Eating For Health

Look around and you will see so many kids who are overweight.   Often these kids also have parents who are overweight.   CDC reports that childhood obesity in the USA has become a very serious problem.   Being overweight puts adults and children at risk for poor health.   How many kids in the US are obese? For kids ages 2-19 years of age: 18.5% are obese which equates to 13.7 million obese kids in the USA 13.9 % of kids ages 2-5 are obese 18.4% of 6-11-year olds are obese And 1 out of 5 or 20.6% of 12-19-year olds are obese Moms (and Dads) play an important role in helping prevent obesity in their kids.   Medical Press has a good article discussing 5 healthy habits of Moms that can reduce obesity risk in their kids.   The article published by the journal BMJ discusses research about 17,000 female nurses and their 24,289 kids and looked at five healthy habits of the moms.   These 5 healthy habits lowered their kids risk of being ove...

We all know that most of us eat too many foods high in added sugar.   But then we hear “All things in moderation” to justify our sugary snack fixes.   But what about kids, is added sugar harmful to kids?   Some new research indicates sugary drinks in preschoolers can lead to obesity.     When I was growing up, it seemed no one drank sugary drinks very often.   Once a week, my father would let us have a 7 ounce sugary soda (soda came in 7 ounce bottles back then).   The rest of the time we had milk with our meals and drank water if we were thirsty.   Now, many parents give their kids soda at meals instead of milk and sugary drinks like Sunny D and Capri Sun in place of 100% juice.   So what did the study find? Researchers found that 5 year olds who drank sugared drinks like sodas, sports-drinks and even juices high in added sugar every day were more likely to be obese than their peers who drank these sugary drinks less often. ...

I remember growing up and playing outside was an everyday thing.   All children played outside every day.   We couldn’t wait to get off the bus, change into play clothes and head outside.   Weekends were spent outdoors the entire day.   When my children were growing up they would spend hours outside playing with their friends in the neighborhood.    Today, it is mostly silent outside.   Luckily, some kids still get the pleasure and health benefits of playing outside every day.   Sadly, many children are kept inside, hour after hour, day after day.   One organization now says kids have a vitamin N deficiency.   Or a nature deficiency as they never get to play outside and enjoy nature.   These observations are not just borne out by looking around one’s neighborhood, they have also been confirmed in a recent study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (April 2, 2012).     The researchers studied ...

Introduction:   In the nutrition class I teach, students are asked to respond to some questions concerning childhood obesity.   One of those students, Sarah J. Miller, has been asked to be a guest author on this blog site.   The questions on childhood obesity and her responses are below. 1.  Do you think childhood obesity is a problem?  I believe that childhood obesity is a daunting problem that faces the U.S. today. It is a known fact that twice as many children are obese as they were thirty years ago. Our society has changed such as to encourage our children to stay inside and inactive, away from danger and firmly within the clutches of the mass media. A half an hour with Cartoon Network, Disney, or Nickelodeon will tell you that many of the advertisements being directed at our children today are for food products that are not in the least bit healthy.  And since more kids are staying inside with the television these days, advertisers are having an ...