The high parental stress experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted children’s eating habits, says a study conducted by University of Houston College of Education and published in Current Psychology (October). When stay-at-home mandates were ordered and school went online during the pandemic, millions of parents had to suddenly discharge the roles of caregiver, employee and educator. Leslie Frankel, associate professor of human development and family studies at University of Houston College of Education, says all these responsibilities took a toll on “parents’ mental health, and in turn, what and how much their children were consuming”. 

“These parents do not have the time, energy or emotional capacity to engage in optimal feeding behaviors, so they resort to maladaptive feeding such as using food as reward, or pressuring their kids to eat. As a result, their children are not able to self-regulate what or how much food they are putting into their bodies, which could have harmful consequences in the long run,” says lead researcher Frankel.

For the study surveying how parental stress negatively impacts children’s eating habits, researchers surveyed 119 mothers and fathers of children aged two-seven between April and June 2020. Mothers reported experiencing higher levels of stress and anxiety.

Less sleep in infants linked with obesity

New born infants who sleep longer and wake up less through the night are less likely to be overweight in infancy, according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital.

For the study published in the journal Sleep (October 2021), researchers monitored the sleep patterns of 298 infants using ankle actigraphy watches while parents kept sleep diaries, recording their children’s sleep and wake episodes. They found that just one additional hour of sleep correlated with a 26 percent decrease in infants’ risk of being overweight.

“This study underscores the importance of healthy sleep at all ages. Parents should consult their pediatricians about best practices to promote healthy sleep, like keeping consistent sleep schedules, providing a dark and quiet space for sleeping, and avoiding having feeding bottles in bed,” says study co-author Susan Redline, senior physician in the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Also read: Preventing childhood obesity

Breastfeeding improves women’s postmenopausal cognitive power

Researchers at UCLA Health, Los Angeles, have found that women aged 50-plus who had earlier breastfed their children performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed. The study, published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health (October 2021), confirms that breastfeeding has a positive impact on postmenopausal women’s cognitive capabilities with long-term benefits for brain health.

“While several studies have found that breastfeeding improves a child’s long-term health and well-being, our study is one of very few that has looked at the long-term health effects of women who had breastfed their babies. Our findings, which show superior cognitive performance among women over 50 who had breastfed, suggest that breastfeeding may be ‘neuroprotective’ later in life,” says Molly Fox, lead author of the study and assistant professor, UCLA.

Parenting clinics in Kerala

Following positive response to its pilot parenting clinics conducted in association with Unicef, the Women and Child Development (WCD) ministry of the Kerala state government has announced establishment of parenting clinics across the state, providing counselling services. The pilot parenting clinics were conducted at Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) offices weekly since early February by psychosocial counsellors, and benefitted over 8,000 parents and children. The clinics provide support to parents and adolescents living in unhappy family environments, besides providing career guidance to children.

“The idea is to hold at least one monthly outreach, parenting clinic session in every panchayat. The services of psychiatrists, psychologists, nutritionists etc will be made available to parents and children at these sessions,” says Premjith P, Unicef consultant for child protection.