A groundbreaking study shows that parents who tease their children about their weight are at greater risk of feeling bad about their bodies decades later, regardless of whether they grow up overweight or not.
Thirteen-year-olds who felt pressure from family members to shed pounds and endured teasing based on their weight showed higher levels of internalized weight stigma when they turned 31, according to research by the University of Bristol, published on Tuesday in the journal Lancet Regional Health Europe.
Internalized weight stigma causes people to believe that their weight makes them less attractive, less competent, or less valuable as a person, even if they are not obese or underweight. It is linked to eating disorders and an increased drive for thinness.
The research shows that there are ‘strong and long-lasting effects on the psychological health of adults’, caused by pressure from parents and families, as well as from bullies and the media.
The findings came from more than 4,000 children from and around Bristol who were first studied in the 1990s and are now aged 33. It is the first study to examine the effects of such pressures over decades of people’s lives, the authors claim.
Obesity Britain told a 2022 parliamentary inquiry Research examining the impact of body image on physical and mental health found that weight stigma was associated with depression and anxiety and compromised psychosocial well-being, could lead to avoidance or delay in adopting healthier habits and was associated with an increased risk of mortality, regardless of a person’s weight.
“Given substantial evidence that internalized weight stigma has serious consequences for mental and other aspects of health, these findings will be crucial for targeting prevention programs and supporting people most at risk,” the study authors concluded.
At age 13, the children were asked how often their mother or father had made a comment about their weight and how much they ate that made them feel bad, to what extent family members and people at school teased them about their weight or body shape, and how much pressure they felt to lose weight from family, friends and people they dated.
Eighteen years later, the same 4,060 people, now adults, were asked how they agreed with questions such as “I hate myself because of my weight” and “I am less attractive than most other people because of my weight.”
The researchers found that negative weight-related comments from parents and feeling under pressure to lose weight from family and the media had the strongest associations with adults suffering from weight stigma, and that the links were ‘robust’.
“The children who receive these comments from family members almost 20 years later view themselves more negatively,” said Dr Amanda Hughes, co-author of the report and fellow at Bristol Medical School’s department of population health sciences. “This predicts a difference in people’s self-esteem and psychological health.”
She urged parents to “be very careful” when talking to children about weight.
“This isn’t to say you shouldn’t promote healthy eating or that exercise is a good thing, but it’s about why you say that,” she said. “It’s about encouraging healthy eating habits, for your own sake or because it makes you feel good. Don’t make it about ‘you have to be thin to be good’.”
In addition, people who were bullied as children also showed greater weight stigma, but the effect decreased depending on how long ago the bullying occurred.
Because the people in the study were children long before social media, the findings about the effects of media are likely outdated. Further research is needed to monitor the impact of children’s exposure to social media later in life.
Hughes said it might not all be negative, as social media can also be the way people connect with body-positive content.