家庭是儿童成长与发展的主要空间，家庭环境的好坏直接影响着孩子们的身心健康发展。家庭成员之间的关系也可能影响着孩子的成长。
我们都会发现，有一些孩子并不是受遗传因素的影响，但是孩子的体重却明显的不断增加。这是为什么呢?父母只关心着孩子每天的营养情况，但有些时候孩子的心理成长却被忽视了。母亲与孩子的亲疏程度影响着孩子患肥胖的机率，研究称：母亲与孩子的关系越好反而孩子肥胖的机率就小些。原因可能是感情糟糕会影响到孩子的心情，这样，孩子就会通过食物来抚慰自已。所以孩子不光是要吃得好、吃得营养，同时更要高高兴兴的吃好，这样才是真正的关心孩子成长。
Children who have a poor emotional relationship with their mother are more than twice as likely to become obese, research claims.
A study found toddlers who struggle with their mothers are at higher risk of being grossly overweight by the time they are 15. Those who had the worst emotional relationship were almost two-and-half times more likely to be obese at 15 than those with a strong bond. Meanwhile, only 13 per cent who had close bonds in their formative years became obese.
U.S. researchers studied nearly 1,000 toddlers and their mothers at play then rated how strong the bond was between mother and child. The participants were then assessed for obesity at 15.
The prevalence of obesity in adolescence was 26.1 per cent among children with the poorest early maternal-child relationships according to the research, which will appear in the online Journal of Paediatrics next month.
Ohio State University epidemiology professor Sarah Anderson said eating comfort food throughout childhood could be linked to youngsters not being given the right tools to deal with stress. She said: ‘It is possible childhood obesity could be influenced by interventions that try to improve the emotional bonds between mothers and children rather than focusing only on children’s food intake and activity. ‘We need to think about how we can support better-quality maternal-child relationships because that could have an impact on child health. A well-regulated stress response could influence how well children sleep and whether they eat in response to emotional distress – just two factors that affect the likelihood for obesity.’
