Study Offers Hope For U.S. Kids’ Obesity
May 29, 2008
From cbsnews.com
The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese appears to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, according to new figures that offer a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal battle.
“That is a first encouraging finding in what has been unremittingly bad news,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston. “But it’s too soon to know if this really means we’re beginning to make meaningful inroads into this epidemic. It may simply be a statistical fluke.”
Overall, roughly 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese, in a study based on in-person measurements of height and weight in 2005 and 2006.
Longer Sleep=Less Obesity
May 2, 2008
By Kelli Stacy
The number on your bathroom scale may have a lot to do with how much shut-eye you get each night.
A new study in the journal Sleep upholds the widely accepted notion that body weight plays a large role in how well a person sleeps. Francesco P. Cappuccio, MD, of Warwick Medical School in England, and colleagues reviewed worldwide literature regarding obesity and short sleep duration in children and adults to determine if existing evidence supported a link between short sleepers and obesity.
The researchers’ analysis showed a “striking, consistent” pattern of increased odds of being a short sleeper if you are obese regardless of age. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, you are a short sleeper if you regularly sleep fewer hours than the average member of your age group. For this analysis, short sleep was defined as five hours or less for adults and less than 10 hours for children.
Junk Food During Pregnancy=Obese Kids
May 1, 2008
By Miranda Hitti
Eating lots of junk food during pregnancy or while breastfeeding may make childhood obesity more likely, a new study suggests.
The pregnancy diet study was conducted in rats, not people. But the researchers argue that their findings show that mothers may pass their junk food diets on to their offspring and increase their obesity. The researchers included Stephanie Bayol, Ph.D., and professor Neil Stickland, Ph.D., of London’s Royal Veterinary College.
Childhood Obesity
March 12, 2008
From webmd.com
Parents of many children who would be considered as overweight or obese do not see their child as being too heavy; many actually think that their child is about the “right” weight. In research published in the February edition of Diabetes Care, Dr. Asheley Cockrell Skinner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill notes out that this misconception on the part of the parents means that the child will also fail to see their weight as a problem. Dr. Skinner and colleagues say that an important first step in preventing childhood obesity is the recognition that there is a problem. Without this recognition they say, families will not take steps toward diet and lifestyle changes that will prevent continued weight gain.
The researchers interviewed 104 adolescents with type 2 diabetes and their parents about their understanding of the adolescents’ weight, eating, and exercise habits. To assess ideas about weight the teenagers and their parents were asked if the teen was “very overweight, slightly overweight, about right, slightly thin, or very thin?” Among the teens in this group, 87% were overweight by standard measurements (weight, BMI), yet only 41% of their parents and 35% of the teens considered their weight to be a problem. Among teens whose BMI was above the 95th percentile 40% of parents and 55% of the teens thought that the child’s weight was “about right.” For both parents and teens an underestimation of weight was associated with a poorer dietary choices and exercise habits.
