Results tagged “childhood obesity” from Weight Loss & Nutrition News

by Charles Stuart Platkin,

I was in the supermarket the other day with my 4-year-old daughter. As we were walking down the dairy isle, she saw a yogurt with a cartoon character on the container, and she wanted it bad. No big deal, right? Yogurt is healthy. Well, this particular yogurt was filled with added sugar and loaded with calories. Raising nutritionally intelligent children is no easy task, but you have to start them young. How young? I reached out to a few experts to find out.

When do you start teaching your children about healthy foods?

"Nutrition begins with the parents. Some studies indicate that a child's taste starts to be established based on what a pregnant women eats," says Shari Barkin, professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University.

Weight loss surgery--more specifically referred to as bariatric surgery and gastric bypass surgery --has been the big buzz word in treating morbidly obese adults for several years now. But can it help--or would it harm--severely overweight teens?

Although one of these popular procedures, gastric banding -- or “lap banding,” as it is commonly known-- has been an accepted practice in controlling weight in obese adults since 2001, the Food and Drug Administration has been reluctant to approve it for the treatment of childhood obesity.

What's in the mystery meat shouldn't be the only thing school kids worry about when going to the cafeteria: a recent study showed that some cafeterias barely make the grade.

The study looked at high school cafeterias in 20 different jurisdictions across the nation. In some, researchers found roaches, rats and outdated safety codes.

The study was conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based non-profit.

Researchers evaluated the cafeterias on four criteria: how optimal are the food safety codes, how often the facilities are inspected, how easy is to get public information about the cafeteria from the internet and how safe are the cafeterias themselves?

NEW YORK (AP) -- As the popularity of stomach surgery has skyrocketed among obese adults, a growing number of doctors are asking, "Why not children, too?"

For decades, the number of kids trying weight-loss surgery has been tiny. The operations themselves were risky, with a death rate of about 1 in 50. Children rarely got that fat, and when they did, pediatricians hesitated to put the developing bodies under the knife. Only 350 U.S. kids had such an operation in 2004, according to federal statistics.

But improvements in surgical technique and huge increases in the number of dangerously obese children have begun fueling a change of heart.

A lack of healthy fats can actually cause children to become overweight, according to a study published online by the Swedish Research Council.

Researchers based at the Sahlgrenska Academy at Goteborg University studied the lifestyle, dietary habits and insulin levels of a group of four-year-old children, and correlated these factors with measurements of Body Mass Index (BMI).

According to the BMI measurements, 23 percent of the children were overweight and another 2 percent were obese. Surprisingly, however, the children with the healthier BMIs actually had higher fat intake than the overweight children. The difference was that the less overweight children were consuming more unsaturated fats, omega-3s in particular.

Jan. 11, 2007 -- Weight loss surgery is soaring in the U.S., especially among baby boomers and women, a government report shows.

Weight loss, or bariatric, surgery is for morbidly obese people and those who are obese with serious medical conditions related to their weight. Perhaps the best known type of this surgery is gastric bypass surgery.

The new report shows bariatric surgery was nine times more common in 2004 than in 1998 in the U.S.

There certainly was no shortage of nutrition stories this year. Surprises were few -- thankfully no apparent flip-flops as in previous years when new evidence shook up the scientific world. Many of the reports simply reinforced the wisdom of the ages such as getting in your quota of fruits and vegetables and opting for whole grains over refined ones.

Awareness about problems with the food supply, both in processed and fresh foods, heightened. And the state of the health of our youth continued to take centre stage.

Here are some updates on a few of the year's major stories.

HealthDay News -- Being overweight or obese is the most important health issue facing children in the United States, a new survey finds.

The nationwide telephone survey of 800 adults, conducted in September, found 27 percent of respondents saying obesity was the top health issue for children, followed by lack of health care/insurance (16 percent) and nutrition/unhealthy diet (9 percent).

Released Dec. 13 by Research!America and The Endocrine Society, the poll also found that 52 percent of respondents believe obesity is a public health issue that society should help solve, while 46 percent feel it's a private issue that people should take care of on their own.

