Parents, be careful while choosing between a double cheese burger and an apple, because it may define the diet quality of your kids!  A new study shows that, parents diet quality determine the eating habits of their kids. The researchers have found a strong link between diet quality of parents and kids.

Shannon Robson from University of Delaware in the US, said that, “Unfortunately people are not doing very well in terms of diet quality. Parents had better diet quality than kids, but only by a little bit.”

The research draws on data from a study that includes 698 parent-child duos to better understand obesity and related behaviors.

The study was conducted from 2007 to 2009. The kids were six to 12 years old and all lived in King County, San Diego County, Washington and California at the time of study.

The researchers looked at up to three random days of eating data for each twosome to get a sampling of dietary practice, including at least one weekday and one weekend day. Over 98 percent of participants reported three days of dietary data.

Parents had only slightly higher score on both measures of diet quality, the researchers found. The caloric intake was almost similar between parents and children, with children eating an average of 1,751 and parents 1,763 calories per day.

The findings were published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Also Read: To prevent obesity in young adults, fathers can help!

Nandini