If there aren't already enough reasons to watch what your child eats, it seems that there may be another good reason - your child's intelligence. A recent study published in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that there is a link between early onset morbid obesity and lower IQ scores as well as cognitive delays.

Young age morbid obesity was defined for the purpose of the study as those weighing at least 150% of ideal body weight before the age of 4.

Study authors from the University of Florida suggest that metabolic disturbances caused by obesity may damage the growing brain. When morbidly obese children were compared with normal-weight siblings, IQ scores were an average of twenty-eight points lower. More study is needed to determine whether this obesity complication is reversible.

There is growing evidence that parents are very important in shaping a child's eating behaviors. But do overweight parents of overweight children encourage their offspring to eat more than parents of normal weight do?

A recent study performed at the University of Michigan and reported in the September 2006 issue of The Journal of Pediatrics examined this question by documenting children's responses to parental prompting to eat.

In the study, 71 mother/child teams were given four foods for the child to sample. Two of the foods, a bag of potato chips and a Twinkie, were familiar foods to the child. Two others, a bag of vegetable chips and a Chinese cake, were not familiar.

Researchers counted the number of times that mothers prompted their child to take another bite - whether the prompt was verbal or non-verbal. They found that obese mothers did not prompt their children more frequently than mothers of normal weight. But those children whose mothers were obese responded to parental prompting more often than did children of normal weight parents.

While the reason that children of overweight mothers were more responsive to prompting to eat food remains unknown, the researchers speculated that it might be because the children may have inherited genes that make them more responsive to environmental cues to eat. If research bears this out, obese parents should be more careful about environmental cues, such as junk food advertising - or their own encouragement for their child to eat.

A British researcher believes that the epidemic levels of childhood obesity may be linked to children not getting enough sleep. Dr. Shahrad Taheri of the University of Bristol says "the increasing availability of computers, mobile phones, TV's and other gadgets on the diminishing nightly quota of sleep, and suggests they should be banned from children's bedrooms."

Dr. Taheri's research shows lack of sleep can upset a child's normal metabolism, which may lead to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and also disturbs other hormones, including cortisol and growth hormones. Read more from consumeraffairs.com.

The NFL recently launched a camp gain, "What Moves U", aimed to get kids moving by incorporating classroom academics with exercise. The campaign was created with help from the American Heart Association in response to the decline of physical education in schools and the rise of childhood obesity.

"New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning dropped by a Manhattan public school this week where he showed eighth-graders how to add some exercise to their math class. He had them perform squats, then count their own heart rates for 15 seconds and multiply by four to calculate their heartbeats per minute."

"What Moves U" includes several key elements: an in-school activity kit created for teachers, in-school promotional materials, an interactive fitness website for children. Read more online or visit www.whatmovesu.com.

If you've ever noticed that you stay full longer with the addition of a hard-boiled egg or some low-fat yogurt at mealtime, this may be because protein boosts the level of a "satiety hormone" known as peptide YY (PYY).

Researchers have found in the past that both obese and normal-weight people given injections of PYY reduce their intake of food significantly. Now a new report in the journal Cell Metabolism suggests that protein has this effect on the appetite because it stimulates the body's own production of PYY, leaving people feeling full for a longer time after eating.

Current Western diets are comprised of about 49% of calories consumed from carbohydrates, 35% from fat, and 16% from protein. Some scientists contend that people in earlier civilizations ate as much as twice this amount of protein.

More study is needed before there will be any recommendation for increased protein in our diets. And even a higher amount is recommended, it will not include proteins that are high in saturated fat.

What does a Big Mac have to do with obesity? It may not be what you're thinking. McDonald's USA, LLC, one of the world's most well-known brands of quick-service food retailers, has teamed up with Scripps Research Institute to find solutions for pediatric health issues such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.

The Scripps Research Institute is a non-profit biomedical research organization headquartered in La Jolla, California. The McDonald's-Scripps collaboration is one of several recent initiatives by McDonald's corporation to promote children's health and wellness.

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Your child may suffer long-term effects of a high-fat, high calorie diet consumed during your pregnancy. At least this is what scientists are finding is the case for the offspring of Japanese macaque monkeys - a primate that is often used for research because body function and disease processes are similar to that of humans.

Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) recently found that offspring of mothers who overeat during pregnancy are at risk for liver and pancreas damage, both of which organs are involved in early-onset obesity and diabetes. What is more, there were changes in the hypothalamus in some of the offspring, an area of the brain that controls weight regulation.

This type of research contributes to the growing evidence that maternal diet is connected to a child's potential for obesity.

Seaweed for lunch anyone? Japanese chemists have recently learned that chemicals found in brown seaweed (but not present in large amount in green and red seaweed) may help to fight fat, particularly in the abdomen.

The chemical compound, called fucoxanthin, is a brownish pigment that gives brown seaweed color and helps to convert light to energy within the plant. It is used as flavoring in Asian soups and salads.

But don't run right out and fill your shopping cart with seaweed yet. Studies are in the very early stages - and being done on mice, not humans. Even if human studies support the theory that fucoxanthin is a fat-busting chemical, you'd have to eat huge quantities of seaweed to lose significant amounts of fat.

The hope is that eventually fucoxanthin will be developed into an anti-obesity pill.

Whether you're a kid or an adult, the excuse of "no time to exercise" is a common one. But a recent study published in The Journal of Physiology, suggests that short bursts of intense exercise (six 30-second bursts of exercise separated by 4 minutes of recovery) had the same impact on muscle health as did a one-hour session of moderate activity (such as moderate-intensity cycling or walking).

The subjects of the study were college-aged students. One group performed the "bursts" of intense exercise each day over a two-week period of time, while the second group performed 90-120 minutes of moderate daily exercise. At the end of the two weeks, the first group had exercised only 2.5 hours, while the second had performed 10.5 hours of total exercise. Yet both groups showed similar improvement in exercise performance and muscle health.

Although the quick method of exercise is time efficient, it is also very difficult and demanding.

Forbes.com published a British report that found that exercise alone isn't enough to help children from becoming overweight or obese. While physical activity is very important to help ward off childhood obesity, experts say a combination of diet and exercise is the only solution to the obesity epidemic.

"'Promotion of physically active play per se may not be sufficient to have an impact on the weight status of young children,' said lead researcher Dr. John J. Reilly, a professor of pediatric energy metabolism at the University of Glasgow, Scotland."

The study found that while the increased amount of activity helped children improve their motor skills, they didn't lose any weight. In addition, experts feel that while the study didn't fail, it did stress the importance of finding a way to prevent childhood obesity.