Young children who are regularly looked after by their grandparents have an increased risk of being overweight, an extensive British study has suggested.
Analysis of 12,000 three-year olds suggested the risk was 34% higher if grandparents cared for them full time.
Children who went to nursery or had a childminder had no increased risk of weight problems, the International Journal of Obesity reported.
Nearly a quarter of preschool children in the UK are overweight or obese.
My mother and I lived with my grandmother for most of my childhood (and they still live together). I didn’t get really overweight until after I was married. Hmm, many women gain weight after they are married. This must mean that husbands make wives fat.
Correlation does NOT equal causation! Where do people pull this BS from?
In my practice, the numbers of grandparents raising kids have been rising for a while. What we are now seeing more is [i]great[/i]-grandparents raising kids. One wonders if these kids are really fat.
CG, the authors probably don’t think that grandparents cause the fatness, per se. Rather, grandparents are less likely to take the kids to play ball, or perhaps to restrict video games or junk foods. These vertically extended families do seem more lenient in my observations.
Underlying this conclusion, is the unspoken solution, “Government would of course do a better job of raising Johnny, or Jane, after all, why do they call it the “nanny state” ?
Grandmother (who did not “MAKE” anyone other than herself chubby.
in SC
This is a sad thought — but what are the likelihoods that grandchildren raised by their grandparents are within highly fractured, highly dysfunctional, and impoverished families already.
I’d like to see the *reasons* why the grandparents are raising the kids — is it imprisonment, divorce/poverty, illegitimacy, or sudden catastrophic death of the parents? I’m betting it’s not the latter that is the most predominant.
[blockquote]I’d like to see the *reasons* why the grandparents are raising the kids—is it imprisonment, divorce/poverty, illegitimacy, or sudden catastrophic death of the parents? I’m betting it’s not the latter that is the most predominant. [/blockquote]
That brings up an interesting point. In my case, my mother moved us in with my grandparents after the divorce so that someone could watch us while she had to work. But I still spent a lot of time with my mom.