Welcome  to  public  health  moment from  the  University  of  Minnesota. When  parents  make  comments  or tease  their  children  about  their  weight, it  may  lead  their  children  to engage  in  disordered  eating, such  as  binge  eating  and extreme  weight  control  behaviors. That's  according  to  research involving  365  adolescent  girls. The  study  was  led  by  University  of  Minnesota professor  Diane  Newmark  Steiner. We  found  in  our  study, nearly  half  of  the  mothers  encouraged  the  girls  to  diet. And  about  60%  of  the  girls  reported that  there  was  some  type  of weight  teasing  going  on  in  the  home. Newmark  Steiner  provides  advice  to  parents. She  emphasized  that  the  research  findings should  not  be  used  to  blame  them. Now,  many  of  the  weight  comments  made  by  parents  were  no doubt  done  because  parents  wanted to  help  their  girls  to  have  a  healthy  weight. Parents  need  to  find  other  ways  to  help  their  children. The  advice  based  on  our  study  is to  resist  the  temptation  to  talk  about  weight. Rather,  we  need  to  find  ways to  help  our  children  make  healthy  eating and  physical  activity  behaviors by  making  it  easier  to  engage  in  those  behaviors  at  home. By  talking  about  the  implementation  of behaviors  that  can  be  continued  over  a  long  time. And  really  staying  away  from short  term  dieting  for  public  health  moment. I'm  Mark  Anger  Breton.