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苛的父母会导致孩子成年后患有肥胖症和身体素质偏低。

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

根据研究者消息，父母中一人用温和态度来努力平衡另一人的严苛是不会有效降低肥胖者的风险的。

"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."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.

“父母的严苛态度导致孩子健康状况的下降，不管另一方如何努力温和平衡，严苛态度导致的不良影响也不能消除，”美国爱荷华州立大学这项研究的领导者Thomas Schofield说道。“不要总是说‘我扮演严父，我妻子是慈母’这样的话了，你应该更多地了解严苛给孩子造成的不良影响，你的另一半再扮演活菩萨也不能起到缓冲作用，所以要为自己的行为负责，” Schofield在《社会科学与医学》杂志上发文说道。

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.

研究者收录了451个双亲家庭的亲子互动来考察父母行为，来判断给孩子从青春期到成年的身体健康方面产生的变化。

However, when they measured the effect on body mass index, the health risk of harsh parenting increased as warmth from the other parent increased.

然而调查结果，从他们的身体质量指数显示，严苛父母孩子的健康风险随着父母另一方施加的温情而增高。

No parent in this sample was observed hitting their adolescent, but Schofield said there were other signs of physical aggression⁹, such as pinching and pushing.

这些父母中无一人殴打过自己青少年期的孩子，但是Schofield 说父母有其他方面对孩子进行身体侵害的行为，例如掐或者推搡。

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. This exposure can have a lasting¹⁰ effect on the developing brain during childhood and early adolescence, he added.

调查结果显示孩子在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。这些忍受会在他们童年大脑发育期和青春期前期产生深远影响。

"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.

“我们能做到的就是鼓励父母不要太过严苛。如果想确保我们是在保护孩子以及成年后的身体健康，那么最好的方法就是做个慈母慈父，” Schofield建议。