From the article:
In the study, a group of 4-year-olds was asked to choose candy, animal crackers or pretzels as their preferred food and left alone with two plates of different quantities of the food.
They could eat a larger portion of chosen food if they waited until the examiner returned. If they could not wait until the examiner returned, they could ring a bell to summon the examiner back into the room, at which time they could eat the small quantity.
Almost half (47%) of the 805 children failed the test, either by ringing the bell before a seven-minute waiting period elapsed, spontaneously beginning to eat the food, becoming distressed, going to the door or calling for a parent or the examiner.
The conclusions:
Children who had difficulty delaying gratification were about 30% more likely to be overweight by age 11 than those who could delay gratification, says study coauthor Dr. Julie Lumeng, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan Health System.
The correlation of the parents:
The weight of the mother made a difference in the child’s ability to wait to eat, Lumeng adds.
“Moms who are overweight themselves have kids that are less able to wait,” Lumeng says. “No study like this one can prove causation, but there’s an association.”
This really makes sense. If you have a mother that is overweight, then there's a good chance that she doesn't have the ability to delay gratification when she's hungry. This easily passes along to the child where mom just instinctively gives the child something to eat when the child complains about being hungry.
This is interesting in light of my review last week here of Eat Stop Eat. You hold off eating for 24 hours. After some time, this helps you hold off eating when not fasting and you start to feel a little bit of hunger. By fasting, you learn to control those hunger "pains" and not instantly go reach for a donut.
I'm NOT suggesting we start getting 4 year olds to follow intermittent fasting. But, if adults would start following this type of protocol, they would learn themselves how to delay instant gratification and thus would be more readily able to tell their kids "no" when they whine about being hungry and telling them that they need to wait until their next meal.
The behavior of parents is what is going to stick with their children, so maybe if we start changing the shape of how parents view instant gratification, we can change that same behavior in children. Something to think about.
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