(Press-News.org) The quality of general family functioning is a major determinant of healthy dietary habits - according to new research published in the Journal of Caries Research and led by Queen Mary University of London.
The East London Family (ELF) Study found that a mother's perception of effective general family functioning has a significant effect on limiting the intake of sugary foods and drinks by their three and four year old children. In contrast, less effective family functioning leads to high frequency intake of sugary foods and drinks by three and four year old children in the family.
'Effective family functioning' was defined as a family which is able to manage daily life and resolve problems in the context of warm and affective family interactions, through clear communication, well-defined roles and flexible behaviour control.
Professor Wagner Marcenes, who led the study at Queen Mary University of London, explains: "Our research adopted a broad definition of 'family' and we included single parents, and those who are divorced, co-habiting, and same sex family types."
The report shows that children from more functional families were 67 per cent less likely to consume more than four intakes of sugary foods and drinks a day, compared with children from less functional families.
"Effective family functioning is a safeguard against the well-known negative impact of lower levels of education in relation to sugar consumption" Professor Marcenes continued. "A significant number of children whose mothers had a lower level of qualification but whose family functioning was effective were more likely to consume less than four intakes of sugary foods compared with their counterparts whose family functioning was impaired. "
The research involved 1,174 children aged three and four years, and their parents, and aimed to investigate the importance of family functioning for health.
The ELF study is a major two generation family study involving more than 50 researchers. It is believed to be the first study which demonstrates that high sugar consumption is related to poor family functioning.
The report demonstrated that effective family functioning led to a healthy diet even among those with lower education, living in a deprived area and experiencing financial challenges.
Professor Marcenes explains: "We live in a very materialistic world but material resources alone cannot fulfil us. We also need to meet our psychological needs. A functional family is a major source of pleasure in life, providing comfort and reward. In contrast, dysfunctional families are a major source of frustration and stress - and this can lead to high sugar consumption in the search for the 'feel-good' effect."
Dr Sucharita Nanjappa, University of Dundee, who co-authored this report and was involved in many different aspects of the ELF study says: "This study gathered information on the whole family's day to day experiences. This has the potential to lead to interventions that are based on identifying, encouraging and developing the family's own positive resources to help improve the health of its members - through the acquisition of healthy lifestyle."
These findings have major implications for population health. Eating too much sugar is linked to a long list of negative health effects, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity and tooth decay.
Recently, a committee of scientists has advised the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments that no more than 5 per cent of daily calories should come from added sugar (about seven teaspoons). This is far less than the current average intake of sugar worldwide.
Professor Wagner Marcenes concludes: "Public health needs to move beyond the naïve belief that health education based on risk awareness raising programmes alone will lead to behavioural change across the population. If this were the case, doctors and nurses would not smoke, drink above the limit and eat sweets.
"It is crucial to understand why we crave for sugar and to identify factors that help people to deal with sugar craving. We need to focus on the wider determinants of health behaviour and lifestyle, such as socio-psychological factors."
The next step in this research programme is to develop a simple and cost-effective intervention to improve family functioning.
INFORMATION:
For more information contact:
Professor Wagner Marcenes is on holiday but will be able to take phone calls and interview requests. You can contact him directly on w.marcenes@qmul.ac.uk or 07515 666 058.
Notes to the editor
About Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is one of the UK's leading universities, and one of the largest institutions in the University of London, with 20,260 students from more than 150 countries.
A member of the Russell Group, we work across the humanities and social sciences, medicine and dentistry, and science and engineering, with inspirational teaching directly informed by our research - in the most recent national assessment of the quality of research, we were placed ninth in the UK (REF 2014).
We also offer something no other university can: a stunning self-contained residential campus in London's East End. As well as our home at Mile End, we have campuses at Whitechapel, Charterhouse Square and West Smithfield dedicated to the study of medicine, and a base for legal studies at Lincoln's Inn Fields.
We have a rich history in London with roots in Europe's first public hospital, St Barts; England's first medical school, The London; one of the first colleges to provide higher education to women, Westfield College; and the Victorian philanthropic project, the People's Palace based at Mile End.
QMUL has an annual turnover of £350m, a research income worth £100m, and generates employment and output worth £700m to the UK economy each year.
