Family can shape your eating habits

If you’re feeling hungry as you read this, blame your parents -- at least in part.

A growing number of studies find that real and perceived hunger appear to be passed down from generation to generation, just like hair color or height.

“Genes can really influence hunger,” says Simone Lemieux, an associate professor of nutrition and science at Laval University in Quebec City. “Some people are telling us that they are always hungry. They are right, because they have genes that are misleading them in the amount of food that they really need.”

At the University of Maryland, scientists studying Old Order Amish families have pinpointed two chromosomal regions that are linked to restrained eating and overeating in adults. At Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, researchers have studied twins and found a significant genetic link for overeating.

But before you use such findings as an excuse to let your appetite go wild, keep in mind that the latest findings suggest that genetic influences on eating behavior are bite-sized compared with environmental effects.

Scientists say there’s plenty of blame to go around, such as the easy availability of food and the growing tendency to engineer physical activity out of life.

“Even people who may not be genetically susceptible to overeating might overeat because of what Kelly Brownell [Yale University psychologist] calls the ‘toxic environment,’ ” says Suzanne Mazzeo, assistant professor of psychology and pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth.

At the top of the list of environmental influences on eating behavior is something you may never have considered: your family, particularly your parents.

New research suggests that how they taught you to eat and whether they trained you to use food as a reward or comfort are among the strongest shapers of lifelong eating habits.

Published in a recent issue of Obesity Research, the findings are drawn from a 30-year ongoing study of more than 200 Quebec families, whose children had already reached young adulthood when the most recent data were collected. The study used extensive questionnaires to examine three familiar eating behaviors: dietary restraint, overconsumption of food and susceptibility to feeling hungry.

The study found that family played a significant role in shaping eating habits, especially feeling hungry and the tendency to overeat in response to good and bad emotions.

The researchers conclude that the “development of eating behaviors during growth remains a critical determinant of eating behavioral traits during adult life.”

Based on the latest findings, here’s how you can overcome what nature and your family served you in childhood:

* Move beyond your genes. Even if you come from an overweight family that used any occasion to indulge in food, “you can change your environment,” says Mazzeo. Ask yourself, she says, “What are your coping mechanisms with food? What is your behavior like now?”

* Avoid food battles with your kids. The evidence is very clear that parents who overly restrict favorite foods “are more likely to have kids who overeat when you’re not around,” Mazzeo says. Provide a wide variety of food, then let your kids choose.

* Skip criticizing what your daughter eats. Research suggests that girls seem particularly susceptible to such parental criticism, especially from mothers. Studies suggest that telling girls not to eat because they’ll get fat or to restrict food are particularly damaging.

Sons don’t appear to be quite as vulnerable to food criticism. And there’s virtually no research that teases out a dad’s role in shaping his kids’ eating habits.

* Is your hunger real? “Knowing when you are really hungry can be difficult these days,” says Mazzeo. “We eat in front of the television. We eat in the car. We eat at our desks. We all do it. So it’s really important to take the time to ask, ‘Am I hungry right now? Am I really enjoying or even tasting what I am eating?’ ”