Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

Researchers have revealed that the content of online videogames can influence a child's food choices -- for better or for worse.

• Researchers with Georgetown University asked nine-years-olds to play one of two different versions of a videogame.
  
• In one version, the idea was to make a character eat less nutritious foods, such as potato chips, soda, candy and chocolate chip cookies.
  
• The second version rewarded the children with points if their characters ate healthy foods like fruits and vegetables.

"Within only 10 minutes of exposure to the videogames, our results revealed that children selected whatever snacks were being marketed by the games, whether they were healthy or not," the researchers reported in a July 14 ScienceDaily article.

The Georgetown study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Labels: nutrition, advertising, video_games

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Parents are more likely to understand their doctor's advice about their children's weights when the doctors use color-coded charts, according to a study from the University of North Carolina.

Dr. Eliana Perrin tested 163 parents as to their understanding of body mass index. If their doctors use color-coded BMI charts, parents were more likely to understand their children's weight problems. In these charts, for example, green indicated a healthy BMI, yellow was risky, and red was unhealthy.

"The study shows the importance of simplified communication," Dr. Perrin said in a Sept. 16 article on the medical news website ScienceDaily. "It's important that all parents understand what their doctors are telling them. They don't want a complicated chart."

Labels: parenting, bmi

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

A report released by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council urges state and local governments to tax junk food and soft drinks as part of a comprehensive effort to combat childhood obesity. The report also suggests tax breaks for grocery stores that open in poor or blighted neighborhoods.

A Sept. 1 article by Reuters Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox provided the following details:

The report ... also suggests that governments limit television and video games in after-school programs, require restaurants to list calorie counts on their menus and open school playgrounds and athletic fields to communities.

"Childhood obesity poses a serious threat to health in the United States," it reads. The problem cannot be solved by the federal government and communities need to act, it adds.

"This is not a report that says 'this is what every community should do.' This is a menu of options," Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, who chaired the panel that wrote the report, said in a telephone interview.

Labels: childhood_obesity, prevention

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Sweetened sodas may be harmful to the health of American children and should be restricted, according to President Barack Obama, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

President Obama told a reporter from the magazine Men's Health that he could support a tax on sodas as a means of lowering the high rates of United States obesity.

There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda, he said, though he added that there would be political resistance to such a tax.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is urging school administrators to remove all soft drinks from school vending machines and to replace them with milk, 100 percent fruit juice or water.

Pediatricians worry not only about the high sugar content of sodas, but also about the levels of caffeine children consume. The sugar and acids in the drinks can damage children's tooth enamel.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has suggested that adults consume no more than 18 teaspoons of sugar at a day. The American Heart Association suggests even lower maximum amounts: five to six teaspoons a day for women, and six to nine teaspoons for men.

One 12-ounce soda contains about 10 teaspoons of sugar. Children who drink more than one serving a day increase their risk of becoming overweight by 60 percent.

Labels: sodas, causes of childhood obesity

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Educating students and helping them eat healthy aren't the only benefits of having a school garden. Pumpkins from Buckfield (Maine) High School's garden will be decorated and auctioned off to benefit a local family whose mother has cancer.

Sun Journal staff writer Eileen M. Adams reported on the innovative effort:

The idea for the garden began when [math teacher Annette] Caldwell and seventh-grade language arts teacher, Gretchen Kimball, discussed how to bring fresher food to the school's lunch program, and the childhood obesity problem, with the health coordinator. From there, middle school youngsters designed, researched, planted and harvested the garden.

Since it was started in May, the one-acre of plantings has supplied vegetables for people to buy and students and staff to eat in the cafeteria. ...

About 80 of the 320 pumpkins from the plot next to the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School are being used as canvases to paint aliens, rock stars, funny faces, kittens and other creatures by Nikki Millonzi's Art II students at the school. Then, on Oct. 2, when the garden project organizers are serving a harvest supper, the pumpkins will be auctioned and the proceeds given to the family.

Everyone needs a little help. This is a way to give back to the community and show that we care for them, said Hailey Severy, an 11th grade art student and Buckfield resident.

