Obesity is a national problem in the United States and continues to be a major issue for health care and productivity. Just not too long ago in 1991 no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. Now the only state that isn’t higher than 20 percent is Colorado. What is worse is the kids in America being raised in this growing epidemic and not knowing the difference. While nearly two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese there is an estimated 23 million children that are either overweight or obese.

A recent study that was reported by Craig Gundersen, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois and colleagues was published in the September issue of Pediatrics which you can read here. The study focused on the stress of mothers and how it changed obesity rates among young children. The ages that were focused on were between three and ten and found to be overweight the more stressors their moms had in their lives.

The data in the study came from the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). There were 841 children participants in the study which came from 425 different households with an annual income not exceeding twice the poverty level who were included in the analysis, 37% were overweight or obese.

The study revealed that households with no maternal stress, a food secure household environment and a low-income range had a 33 percent potential of being overweight or obese. Those children in food insecure households had a 34.8 percent potential of being overweight or obese. The food secure or food insecure statement equates to the average availability of food in the home.

When mom was found to be more stressed and reported more stressors in her life, the children in the household had a higher potential of being overweight or obese in food secure households but decreased among the children in food insecure households. The children in the food secure households were found to have a 43.7 percent potential of being overweight or obese when comparing them to the children in the food insecure households.

“We were not able to observe what people are eating in these data. That’s definitely part of future work,” said Steve Garasky, a professor of human development and family studies.

“But at this point we have to conclude that in stressful environments, children in households with adequate food — maybe it is ”comfort food,” or maybe it’s just larger quantities of more traditional food — are possibly acting on the desire to eat more, and maybe even eat differently, than those from food insecure households,” he added.

The statistics of this study didn’t seem significant once children reached the age of 11. It was suspected that young adolescents have bigger social networks and outlets to share the stress at home with thus the outlet in food consumption.

While it’s easy to point the finger and find a problem in the society it may leave the single mom’s struggling just to make it what they are supposed to do. Dr. Gundersen has some ideas, “Not to absolve all personal responsibility, but we have to acknowledge that there are some factors that may be beyond an individual’s ability to control,” Gundersen said. “So with a focus on public policy, there are three important things that can be done. First, we can have a firm social safety net for such households. Second, we can offer financial education to enable people to better understand how to manage their money. And third, we can focus on the importance of making sure everyone has health insurance. So instead of saying here’s what mothers can do to alleviate the stress, we’re saying here’s what we can do as a society.”

If it seems odd that dad’s stress levels aren’t mentioned in this study, that’s up for future research. The researchers have future plans to measure the stress levels of fathers in determining overall household stress. Garasky says they started with mothers because single-parent families make up a high percentage of low-income households, and the vast majority of those single parents are mothers.

“And then it’s the premise that mom is traditionally the primary caregiver,” Garasky said. “So if you want to link one person to circumstances of a child, it’s more natural to link to mom.”

“Unfortunately we did not have access to information about fathers’ stressors and behaviors in this data set,” Brenda Lohman said. “Yet in most modern households, fathers may be doing as much or more of the cooking than in the past. So I agree that future work must address stress levels of fathers too.”