Curtis Penny, Stapleton Helen, James Allison
School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Sheffield, Samuel Fox House, Northern General Hospital, Sheffield S5 7AU, UK.
Ann Hum Biol. 2011 Jul;38(4):429-37. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2011.590530. Epub 2011 Jun 17.
Implicit in much of the literature on childhood obesity is a hierarchical, unidirectional understanding of intergenerational relations, which highlights parents' responsibility for children's food and eating practices.
Drawing upon alternative understandings from the social science literature, which offer more nuanced insights into family life and generational relations, this paper explores, through parents' narratives, the construction of family food environments and family eating practices in families with a child with obesity.
Data were generated through individual, semi-structured interviews with parents of children attending a community-based obesity intervention programme in an inner city area in the North of England. Forty-nine interviews were conducted with 25 parental adults from 19 families.
Parent's own concerns over their body weight and size and children's social experiences in a fat-averse society can both work to flatten the traditional familial, adult-child hierarchy. Both parents and children actively contribute to the construction of family life and family eating practices.
Findings may pose challenges for contemporary health promotion and policy agendas which presume that parents have the ability and resources to control and direct children's eating in a unidirectional and authoritative manner.
许多关于儿童肥胖的文献中隐含着一种对代际关系的层级式、单向性理解，这种理解强调父母对孩子饮食和进食习惯的责任。
借鉴社会科学文献中的其他理解，这些理解能为家庭生活和代际关系提供更细致入微的见解，本文通过父母的叙述，探讨肥胖儿童家庭中家庭饮食环境和家庭进食习惯的构建。
数据通过对参与英格兰北部市中心社区肥胖干预项目的儿童的父母进行的个人半结构化访谈产生。对来自19个家庭的25位家长进行了49次访谈。
父母自身对体重和体型的担忧以及孩子在厌胖社会中的社交经历，都可能削弱传统的家庭中成人与孩子的层级关系。父母和孩子都积极参与家庭生活和家庭进食习惯的构建。
研究结果可能对当代健康促进和政策议程构成挑战，这些议程假定父母有能力和资源以单向且权威的方式控制和指导孩子的饮食。