Labels: education, community, outreach, garden

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

According to a Sept. 20 article by Democrat and Chronicle Stephanie Veale, parents of some New York schoolchildren may want to start packing both lunches and snacks for their kids:

As part of a nutrition audit released last week, the Comptrollers Office assessed the contents of 186 vending machines in 20 school districts statewide.

Three local districts  Gates Chili, Webster and Le Roy  were highlighted, and auditors found that many snacks available in these and other districts had higher-than-recommended levels of sugar and fat.

These snacks, auditors said, may lure children away from nutritious school lunches.

Snacks found in school vending machines included mint-flavored milk, iced animal cookies and caramel cookie candy bars, Veale reported. Some school officials said they felt the audit was unfair, as it used nutrition standards that have not yet been adopted by the state or the school districts in question.

Labels: schools, cafeterias

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Characters from the classic childrens book Where the Wild Things Are are getting involved in the fight against childhood obesity. The Department of Health and Human Services is working with Warner Brothers to develop public service announcements.

"The campaign aims to highlight the health benefits of exercise and physical activities, while encouraging children to begin having their own 'Wild Rumpus,' just like the main character Max in Maurice Sendaks book. Each ad ends with a call to action by asking 'The Wild is out there; did you play today?'" (Source: RedOrbit)

The ads will also include a new website address: www.smallstep.gov, where parents can find playtime ideas and information on physical activity and healthy eating.

Labels: prevention, advertising

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

About two dozen new books aimed at teenagers feature characters that are overweight. Many of these stories do not end with the characters losing weight, but rather they find success and acceptance just the way they are.

The following are three examples of this emerging sub-genre:

• In All about Vee, a young woman who weighs over 200 pounds goes to Hollywood to become an actress, competing with starlets who wear size zero.
  
• In Food, Girls and Other Things I Can't Have, a 300-pound high school sophomore gives up his dream of becoming an athlete.
  
• In Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies, a plus-sized eighth grader enters a beauty contest.

Erin Dionne, the author of Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies says that she receives five or six letters a week from readers who identify with her character.

Average-looking kids who don't have a weight problem can hide their issues behind a façade that is normal, Dionne said in an Aug. 30 Salisbury Post article. However, an overweight heroine is already dealing with other people's perception of her, whether that is the focus of the book or not.

Labels: overweight, books, acceptance

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Monkeys who occupy subordinate places within their social groups are more likely to develop abdominal fat, according to a new study from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Professor Carol Snively believes that humans under social stress could develop similar problems.

In her study, subordinate monkeys were not included in group grooming sessions and were subject to more aggression. This social stress led to the development of abdominal fat.

Much of the excess fat in many people who are overweight is located in the abdomen, and that fat behaves differently than fat in other locations. If there is too much, it can have far more harmful effects on health that fat located in other areas, she wrote.

Prof. Snively's study appeared in the journal Obesity.

Labels: causes of childhood obesity, stress

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

During a visit to Rochester, N.Y., U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand discussed ways of improving childhood nutrition on a local level.

Rochester's Democrat and Chronicle reported that Gillibrand's comments focused on the financial aspects of fighting childhood obesity:

The current federal reimbursement rate to local schools has not kept pace with inflation or the increased costs of providing quality meals. Gillibrand proposes increasing the current reimbursement rate by 70 cents in the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill  from $2.57 per meal to $3.27 per meal.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity rates in children ages six to 11 have more than doubled in the last 30 years. The rate has more than tripled among 12- to 19-year-olds.

Labels: causes of childhood obesity, prevention

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Overweight children do not necessarily have high cholesterol levels, according to new research from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Joyce Lee and Dr. Matthew Davis used national data on thousands of children to find out if body mass was related to cholesterol levels. They found that if doctors screen all overweight or obese children, they would identify about half of those with abnormal cholesterol, but they would also unnecessarily test 30 percent of the children.

In July 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised pediatricians to screen all overweight children.

"Our results indicate that the AAP guidelines for cholesterol screenings in kids may need to be revised," said Dr. Lee. "Otherwise we may be missing high cholesterol in some kids and unnecessarily testing others."

The study appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Labels: overweight, research, cholesterol

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

South Carolinas Education Department head is teaming up with Subway in a campaign to combat childhood obesity.

