Investigating the relationship between parental weight stigma and weight-related parenting practices

Reducing rates of overweight and obesity in children remains a prominent public health priority. Parents have been shown to be a major influence on their child’s weight, but limited research has been devoted to understanding why parents choose specific weight-related parenting behaviors over others. Previous studies have shown how weight stigma (i.e., prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory behavior targeted at individuals who carry excess weight) can affect an individual’s own weight-related behaviors, but no study has examined how parental levels of weight stigma may affect weight-related parenting behaviors. The primary objective of this study was to examine the relationships between parental levels of weight stigma with feeding and physical activity-related parenting behaviors. Responses were collected on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website for parents who 1) had at least one child aged 5-10 and 2) perceived themselves to be overweight or obese. Results showed that even when taking sociodemographic factors into account, parents who reported higher levels of weight stigma were more likely to restrict their child’s food intake and model healthy eating and physical activity behaviors for their children. Additionally, the study found evidence for the notion that concern about child weight may partially explain these relationships. Specifically, our data suggest that higher levels of weight stigma lead to higher levels of concern about their child’s weight, and this heightened level of concern then leads to additional efforts to modify their child’s food intake. A discussion of the potential limitations and implications of these findings is included.