Families that play together stay healthy together. That is what the results of a recent study found, Fox News reports. Researchers found that children who have poor emotional relationships with their mothers are more than twice as likely to become obese as those who have positive maternal relationships.
The study found that the lower the quality of the relationship between mother and child during the child's toddler years, the higher his or her risk of becoming obese by age 15, the news source reports.
Researchers from Ohio State College of Public Health, Columbus and Temple University examined the mother-child relationships of 977 kids born in 1991, measuring how the mothers interacted with the children at various points. The study focused on the child's emotional attachment and his or her feelings of
safety within the families. The less emotionally secure a child felt, the more likely he or she was to struggle with obesity in adolescence, the New York Daily News reports.
Although there are a number of factors that go into these relationships,
outdoor play as a family may have an important role. Families who engage in
natural play or other forms of exercise together are not only more likely to stay physically fit, they have more time to bond and strengthen their emotional relationships - warding off obesity in two ways.