How moms can reduce their kids' risk of obesity

Look around and you will see so many kids who are overweight.  Often these kids also have parents who are overweight.  CDC reports that childhood obesity in the USA has become a very serious problem.  Being overweight puts adults and children at risk for poor health.  How many kids in the US are obese?

For kids ages 2-19 years of age:
  • 18.5% are obese which equates to 13.7 million obese kids in the USA
  • 13.9 % of kids ages 2-5 are obese
  • 18.4% of 6-11-year olds are obese
  • And 1 out of 5 or 20.6% of 12-19-year olds are obese

Moms (and Dads) play an important role in helping prevent obesity in their kids.  Medical Press has a good article discussing 5 healthy habits of Moms that can reduce obesity risk in their kids.  The article published by the journal BMJ discusses research about 17,000 female nurses and their 24,289 kids and looked at five healthy habits of the moms.  These 5 healthy habits lowered their kids risk of being overweight by 75%.  

5 Healthy Habits for Moms
  1. Exercise Regularly – the moms who walked instead of sitting on the couch were less likely to have obese kids.  Moms who exercised about 2.5 hours per week had kids who were 21% less likely to become obese as teenagers.  Moms who sat more and exercised less were more likely to have kids who were obese as teenagers.  Not really a surprising finding.
  2. Alcohol consumption – the researchers didn’t have study participants who were heavy drinkers (after all they did study health professionals) but they did find moms who were moderate drinkers.  Those who had 1-7 drinks a week had kids with a 11-20% lower risk of obesity.  They found that kids of moms who were moderate drinkers had lower risk of obesity than teetotalers. 
  3. Eating habits – surprisingly, kids of moms who had the best eating habits were not really less likely to be obese.  This finding was a surprise to the researchers.  They thought this was because so many kids are eating school meals – some eat school breakfast and school lunch and the influence of other kids and eating outside the home such as at a neighbor’s house.  Moms can be more of an influence on their kids eating habits by having their kids skip the School breakfast and School lunch and preparing breakfast at home and packing a healthy MyPlate lunch for their kids.  The kids can bring their lunch to school and buy real milk at school.  (Kids should have real milk with meals. Save the water or 110% juice for snack time.)
    Help kids choose healthy snacks
  4. Maintaining a healthy weight – The University of San Francisco notes:  “A child with one obese parent has a 50% chance of being obese.  When both parents are obese, their children have an 80% chance of obesity.”  
  5. Not smoking – Kids of moms who didn’t smoke were 31% less likely to be obese.    

 What can moms, parents do to reduce the chances of having overweight or obese kids?

1.       Move more, sit less – I like how Dr. Sears in “The Healthiest Kid in The Neighborhood” recommends kids earn their TV or “screen” time by playing outside first.  Dr. Sears recommends a house rule:  “Time Sitting = Time Moving”.  Parents can encourage schools and day care centers to have more recess and more gym classes at school.  A shout out to Martha Roby a former middle school principal.  She developed a program in her middle school that had teachers reward well-behaved students with a lunch ticket to eat outside (weather permitting).  She set aside an area on the school grounds and had picnic tables installed and a basket hoop.  The middle schoolers loved getting this reward and it promoted physical activity as the students played some basketball or walked around after they ate. 

2.       5 A Day – UCSF notes that  “almost 80% of young people don’t eat the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables”.  Not really surprising.  When students in my nutrition class track what they eat, very few report eating 5 A Day.  Parents who have their kids eat breakfast can ensure some fruit at breakfast.  Parents who pack their kids’ lunch can include a fruit and a veggie in that lunch. 
3.       Healthy Eating:  Follow Dear Abby’s advice:  “Healthy eating is the basis of healthy living”.  I couldn’t agree more. Very good advice for March which is National Nutrition Month. 

Sources:  CDC, Medical Press, BMJ, University of San Francisco, UCSF, advice  Image Sources:  Child, Scale, Exercise

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