While the benefits of cooperation in human society are clear, new research from The University of Nottingham suggests it also has a dark side - one that encourages corrupt behaviour.
"Collaborative settings, not just greed, can provide fertile ground for corruption, as typified by recent scandals in the football and banking worlds. But while much is known about individual immoral behaviour, little is known about the collaborative roots of corruption," explains lead author Dr Ori Weisel from the School of Economics at the University.
The study, The Collaborative Roots ...
ORANGE, Calif. - Researchers in Chapman University's Food Science Program have just published two separate studies on meat mislabeling in consumer commercial products. One study focused on identification of species found in ground meat products, and the other focused on game meat species labeling. Both studies examined products sold in the U.S. commercial market; and both study outcomes identified species mislabeling among the product samples.
In the study on identification of species found in ground meat products, 48 samples were analyzed and 10 were found to be mislabeled. ...
Los Angeles, CA (August 21, 2015) With the globalization of biomedical research and growing concerns about possible pandemics of diseases such as HIV, SARS, and Ebola, international data-sharing practices are of growing interest to the biomedical science community. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of sharing data in low and middle-income settings? What challenges stand in the way for researchers in countries such as India, Kenya, and Vietnam? A new special issue of SAGE's Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (JERHRE) presents guidelines, protocols, ...
Birds 'shout' to be heard over the noise produced by man-made activity, new research has shown.
The innovative study, led by an expert from the University of Exeter, looked at how bluebirds altered their songs in response to increases in nearby background noise caused, in many cases, by human activities such as traffic.
It found that the birds altered their songs immediately after noise levels intensified, making 'real-time' adjustments in order to produce songs that are both louder and lower-pitched. The results suggest that birds are able to perceive increases in ...
Chestnut Hill, MA (Aug. 21, 2015) - A fresh look at some old rocks has solved a crucial mystery of the last Ice Age, yielding an important new finding that connects to the global retreat of glaciers caused by climate change today, according to a new study by a team of climate scientists.
For decades, researchers examining the glacial meltdown that ended 11,000 years ago took into account a number of contributing factors, particularly regional influences such as solar radiation, ice sheets and ocean currents.
But a reexamination of more than 1,000 previously studied ...
CHICAGO -- Each year, 311 -- New York City's main hub for government information and non-emergency services -- receives millions of requests and complaints, including New Yorkers' gripes about their neighbors.
In a new study from New York University (NYU) using 311 complaint data, researchers tracked when and where New Yorkers complain about their neighbors making noise, blocking driveways, or drinking in public. They found that these complaints -- a defining aspect of urban life -- are more likely to occur in areas sandwiched between two homogenous communities, where ...
A former adviser to the US Secretary of State says that genetic modification (GM) is the most critical technology in agriculture for meeting the challenges of feeding a growing global population, writing in the open access journal Agriculture & Food Security.
Nina Fedoroff, molecular biologist and former Science and Technology Adviser to Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, warns of the detrimental influence of politics and misinformation on the safety of GM crops. Instead, Fedoroff says that: "GM crops are arguably the safest new crops ever introduced into the human ...
The fact that the greatest diversity of large mammals is found in Africa reflects past human activities - and not climatic or other environmental constraints. This is determined in a new study, which presents what the world map of mammals would look like if modern man (Homo sapiens) had never existed.
In a world without humans, most of northern Europe would probably now be home to not only wolves, Eurasian elk (moose) and bears, but also animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses.
This is demonstrated in a new study conducted by researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark. ...
In a new study published today in the Journal of Health Psychology, researchers from the University of Surrey have found dieters who eat 'on the go' may increase their food intake later in the day which could lead to weight gain and obesity. The findings from the study also showed that eating while walking around triggered more overeating compared to eating during other forms of distraction such as watching TV or having a conversation with a friend.
The team examined 60 females who were either dieters or non-dieters and gave them all a cereal bar to eat under three different ...
A "substantial" proportion of NHS hospital staff--around one in eight, in some places--treat the victims of people trafficking, with maternity services most likely to do so, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open.
Although understanding of the sorts of health problems trafficked patients are likely to have, is generally high, few NHS staff feel adequately prepared to respond appropriately, the findings suggest.
International law requires that the UK provides victims of human trafficking with whatever medical treatment they require, which includes psychological ...
