Obesity Determined Before the Age of Five
A study carried out by Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula Medical School (due to be published in the journal Pediatrics) found obese children and teens gain most of their excess weight before they reach school age - suggesting that factors in the home environment play a heavy role in childhood obesity.
The BBC news reported that:
At birth, the children in the study were of similar weight to babies 25 years ago, but had gained more fat by puberty compared with children of the same age in the 1980s.The bulk of this excess weight was gained before the children were five.
This is sobering news for campaigners in the UK who've been pressing for bans on junk food and vending machines in schools: can such measures really be effective in the face of evidence that suggests that the risk of a child becoming obese is set in the very early years?
Professor Wilkins commented on the amount of attention that factors such as lack of physical exercise, excessive TV-watching, school meals and inactive school runs had received - all factors which affect school pupils. He suggested that the reason for high obesity levels amongst younger children could be due to high calorie intake, rather than lack of exercise.
The BBC report explained that:
Before an obese girl reaches school age she will have already gained 90% of her excess weight, and boys will have gained 70% of their excess weight.
Like adults, children should eat a wide range of nutrients - including five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. The Weight Loss Resources website reminds parents that it's important to ensure children are getting enough nutrients and eating from a wide range of food groups. It also explains:
By the age of five, their diet should be low in fat, sugar and salt and high in fibre with five fruit and veg a day - just like adults. - Weight Loss Resources
If you have kids, how do you encourage them to eat healthily and stay active?
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When adults get fat, the size of individual fat cells increases. When we lose fat weight, the size decreases; we don't lose fat cells (except through liposuction or mesotherapy).
But I don't remember at what point in our fetal or childhood development we stop growing new fat cells. Someone below probably knows.
Perhaps reduction of total fat cell numbers before age five can help prevent overweight in adults.
-Steve
ReplyI don't think we ever lose the ability to make new fat cells.
ReplyI had always heard that you stop producing fat cells during puberty and from then on, you just fill up the ones you have with more fat. Still, I'm guessing if you don't create a lot of fat cells early on, it's easier to stay thinner later on in life.
ReplyHere's some additional information.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11444.php
ReplyIt'd be nice to think that there is still time in life after age five to build healthy exercise and nutritional habits, no?
ReplyI really believe that children should start their lives healthy, I look after a young baby and rather than buy jar food for him I bought a book on how to blend vegetables and fruit to make tasty meals. When he gets older I am going to encourage him to keep eating vegetables because this is when children decide they only like sugary foods and I am going to back Jamie Olivers campaigns for healthy food in schools for kids.
ReplyMy kids are always claiming that they are hungry between meals, but we have a rule - if they want to snack on anything between meals, it has to be fruit or vegetables. They are allowed as much fruit and vegetables as they like, and we always keep lots of it on hand.
ReplyWhen my daughter started eating solid foods, she wanted to eat the same things Mommy and Daddy ate -- and we ate pretty healthy foods. We didn't offer sweets or junk very often, not even juices, so she didn't get used to them. Her first 50 words included "tomato", "olive", and "avocado", since she asked for those so often.
As she grew older, we set rules, such as eating all your vegetables and at least half of your other food before dessert, and desserts are small. Even when the grandparents offer her unlimited desserts (e.g. a giant ice cream sundae) she eats a small portion and then says she's done -- she only needs a little to feel she enjoyed it. She still loves most fruits and vegetables, and asks for them at snacktime.
By the way, I never really worried about jarred baby food. When she was ready to add to her diet of breast milk and formula, we found she was happy with things like applesauce, mashed banana, mashed avocado, and rice. She ate maybe a few store-bought jars a week for a few months, along with those foods. Shortly thereafter, she easily ate mostly the same things that we ate, just chopped up. Though she didn't have teeth, she could gum everything into mush.
ReplyMy parents raised us to be very healthy eaters and me and my siblings were all normal-weight kids. It wasn't until puberty that I started putting some extra weight on, probably due to a major decrease in physical activity. Once I went off to college and picked up some bad eating habits, I gained a lot of weight very quickly. Then I decided to go back to a healthy lifestyle and stopped eating junk and started exercising and I'm not overweight at all. Then there's my sister, who was even UNDERweight as a child but now struggles with her weight as an adult. So I'm not really arguing that it's important to start kids off on the right foot, but there's still time to change your habits as you get older.
ReplySome of the readers here know the truth. Forget all that stuff about genetics deciding whether your kids will be obese or not in life.
It all boils down to kids healthy eating and kids exercise. I'm not talking about a boot camp or gym membership for your kids. I'm talking about what should be normal healthy eating and fun kids exercise.
It doesn't matter if mistakes have been made. Now is the time to change your whole families outlook on a healthy lifestyle.
ReplyI've been commissioned to write a book with the working title of: Keeping our children out of food jail. The research has been eye-opening and if there are two things that are clear its that Monkey see - monkey do! and as parents are the gate-keepers and food preparers, the foods that children become familiar with are those they will develop a preference with. i also think we under-estimate how much influence we have over our child's food preferences even in the womb.
ReplyParents are so important. I am a personal trainer and the children of my clients always try to copy the exercises that their parents do.
I hear 5 year olds talking about working out and playing sports because their parents work out and play sports.
ReplyIt all sounds great and makes sense, but what do you do if you eat healthy and lots of fruit and vegies, and your kids just don't like it? My 7 year old son is skinny but muscly and has not got a big appetite, but my 5 year old daughter is already a little overweight (or say "solid") and she likes all the wrong foods. She is very healthy and very active, but she likes to eat a lot (2 serves of dinner and things like that). She won't eat salad (and I have it every day) and keeps going to the fridge for more food, like shredded cheese and stuff.
ReplyWhat can I do to get her into eating the less fattening things? I mean, I already "force" her by saying "you have to eat this tomato if you want to watch TV", but somehow it doesn't really work. HELP PLEASE!