Contrary to what some might think, children of mothers who work outside the home tend to have healthier eating habits than those whose mothers are full-time homemakers, new study findings suggest.

These findings dispute the idea that obesity could somehow be linked to the breakdown of the family, including mothers who work outside the home and families who infrequently eat together -- an idea expressed by a prominent UK politician during a May 2004 BBC radio program. His comments were in response to a UK House of Commons Health Committee report on obesity.

"The stereotype of modern family life having a negative impact on children's diets may not necessarily be the case," study author Dr. Helen Sweeting of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, UK stated.

Previous studies on the topic have yielded inconsistent results, with some researchers finding that families with mothers who work outside the home tend to have less frequent family meals, and others finding that the mom's employment was not linked to adolescent meal patterns.

In the current study, Sweeting, and co-author P. West, analyzed surveys on health and lifestyle issues completed in the 1994-to-1995 school year by more than 2,000 students who were 11 years old and their parents.

Based on the survey responses, over half (56.8 percent) of the students were "less healthy eaters," meaning they consumed more fat, including cheese, chips and processed meats, than fiber, such as fruits and vegetables. About one third (32.3 percent) of the children were "unhealthy snackers," meaning they frequently consumed sweets or chocolate, crisps, fizzy drinks and other unhealthy foods.

However, less healthy eating and unhealthy snacking were not associated with whether children lived with one parent, both parents or within other family structures; or with less frequent or more frequent family meals, the researchers report in the April issue of the Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics.

Boys, children who lived in more deprived areas, and children of less educated mothers were more likely than their counterparts to have less healthy eating and more unhealthy snacking, the report indicates.

Having a mother who worked outside the home seemed to positively impact the children's eating habits, however. Mothers who worked part-time, and those who worked full-time outside the home were less likely to have children with less healthy eating habits than were mothers who worked as full-time homemakers, the researchers note.

When the researchers took socio-economic status into consideration, they found that children of mothers who worked full time outside the home were just as likely to be less healthy eaters as those whose moms were full-time homemakers. The mother's employment was not associated with children's snacking, however.

The findings imply that socio-economic status, as measured by the mother's educational level and the family's residence in a deprived area, "is much more important for children's dietary habits than aspects of family life, such as number of parents, family meals or maternal employment," Sweeting stated.

SOURCE: Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics, April 2005.