When it comes to teenagers, many parents use ‘controlling feeding practices', such as making them finish everything on their plate. However, these practices do not benefit the young person in the long run, a new study has shown.

US scientists decided to investigate how parents deal with their teenagers' mealtimes, specifically in relation to two practices - pressure to eat and food restriction. They monitored over 2,200 teenagers with an average age of 14, along with their parents.

The study found that ‘the use of food-related parenting practices was common among adolescents'.

When it came to restricting what teenagers can eat, parents were, not surprisingly, more likely to do this if the teens were overweight or obese.

Meanwhile pressurising teenagers to eat - for example, making them finish everything on their plate - was much more common among those who were not overweight.

The scientists found that fathers were more likely than mothers to pressurise teenagers to eat, while boys were more likely to be pressurised by their parents than girls.

Food restriction did not appear to be affected by gender.

The scientists said that practices such as making young people finish everything on their plate does not actually help them because they lose ‘the ability to self-regulate energy intake'.

"In the 1950s, cleaning your plate meant something different. Portion sizes have gotten bigger over time and if you encourage kids to rely on environmental indicators, like how much food is on their plates or the time of day, they'll lose the ability to rely on internal cues to know whether they're hungry or full," they explained.

They said that parents should be ‘educated and empowered' to encourage moderation rather than over-consumption and healthy food choices should be promoted ‘rather than restrictive eating patterns'.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Pediatrics.