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

New devices are available to help children lose weight, and are now being used in scientific studies of childhood obesity.

The mandometer is a computerized scale that shows a child how fast he is eating and at the same time, provides him with an ideal rate of eating. The computer tells him when to slow down.

• Researchers at a children's hospital in Bristol, Great Britain, asked 106 obese children ages 9 to 17 years old to follow a diet and exercise program.
  
• Half of them were given mandometers.
  
• After a year, the children who use the device had lost more weight and were maintaining a slower speed of eating.
  
• The study appears in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Having children wear body sensors provides a more accurate measure of their activity levels. These devices even "ping" if a child is too inactive.

• A study involving 1,892 British children using body sensors found that parents were overestimating their children's activity levels.
  
• Accurate measures from body sensors found that 39 percent of the girls and 18 percent of the boys were inactive, even though 80 percent of their parents mistakenly believed their children were getting enough exercise.

Finally, researchers at Pennington Biological Research Center in Louisiana had participants in an ongoing study use Blackberry Curves to take pictures of their food and leftovers. These study participants are also using body sensors to measure their activity levels.

These devices may even become more accurate and easier to use in the future. A University of Pittsburgh engineer, Mingui Sun, has invented a necklace with a video camera that to take pictures of food on your plate.

Labels: weight_loss

Posted By: Aspen/CRC