Teenagers who are able to communicate with their mothers and fathers about serious issues and whose parents monitor their activities closely are more likely to have healthy eating habits than teens with more distant parental relationships.

Parents can have a positive influence on dietary intake.

Involvement of parents in their children's lives appears to be related to eating a healthy breakfast and lunch as well as fruit and vegetable intake.

The students most likely to report that they regularly ate a healthy breakfast and lunch were those who had the highest level of communication with their parents and experienced the highest level of parental monitoring, meaning their parents were involved with their school life, generally knew their whereabouts and set clear rules.

Furthermore, almost 80% of the students who reported experiencing the highest level of parental monitoring ate fruits and vegetables at least once a day, in comparison to 51% of those who reported the lowest level of parental monitoring. Fruit and vegetable intake was also greater among the youth who reported higher levels of family communication.

Healthy eating was also associated with the students' parental living situation, and was most common among individuals who lived with both parents. Forty-three percent of students who lived with both parents said they ate a healthy breakfast, in comparison to 32% of those who lived with only one parent, 24% of those who lived with other family members and 12% of those who lived with a foster family.

The use of parenting practices that are supportive and provide clear expectations for behavior may result in healthier eating by enabling children to develop self-control skills. Parent modeling may also play a role in dietary behavior.

In other findings, students were more likely to eat a healthy breakfast if they spent less than 2 hours per day at home without an adult, while they were more likely to eat a healthy lunch if they spent fewer than 5 unsupervised hours at home. Students who spent 5 or more hours at home without an adult were also less likely to report eating fruits and vegetables at least once per day.

Journal of School Health 2001;71:483-488

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

It is encouraging to find supporting research documenting that parents do have a significant influence on their children's eating choices. It is my experience that the older a child is, the more difficult it is to influence eating behavior. I suspect the key here is to lead by example. The sooner the parents can follow the eating plan, the sooner their entire family will reap the benefits of improved health. Another important variable that wasn't addressed was the amount of TV allowed in the home. TV has been shown in many studies to worsen the health of children.