National Institutes of Health launch ‘We Can!’ prevent childhood obesity

National obesity rates are staggering and childhood obesity is a part of the problem. A new program launched June 1st by the National Institute of Health plans to help parents teach their children to live healthier lives through nutrition education, exercise, and limitation of recreational screen time.

“Sixteen percent of children in the United States are carrying around excess weight — that’s 9 million children who are at increased risk for chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and asthma,” US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said at the June 1st Environmental Solutions to Obesity in America’s Youth conference organized by the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, calling childhood obesity a public health crisis.

You can download free ‘We Can!’ materials including fact sheets in English and in Spanish on the importance of weight-bearing physical activity for the building of strong bones, a Media-Smart Youth program, which is designed to teach young people the skills they need to critically evaluate media messages, specifically those about nutrition and physical activity, and a brochure for parents, part of the Milk Matters campaign, explaining the importance of calcium to the overall health of children.

The core of the program focuses on helping parents teach their children to:

• Eat a sufficient amount of a variety of fruits and vegetables per day
• Choose small portions at home and at restaurants
• Eat fewer high-fat foods and energy-dense foods that are low in nutrient value such as French fries, bacon, and doughnuts
• Substitute water or fat-free or low-fat milk for sweetened beverages such as sodas
• Engage in at least 60 minutes of moderate physical activity on most, preferably all, days of the week
• Reduce recreational screen time to no more than two hours per day

A study published in the June 2005 online journal Pediatrics supports the parent-guided education approach, showing that children ages 8 to 10 who were enrolled in a behaviorally oriented nutrition education program with their parents and were taught to follow a diet low in saturated fat and dietary cholesterol reported switching from calorie-dense and high-fat foods to foods that were lower in saturated fat, total fat, and dietary cholesterol. The children in the intervention adopted significantly better dietary habits over several years compared to their peers who received only general nutritional information. Interestingly, intake of fruits and vegetables by all of the children participating in the study was still low.

The NIH will spend about $440 million this year on a wide range of research on childhood obesity.

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