Are you an authoritative¹ parent? A new study has found that harsh parenting may increase a child's risk of obesity² and poor physical health in adulthood³.

你是独断专权的父母吗？一项新的调查发现，严厉的教养可能会增加孩子成年后患有肥胖症的风险，他们的身体健康状况也会很差。

According to researchers, attempts by one parent to counterbalance the harsh behaviour are not always effective in lessening⁴ that risk.

根据研究人员透露，父母中的一人试图努力平衡另一人严厉的行为是不会有效降低这种风险的。

"Harshness leads to problems with physical health and no matter how hard a spouse⁵ tries, they may not be able to erase⁶ those effects," said lead study author Thomas Schofield from Iowa State University in the US.

“父母的严厉态度导致了孩子健康状况的下降。不管另一方如何努力平衡，这种不良影响也不会消除的，”美国爱荷华州立大学这项研究的带头人托马斯·斯科菲尔德说道。

"Instead of saying, 'I'm the law and my wife is the gospel' or something like that, better to acknowledge that in terms of harshness, your spouse is not going to be a buffer⁷ for the child, so behave responsibly," Schofield added in the paper, published in Social Science and Medicine.

斯科菲尔德在《社会科学与医学》杂志上发文补充说道：“不要总是说'我扮演严父，我妻子是慈母'这样的话了，你更应该多去了解严厉给孩子造成的不良影响，你的另一半再怎么样也不能为孩子起到缓冲作用，所以要为自己的行为负责，”

Researchers videotaped the interactions of 451 two-parent families to assess parenting behaviour and look at changes in the child's health several years later from adolescence⁸ to young adulthood.

研究者共录下了451个双亲家庭的亲子互动来评估父母的行为，并且以此判断孩子从青春期到成年的身体健康方面产生的变化。

The results indicated that the differences in physical health and BMI were not evident at the beginning of adolescence. The effects persisted into young adulthood after many had moved out of their parents' homes.

调查结果显示，孩子的身体健康和身体质量指数的差异在青春期初期并不明显。这些影响会在他们成年离开父母后显现出来。

"The best thing we can do is to encourage parents to not be harsh. If we want to make sure we're protecting children's health and positive physical health into young adulthood, the best and safest conclusion is to avoid being harsh," Schofield advised.

斯科菲尔德对此建议道：“我们能做到的就是鼓励父母不要太过严厉。如果想确保我们是在保护孩子以及成年后的身体健康的话，那么最好、最安全的结论就是避免成为严父严母。”