PATERNAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDREN’SWEIGHT GAIN: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Childhood overweight and obesity rates have continued to rise globally, reaching epidemic proportions. Children’s dietary patterns evolve within the context of the family and there are a number of pathways through which parents may shape children’s dietary practices, including parent nutritional knowledge the types of foods that are made available to children, parental modeling of particular eating behaviors, and parent child-feeding practices. Most research examining these predictors has been undertaken with mothers as the primary caregivers, while fathers have received markedly less attention. This paper is a review of the literature on paternal influences on preschool children’s weight gain, overweight and obesity. The results of this review indicate that fathers do influence preschool children’s weight gain, overweight and obesity status. However, methodological limitations in the existing studies make direct and meaningful comparisons across studies difficult. The review further highlights the fact that fathers have been neglected in childhood obesity research.