According to a Sept. 8 Associated Press article, Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and longtime Subway spokesman Jared Fogle will be participating in a video conference call to mark the kickoff of a month-long anti-obesity video and poster competition.

Students will be asked to create videos and posters that creatively communicate the ways they stay healthy and fit. Jared is expected to visit South Carolina in October to announce the winners, who will receive fitness grants for their schools and cash cards to use at all Subway locations.

Labels: prevention, awareness

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Several recent studies have indicated that overweight people tend to have overweight friends. Now a new report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that overweight friends may actually encourage one another to overeat.

• Researchers at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine enrolled 23 overweight and 42 normal weight children ages nine to 15 years old in their study.
• The children could select a friend that they knew or an unfamiliar person of a similar age as their partner.
• Then they went in a room with games, puzzles and bowls of snacks.
• They could choose healthy snacks, such as carrots and grapes, or junk foods such as potato chips and cookies.
• Children who were paired with friends tended to eat more.
• Overweight children paired with either overweight friends or strangers ate more than overweight children paired with normal weight children

"Being in the company of overweight peers may give them permission to eat more or may decrease their inhibitions, increasing what are seen as the norms of appropriate eating or how much one should eat," said Professor Sarah Salvy. "These results are important, considering the role of friends as agents of change in childhood and adolescence."

Labels: research, overeating

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Researchers in Australia are urging doctors in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to rethink their strategies to combat childhood obesity. They say programs that emphasize better eating and increased exercise dont work.

According to a Sept. 4 HealthDay News article, the Australian researchers reported that "brief, physician-led intervention produced no long-term improvement in body mass index, physical activity or nutrition habits

The statement comes in the wake of a study conducted in Australia which tracked the effects three months of counseling had on children who were obese or overweight. Of the 139 who received counseling related to eating habits and exercise, none made significant improvements in diet or physical activity.

"The global long-term physical, emotional, social, reproductive and economic consequences of childhood obesity are likely to be extremely serious," the study's authors wrote. "However, very little evidence exists to show this kind of intervention works."

Labels: childhood_obesity, prevention

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Parents who encourage their children to play team sports or otherwise exercise vigorously are influencing their children to spend less time in front of television and computer screens, according to a new study from Baylor College of Medicine and Duke University.

Researchers led by Dr. Cheryl Anderson studied 681 parents of 430 children in grades three to five in Houston, Texas. If parents encouraged their children to participate in vigorous team sports such as soccer, and hard exercise, such as bicycling, swimming or heavy household chores, their children tended to be more active than children who had no such encouragement.

Dr. Anderson's study revealed some gender bias, as parents tended to encourage their sons to participate in sports and strenuous activities more often than their daughters. Boys were more likely to perform heavy outdoor chores such as yard work.

Along with healthy diet, regular exercise is one of the most important factors in the fight against rising rates of obesity among young people.

Labels: parenting, activity

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

The number of adults under age 30 in Great Britain who were admitted to hospitals because of obesity-related causes increased by 340 percent in the past five years. More than 800 children admitted to hospitals because of their weight since 2004.

"This absolutely horrendous rise shows what happens as yesterday's adolescents bring their bad habits -- junk food, lack of exercise, binge drinking -- into adulthood," said Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum.

Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat health spokesperson called the statistics "utterly shocking" and expressed concern about medical costs.

"The pattern among young people is particularly alarming," he said, "because of what it shows about the problems ahead, not just for the individuals involved, but for the National Health Service, which will be bankrupted because of obesity, unless there is drastic action."

The quotes and other information in this post originally appeared in an Aug. 22 article by Laura Donnelly of the British newspaper The Telegraph.

Labels: health problems, overweight children, hospitals

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

If parents think their neighborhood is unsafe, they keep their children indoors more often. This sedentary lifestyle puts their children at risk for gaining too much weight, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

• Dr. Andrew Grogan-Kaylor reached this conclusion after analyzing data on 5,886 children ages five to 20 years old from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth.
• Dr. Grogan-Kaylor found that if a mother rated her neighborhood as unsafe, her children were more likely to watch more television.
• He also found that 17 percent of the children living in unsafe neighborhoods were overweight, compared to 14 percent of children living in safe areas.

This study appeared in the journal Health and Social Work.

Labels: safety, sedentary

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments