. ‘People can go on researching the cause for decades, but even if we don’t know the cause, we know the cure.”

More information

For more information on pregnancy and nutrition, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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Flu Vaccine Protects Nursing Home Residents, Study Finds

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Seasonal flu shots save lives and prevent hospitalizations among nursing home residents, a new study shows.

There has been debate about the effectiveness of flu vaccination in this group of patients, but the findings show that they are beneficial, according to researchers at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

“This study evidences protection for an elderly population for whom vaccine efficacy has been questioned. Annual vaccination is the only way to maximize the benefit of vaccine, no matter what the age,” study co-author Dr. Stefan Gravenstein, an adjunct professor of medicine and health services, policy and practice, said in a university news release.

The researchers analyzed data gathered from more than 1 million U.S. nursing home residents between 2000 and 2009, and found that the better matched the seasonal vaccine was for that year’s flu strain, the lower the rates of flu-related hospitalization and death.

For every 1 percent increase in the match rate between the seasonal vaccine and flu virus, weekly deaths fell and hospitalizations declined among nursing home residents.

Among the 1 million nursing home residents, a 50 percent increase in the match rate in a flu season would save the lives of more than 2,500 people and prevent 3,200 hospitalizations, according to the study published Aug. 24 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Corresponding author Vincent Mor, a professor at Brown’s School of Public Health, said in the news release, “That’s saving lives. That’s really a profound effect.”

The findings likely apply to all seniors, most of whom do not live in nursing homes, Mor added. However, vaccination rates among seniors in the community tend to be much lower than among those in nursing homes.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about flu vaccination.

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Ground Beef Contains Dangerous Bacteria, Study Finds

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Store-bought ground beef often contains a variety of bacteria that can make humans sick and is resistant to the drugs used to treat it, according to new data from Consumer Reports.

While most bacteria in meat can be killed when cooked correctly, many Americans prefer to eat their meat rare, putting them at a greater risk for illness—especially when the meat comes from conventionally raised cows, which are treated with antibiotics and hormones, according to a new Consumer Reports study. The study found that nearly 20% of ground beef in the U.S. tested from conventionally raised cows had bacteria resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. Only 9% of ground beef that was sustainably made had antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

For the report, Consumer Reports purchased and tested 300 packages of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef sold in stores around the U.S. The meat was tested for five common types of bacteria that can be found in beef: Clostridium perfringens, E. coli, Enterococcus, Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus. Bacteria of some kind was found in all of the beef samples, though sustainably produced beef was less likely to have harmful strains.

More than 80% of conventional ground beef had two types of bacteria and nearly 20% of the samples contained C. perfringens, which causes close to a million cases of food poisoning every year. “There’s no way to tell by looking at a package of meat or smelling it whether it has harmful bacteria or not,” Urvashi Rangan, executive director of the Center for Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports, said.“You have to be on guard every time.”

The research also found that 10% of the samples had a strain of S. aureus that produces a toxin that can make people ill and is not killed even when the meat is cooked properly. Still, cooking meat at 160 degrees Fahrenheit should kill most bacteria.

The findings suggest that consumers may want to look for ground beef that’s sustainably produced, with labels reading “no antibiotics,” “grass-fed,” and “organic,” according to Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports says “grass-fed organic” may be one of the best labels to go by since it means the cattle eat organic grass and forage and do not receive antibiotics or hormones.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) secretary Tom Vilsacksaid in a statement that the agency has put tight food safety standards in place over the last six years to avoid public health problems. “Measures taken to improve ground beef safety include a zero-tolerance policy for six dangerous strains of E. coli, better procedures for detecting the source of outbreaks, improved laboratory testing, and more. USDA’s food safety inspectors work in every meat facility, every day, to reduce illnesses across all products we regulate, and we’re proud to report that illnesses attributed to those items dropped by 10% from 2013 to 2014,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Why Fermentation Might Be the Next Big Thing in Skin Care

Image: Courtesy of MIMI/Elysia Berman

Truth be told, I had never really considered that the process that turns grapes into wine could be a major player in the skin care game—until recently. After trying all-natural skin care brand Whamisa’s sea kelp and hydrogel masks, both of which are made with fermented ingredients, I knew there was research to be done.

It turns out the process isn’t as confusing as I imagined. According to our friends over at Glow Recipe, an online destination for all your natural Korean beauty needs, fermentation is when carbs and sugars are turned into enzymes and amino acids with the help of “good” microorganisms like lactobacillus over an extended period of time. During this process, nasty toxins and unwanted bacteria are also naturally killed, leaving you with a natural oasis of broken down molecules your skin will love.

But enough with the science—here’s what you really need to know. Fermented ingredients’ properties are mainly of the soothing and hydrating nature, which means most products you’ll find are of the leave-on variety. Think toners, essences, serums, and creams. Different fermented flowers, fruits, and grains contain varying properties, but studies have shown that like wine, the final product will hold an increased concentration of antioxidants, peptides, proteins, and amino acids.

And because the process of fermentation makes it impossible for things like preservatives to survive, the all-natural products do have a shorter shelf life. Glow Recipe says you should be safe to keep unopened products around for 24 to 36 months and once opened, anywhere from 6 to 12 months.

The most popular ingredients are chrysanthemum, dandelion, rice, soy, and natto, but my favorite Whamisa masks have a variety of other ingredients. The sea kelp mask ($14,glowrecipe.com) is drenched in fermented—you guessed it—more sea kelp and bamboo. The fermented hydrogel mask series ($9 per mask, glowrecipe.com) runs the gamut of ingredients, ranging from the most popular (listed above) to tomato, apple, licorice, and banana.

Again, fermentation is not just limited to masks or Korean skin care. Christine Chang, co-founder of Glow Recipe, thinks it’s a trend that will soon be adopted by skin care companies all over the world. Judging by the industry’s recent focus on natural and organic products and how amazing my skin felt post-masks, I couldn’t agree more.

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

More from MIMI:

Should You Be Using Snail Skin Care?

Why You Should Put Bee Venom On Your Face

MIMI Chatter is an endless stream of beauty content. We bring together the must-knows and the how-tos from your favorite sites, beauty influencers, our editors, and YOU.

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Men Who Feel Less Masculine May Be More Violent, Study Finds

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Men who feel they don’t meet traditional masculine ideals may be more prone to violence and risky behaviors, a new study suggests.

According to the researchers, the findings “suggest that efforts to reduce men’s risk of behavior likely to result in injury should, in part, focus on the means by which masculine socialization and acceptance of gender norms may induce distress in boys and men.”

In the study, 600 American men, aged 18 to 50, took an online survey that asked them about their perceptions of male gender, their own self-image, and their levels of violent and risky behaviors.

Men who considered themselves less masculine than average, and who believed that others viewed them the same way, were more likely to say they had committed violent assaults with a weapon and assaults resulting in injury to the victim, compared to men who didn’t feel highly masculine but weren’t concerned about it, the study authors reported.

The investigators also found that men who felt less masculine and weren’t concerned about it were the least likely of all men to report violence or to drive while impaired.

The study was conducted by Dr. Dennis Reidy, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of violence prevention, and his colleagues. It was published online Aug. 24 in the journal Injury Prevention.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more about violence prevention for men.

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Many Parents Put ‘Food Pressure’ on Their Kids, Study Finds

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — New research finds that parents of overweight kids are more likely to restrict their children’s food intake — a potentially bad idea — if they themselves are carrying extra pounds.

By contrast, mothers and fathers are more likely to pressure their kids to eat more when both parents and children are normal weight.

Neither pushing food nor restricting it is a good idea, said study author Jerica Berge, an associate professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis.

“Prior research has shown that they may have unintended effects such as a child becoming overweight or obese, or engaging in eating behaviors such as bingeing or purging,” she said. Childhood obesity is also linked to a number of health problems, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The researchers analyzed results from two 2010 studies of kids’ food consumption. More than 2,100 teens, whose average age was 14, took part in the studies along with 3,252 parents — 63 percent of them mothers whose average age was 43.

“When parents and adolescents were both overweight or obese, parents were more likely to restrict food from their adolescents,” Berge said. “When parents and adolescents were both normal weight, parents were more likely to pressure their adolescents to eat more.”

Berge said the findings can help health care providers look at parents and their kids together and figure out who, based on their weights, may be at highest risk for poor eating habits.

Laura Hubbs-Tait, a human development professor and parenting specialist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, said the study is valid and useful. However, she noted, it doesn’t prove that parents act in certain ways — pressuring their kids about food or not — because of how much the parents or the kids weigh. More research is needed to confirm that, she said.

Whatever the case, parents who put pressure on their kids to eat more or less food risk raising children who can’t figure out on their own how much to eat. “Many parents may not be aware that their efforts to control their children’s eating harm their children’s ability to regulate their eating on their own,” she said.

Instead of pushing or withholding food, what should parents do?

“It is more helpful for parents to make sure there are a variety of healthy options in the home or on the table for children to eat, and then allow the child to decide how much they eat,” Berge said. “It is also important to continue offering food because it can take numerous exposures to a food before a child will eat it.”

Parents who are worried about a child’s food intake should talk to a physician, she said.

Hubbs-Tait offered these suggestions: “Parents should be helping children learn how to regulate their own eating, helping them learn to make good food and physical activity choices, and providing lots of encouragement and support when they do so.”

The study was published online Aug. 24 in the journal Pediatrics.

More information

For details kids and healthy eating, visit Let’s Move.

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