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  • Feb9

    Michelle Obama Loves Burgers And Fries (VIDEO): What's Wrong with This Approach?

    Posted in: Child Obesity

    LetsMove.gov is the new home for Michelle Obama’s crusade against pediatric obesity…and bring it on!

    But let’s find an opportunity to get kids to find out where food is from (not from the junk food packages with which food companies barrage kids, surrounding her in the White House Ceremony this afternoon). That teaches English, Math, Science…and personal responsibility. And helps parents with their jobs.

    And let’s find a place where a “fun meal” has plant foods in the middle of the plate…not “burgers and fries” (see video below…link here on HuffPo, and below.

    Here’s a successful Farm to School Program, and here’s a successful next steps for parents.

    What’s needed is a successful kids diet program.  Know of one?

     

  • Feb1

    Fat Parents to Blame for Childhood Obesity?

    Posted in: Child Obesity

    A new, long UK medical school study reported in the Telegraph suggests that over-feeding preschoolers–not under exercising them–is the key behavior to help change.

    “Maybe the focus of childhood obesity prevention should be on parents-to-be…Children compensate for what they do or do not get,” says Terry Wilkin, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Peninusal Medical School in the UK and an author of the prestigious EarlyBird Diabetes Project

    Darlene Superville at HuffPo smartly shows that Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden—and heck, vegetable gardens everywhere–can have the opposite effect.

    “Her children were like sponges, she said, and soaked up the information about what foods do to their bodies. They even police her diet, too.”

    The idea that childhood obesity is about food and starts early is not new.  What is new is that parents do not recognize obesity in their kids, and that “normal weight” is now publicly perceived to be much greater than 85th percentile for age.

    90 per cent of excess weight gained by girls  before puberty is before they are five years old. The figure is 70 per cent for boys.

    Plant a garden, grow a healthy, normal weight child.

     

  • Jan27

    Cereal Facts, Not Serial Killers. Best and Worst!

    Posted in: Child Obesity

    The Yale Rudd Center Report on Marketing Cereal to Kids is out, and it isn’t pretty. Here’s an excerpt:

    “Compared to cereals marketed to adults, those marketed to children have 85% more sugar, 65% less fiber, and 60% more sodium. Together, cereal companies spend more than $156 million per year marketing to children.

    ■    Products with poor nutrition ratings such as Lucky Charms, Reese’s Puffs, and Cookie Crisp average three to four health claims on every box.

    Most cereals with the worst nutrition ratings are classified as “better-for-you” or “Smart Choices” by the companies.

    The average preschooler sees 642 cereal ads per year just on television, almost all for cereals with the worst nutrition ratings.”

    The kids cereals with the best ratings?

    Mini-Wheats, Organic Wild Puffs, Honey Sunshine, Mighty Bites and Clifford Crunch.  You might not have heard of them, but I hope you will.

    And they might take a page from really successful, heavily advertised cereals.  Make their sites totally engaging:  other cereals turn into toys or playthings.  Why not healthier cereals?

    Marion Nestle has assembled more Kids’ Marketing resources on her blog today.

     

  • Jan26

    Two Good Child Obesity Programs

    Posted in: Child Obesity

    If you see a dark room, you should turn on the lights.
    Seth Godin, author, LinchPin: Are You Indispensible?

    Successful Pediatric Obesity Programs seem hidden, like Easter Eggs in April grass, or root vegetables under the tundra. That’s in part because they are expensive, often residential, and insurance doesn’t cover them. But some of the best ones deserve highlighting.

    There still is not a break-through kids diet book, perhaps because too many doctors are afraid to state the obvious: some kids need to go on a diet. Period. So, that will have to wait until next year.

    (Hint: kids can go on a diet and maintain self-esteem. Actually, improve it. Without being mercilessly tormented by their only slightly leaner school bullies).

    Meanwhile, some of the best pediatric obesity programs are ones in which parents participate. It’s tough for kids to lose weight in a house in which CheezDoodles are a TV snack. Or the tube/PC/Xbox/Nintendo is the center of evening and weekend attention.

    So I like the programs at Healthy Buddies, in British Columbia, where kids teach kids. And the OWL program, especially for kids with diabetes, in New England.

    A 2008 study of 140 childrens hospitals showed that Most kids diet programs are about adopting lifestyle changes and about 25% have a physician, dietitian, physical activity specialist and psychologist.

    Have any programs or books worked for you?

     

  • Nov4

    Someone’s in the Kitchen With Michelle: The Secret Ingredient Is Politics

    Posted in: Child Obesity

    One of the most powerful messages a country can send to parents is in the organic—and it did not have to be organic–garden on the White House Lawn.

    And of the best ways to find food-interested people is on Food TV: Marian Burros of the NY Times reports:

    “(On January 3, 2010, on Iron Chef America)…Mrs. Obama will also talk about her crusade to reduce childhood obesity through better school lunches, community gardens, farmers’ markets and exercise…

    … Michelle Obama will reveal the secret ingredient that the chefs must use in their televised cook-off: anything that grows in the White House garden.”

    Mrs. Obama said, “And now we’re expanding the tours of the White House Kitchen Garden

    Hughes eli book to any public school children that come to Washington, D.C.”

     
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