According to a study published in the Journal Pediatrics, adults who were pressured by their parents to diet during adolescence may have a higher risk of obesity and eating disorders as adults as compared to people who weren't forced to lose weight as teens. According to the parents, as parents, adults who endured dieting pressure during their teen years were also more likely to encourage their own children to watch what they ate.
For the study, researchers examined the data from eating surveys that 556 participants completed in school when they were 15 years old on an average. They also examined the results from online surveys they completed as adults 15 years later. In the first surveys, about 37 percent of the teens claimed that were encouraged to diet by their parents. The results claimed that girls were more likely to experience this, especially ones who are younger in age, overweight and obese.
When the participants grew up, those who had been forced to diet were 25 percent more likely to be overweight and 37 percent more likely to be obese than the adults who weren't urged to lose weight during their younger days.
The study, however has its own limitations, some of which are- it wasn't a controlled experiment that was designed to prove whether or how dieting pressure during adolescence might translate into some behaviours related to food and weight in adulthood. Another limitation is the number of participants in the study. Had they taken a larger number, its claims would have been considered. Another limitation is that the researchers relied on participants would accurately report whether they were overweight or obese. In fact, there weren't enough fathers in the study to explore how experiences in adolescence might influence how they interacted with their own kids about food and weight. The researchers look to study more about this theory on weight and parental pressure.