Childhood obesity

A panel from the Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academies) has recommended to the government that school-provided meals should include more fruits, vegetables and wholegrains - even though this would push costs up.

Figures from a recent survey by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) show that only one in eight children, aged eight to thirteen, get enough exercise. The government recommends kids are active for sixty minutes each day.

Experts have suggested that if current trends continue, two-thirds of British kids will be overweight or obese by 2050. Shockingly, the survey of 1,000 children found that a third of them were active for less than an hour a week.

There's a lot of buzz surrounding the launch of "Children's Health Magazine", Rodale Press' latest magazine endeavour (whose line-up includes Men's Health, Women's Health, and Prevention to name a few).

The magazine appears to have all the right ingredients for success (at least it's inaugural issue does)--including none other than the First Lady on the cover and featured in an exclusive interview within, as well as Oprah's go-to Doc Mehmet Oz, weighing in on the 5 most critical health tips for new parents.

Everyone is doing a boatload of screaming about healthcare lately, and it sounds like everybody has a different vision of how to redo it.

So, no matter what side of the debate you fall on, we can all agree U.S. healthcare is broken and needs to be fixed fast, before it gets worse.

And some health experts think it all starts with obesity, curbing the epidemic early on.

You don't have to be a doctor to suspect an overweight or obese person is going to have some health problems--sometimes it obvious.

Nowadays you hear a lot of reports about healthy-looking people getting heart disease, hypertension and high-cholesterol.

Turns out, same goes for kids. That's why a new study claims using obesity alone is not a good predicator of high-cholesterol in children.

Recently-published data indicates a sharp rise in the number of severely obese kids over the past three decades.

One in every twenty kids is now severely obese, with weight in the 99th percentile for their age group and gender.

Bedtime - it's every parent's favorite time of day. But, when your tiny tot refuses to fall asleep, bedtime can become a nightmare for everyone.

Kids need their sleep, and parents need some downtime every day too. So, here's the solution: exercise -- no, not for you (though that's a good idea, too), but for your child.

Discussion forums and newswires have recently sparked a debate which asks this very question. A South Carolina mother has been charged with criminal neglect after authorities learned of her 14 year old son weighing 555 lbs.

Is deliberately feeding your child in a manner that will eventually cause health deterioration and obesity neglectful? Abusive? Or, is it simply less-than desirable choices and part and parcel of our super-sized society? There are many factors and grey zones in this debate. Let's discuss!

Kids are fat. It's hard not to be, every junk food, candy bar and sugary breakfast cereal has a cartoon character slapped on it.

The WHO estimates 22 million children under the age of 5 are overweight worldwide.

But, even with all these fat kids running, parents in Australia don't realize their kids are overweight.

It would be horrible, if it wasn't so funny. Or, maybe it would be funny, if it wasn't so horrible - children in an east London borough tricked researchers when they took the pedometers they'd been assigned to measure their activity levels, and put them on their dogs.

Baffled at why some of the obese children, who were obviously very active during the day (at least according to their pedometers), could still be obese despite all that extra exercise, researchers took a closer look.

A new study looking at data from 4,000 kids suggests there is a link between food allergies and obesity.

The research was led by Dr. Cindy Visness, and published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Apparently the apple does fall far from the tree - at least when it comes to eating apples.

In what researchers have called a "surprising" study, it seems as though mom and dad's healthy eating doesn't rub off on their offspring as much as once thought. The study, authored by Dr. Youfa Wang, and published in the journal Social Science and Medicine, showed only a weak correlation between parents and their children's eating habits.

Brian Grasso, founder of the International Youth Conditioning Association is an extremely intelligent, introspective individual. Naturally, I expected a detailed insight into the root causes of childhood obesity - a presentation of a deep psychological model, combined with the latest in cutting edge exercise advice. I was pleasantly disappointed...

He's got a tall order. Slumping economy, foreign wars and obesity? Yup, a group at Northeastern University wants the president-elect to tackle obesity too.

And they've sent him a long list of ideas.

At what point does bad parenting constitute abuse? Witness 18 month old Courtney Boswell, who weighs 30 lbs subsisting on French fries...and not much else.

Mother Angela, despite warnings of future health problems for her child - insists that there is nothing to worry about. Here are some of her comments:

Arguably one of the most concerning aspects of the obesity crisis is how it is impacting our children. After 25 years of the climbing obesity rates in children, there may be cause for hope as these levels have stalled - according to the CDC. The findings, based on survey data gathered from 1999 to 2006 are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Courtesy of NY Times)

Now the big question: Is this a temporary blip in the continued upward spiral, or is this cause to celebrate (with carrot sticks and a game of soccer, of course).

Guarded enthusiasm may be the best way to handle this news at the moment. With that, let's take a look at these findings from both perspectives.