Alternative Health Blog

There are certain things you remember in life. They stick in the mind and fortify your capacity to, well, be a good person.

Here’s an example: A female friend who by any account would be considered the perfect mother—never seems to raise her voice to the kids, keeps impeccable lists, doesn’t miss a birthday, rues commercialism by making her own Christmas presents, that sort of perfect mother—once said, “Ha! Getting out of the house in the morning is never easy. There’s always conflict. Some days are better t han others. What we do in our house is just try to get over.”

Her words were liberating. Here was the idyllic admitting to the chaotic. If she falls down and picks herself up, so can we. In fact, how we pick ourselves up might make all the difference.

That’s how we can all regard stress, whether our mornings include getting all of the homework in the backpack or not. Stress is part of how we live. It will knock us over. But we can get up, dust ourselves off and make a positive impact on personal health.

And for kids there appears to be more at stake than family harmony or emotional well-being. A new Swedish study published in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that living in a stressful household may raise a child’s risk for becoming overweight by up to twice as much.

The childhood obesity epidemic in America doesn’t need that sort of piling on. Or does it help explain why U.S. children have consistently landed in the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention 98th percentile for weight (as high as the curve goes) and above?

The Swedish researchers, who evaluated 5- and 6-year-old children in more than 7,400 families, said kids can handle “some stress or stressors, but not several at the same time.” Four primary areas of family or household stress were identified: A serious life event such as a family illness, accident, death, divorce, unemployment or exposure to violence; spouse relationship issues; lack of social support among other family members or community or both; and concern about a child’s health and development.

If children were exposed to two or more of these four family stress areas, then it heightened risk for obesity. For this study’s categorization, a high-stress family faces challenges in at least two or more these four areas.

The researchers emphasized that family stress is not the sole reason why a child might gain unnecessary weight before even entering school years. Instead, they wrote “stress probably interacts with other factors to worsen the problem.”

This study is significant because most parents think diet and exercise when worrying about a child’s weight. They don’t connect how family stress might be disrupting a child’s ability to be active, eat healthfully or even get a good night’s sleep (which newer research shows helps any of us to more efficiently burn fat even while resting).

That’s not to discount the benefits of finding ways for children and their parents to be more physically active or eat more nutritiously. The idea is more that avoiding chronic stress in the household—a deeper psychic cut than what a researcher like University of Washington marriage guru John Gottman calls “run-of-the-mill family misery”—can be an important step toward healthier children and parents. 

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.