August 2011
Featured in this insight: Medical & healthcare, Public health & wellbeing, Conducting market research in Scotland
Survey finds children with working mums more prone to being fat: The Scottish government has conducted a survey which links mums spending long hours at work with their children being overweight.
The Millennium Cohort study, which looked at 13,800 families, suggests that the more time mothers spend at work, the fatter their children tend to become.
It found that the risk of becoming overweight grows with the number of hours mums spend at work. This, say analysts, poses a particular worry for kids from well-off households.
The report concluded: "An increasing number of hours of maternal employment per week was associated with an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity at age seven."
Experts involved in the study have said that part of the reason for this is that busy mums are prone to serving up more fattening ready-meals and fast food to save time.
They also stressed that there are other more significant factors which are affecting childhood obesity. These include birth weight as well as having parents who smoke or are overweight.
Currently in the UK, statistics show that 23% of seven-year-olds are overweight and a further 11% are obese.
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