Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

| CWK Producer

Heading into the drive-thru, Jeremiah knows exactly what he wants.

“I really like super-sized fries,” he says.

He's not alone.  Super-sized portions are popular…not only among kids his age… but it seems with everybody.

But there's a problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of overweight kids has more than doubled in the past thirty years. Larger portion sizes are becoming the norm… and kids no longer know how much is too much.

As dietician Carol Kelly explains, "You can go out and easily consume a quart of cola or diet cola at a time, half a pound burger, two cups of French fries and that's considered a normal amount.  When really that would be an amount that would be the calories of fat for more than one day."

Fast food is one problem…dessert is another. 

“We bribe them with dessert. If they want dessert they have to eat their vegetables,” says father Chance Allen, explaining how he gets his kids to eat healthy foods.  Which, experts say, convince kids that sweets are good and vegetables are not.

What’s more, forcing kids to eat all their vegetables may cause other problems.

 “It's not asking too much for the child to try a vegetable," says Carol Kelly, "but to say, to make a mandate that in order to earn the dessert all of the food has to be consumed, you're setting it up, the potential for compulsive eating.”
 
Experts say parents should teach by example, by eating healthy foods and reasonable portions.

“We have a choice in whether we buy the larger food, just like we have a choice in whether we buy the larger car,” says Kelly.

Tips for Parents

In the past 30 years, childhood obesity has doubled for children between the ages of 2 and 5 and tripled for 6- to-11-year-olds. More than 15 percent of children between 6 and 19 are considered obese. Countering that trend, child advocates say, will require nothing less than a multi-pronged national effort.
Today, less than 6 percent of high schools require juniors and seniors to take physical education. There is also an "enormous decrease" in the number of school playgrounds. And recess has disappeared in many elementary schools where principals, anxious about preparing students for high-stakes standardized tests, have deemed it "nonproductive."

• Efforts are under way to reinstate physical education. Recommendations include a minimum of 150 minutes a week for elementary school students and 225 minutes for high school students.
• The Council of Educational Facility Planners International dropped its recommendations calling for vast acreage for large school sites, which will give school districts more flexibility in locating schools on smaller sites in places accessible by walking and biking
• By one estimate, 65 percent of students walked to school 30 years ago. Today only 10 percent do.

For more than 14 million children, accounting for 25 percent of students between kindergarten and 12th grade, no parent is home after school. The child must take care of himself or herself. Many receive strict instructions from parents: Lock the door and don't go outside. It's a recipe for inactivity and an opportunity to snack. Only 11 percent of students (6.5 million) attend after-school programs, where they are likely to get a nutritious snack and take part in fitness activities.
The reasons for childhood obesity are complex and cannot be pigeonholed in a single or few causes.

Among the reasons experts cite are:

• Kids’ backpacks are too heavy for walking too school.
• Children rely on school buses or family vehicles for daily transportation.
• Parents are concerned for kids’ safety and no longer permit outside, unsupervised play.
• More homework allows less time for play.
• Many schools have stopped scheduling recess.
• Toy vehicles of today are not kid-powered, but battery-powered.
• Computer games stimulate sports, rather than kids actually playing the sport.
• Kids often eat due to stress or boredom.

Although cafeteria menus are coming under fire, the problem goes beyond what children eat to include when they eat. Crowded schools must extend lunch hours to serve everyone. An early lunch hour may come when the kids aren't hungry, they may not eat a healthy meal, and then they'll snack later. With a late lunch hour, kids might snack first and not be hungry for a good lunch. Finally, students also have limited time to eat. We're trying to get them to eat healthier food, but that takes time to chew.

References

• Azusa Pacific University in California
• C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Christian Science Monitor
• KidsHealth
• WebMD Health

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