The survey showed that responsibility for helping to address the obesity issue in the United States lies to some or a great extent with parents (98 percent), individuals (96 percent), schools (87 percent), health care providers (84 percent), the food industry (81 percent), and government (67 percent).

Controversial guidelines that could see children offered weight loss surgery have been published by the Government's health watchdog.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) report is the first of its kind from the body aimed at tackling the obesity crisis in England and Wales.

The guidance focuses on the prevention and treatment of obesity in adults and children and will be sent to NHS professionals, schools, local authorities, employers and town planners. Nice said there was a need "for urgent action" to stem the rising tide of obesity.

The age groups that include young children to adolescents witness so many advertisements, medical experts now fear for their health. Reports show that 40,000 ads each year from television alone may be boosting obesity, poor nutrition, cigarette use and alcohol consumption among U.S. youth.

According to a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which appears in the December issue of Pediatrics, there should be calls for more media education to counter some of advertising's negative effects.

Dr. Donald Shifrin -- chairman of the AAP Committee on Communications -- said "We're pleading with pediatricians and parents to become aware that consumeristic tendencies are being fed right from birth … we have to understand that youngsters under a certain age cannot differentiate between a commercial and a program. To them, it's real. There should be some effort on the part of parents to point out that this is a commercial."

Amid the laughter, chatter and perspiration, a group of 30 children are hard at work on stationary bicyles, rowing machines and jogging pads at a kids-only gym in this Washington suburb.

"My mom, my grandmother and my aunt tell me I'm too fat. That's why I come here and wear long T-shirts," says Toriano Parrish, a plump 12-year-old who has become a regular at Youth Visions, located the city of Upper Marlboro, in predominantly black Prince George's County in Maryland.

Parrish, who was pedaling furiously on a stationary bike, said he had lost several pounds (kilos) since joining the gym open to children ages five to 16 and has made it a ritual to exercise every day after school.

Is the food industry playing games with our children? You bet it is. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, "It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children,^[1]" provides a comprehensive look at this increasingly popular type of advertising.

Advergaming is the use of online video games with embedded brand messages to engage a target audience. It is specifically designed to blur the boundary between advertising and entertainment.

The food industry uses advergaming that targets children and adolescents as a low-cost supplement to television advertising. Like the higher profile TV ads that have attracted so much attention from critics,^[2] the advergaming onslaught is largely aimed at promoting energy-dense foods, such as sweet cereals, candies, and high-calorie snacks. These foods are the raw fuel for childhood obesity.

Spurred by rising childhood obesity rates, state Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, pushed to get a stricter school nutrition laws on the books.

Williams succeeded, but the law is getting some unhappy reviews from educators.
    
Not all local education officials think state lawmakers should control what children eat. Some school officials are crafting more moderate policies for their schools.

"I don't think we should be regulating as hard how children eat," Norwich Board of Education Chairman Charles Jaskiewicz said. "If the government wants to attack the problem of physical obesity, it's got to start at home and not at school, because what's to stop kids from eating a pack of Yodels or drinking soda at home?"

CUMBRIA, England -- 24 Children Achieve Weight Loss of Up to 19 kg in Eight Weeks or Less

Wellspring UK, Europe's first scientifically based weight loss camp for children and adolescents ages 12-17, announced record weight loss for its programme participants over the 2006 two-month summer session.

On average, students lost 2 kg per week, with some students losing as much as 16 and 19 kg. Most students who had enrolled in the programme were atleast 9 kg overweight before enrollment and had been struggling to controltheir weight for a year.

Wellspring UK incorporates a summer camp environment with a focus onweight loss through diet and activity management. It also utilizes a unique cognitive behavioural therapy to address the psychological and emotional issues that often prevent successful long-term weight control. Throughout theprogramme students self-monitor their dietary intake and exercise levels andrecord their thoughts and feelings to help them in their goal of becoming long-term weight controllers.