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Looking Inside and Out to Help Prevent Kids’ Obesity
By Lucia Kaiser

“Two months ago, the doctor put my daughter on a diet saying that she weighed too much for her height. But I think just the opposite.”

Those were the words of a Latino mother seeking help for her preschooler. Often, it is difficult for parents to realize that a child is overweight, particularly when the child appears to be otherwise healthy and happy. Recognizing a problem exists is important because more than half of all teens who are overweight at age 15 will be obese as adults. Obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and other chronic health problems. 

Among Mexican-American children ages 6 to 19, 26% of the boys and 17.1% of the girls are overweight, according to research done from 1999 to 2002 statistics by the National Center for Health Statistics. These high percentages are very likely due to the combined effects of poor eating patterns, lack of physical activity and environmental factors.   

As Latino parents at our focus groups in California have explained, “If there aren’t parks nearby, then they don’t go out to play except outside the apartments. They are all closed up inside and eating whatever they eat; they get fat.”

Among children and teens, eating fried foods often and drinking large amounts of regular sodas and fruit-flavored drinks, even juice, contribute to becoming overweight. Too much fast-food leads to weight gain, not only because of the high fat content of the food but also the super-sized portions served at restaurants. Watching TV or playing video games for more than two hours a day also has been linked to excessive weight gain in children and teens.

Many Latino parents are concerned that their children have poor eating patterns but do not know how to change the situation. Some parents say of their kids: “Something that has begun to worry me is that they are losing the food pattern of my family and taking on hamburgers, what they call junk food, street food, potato chips; and they are eating in the car and in the drive-through.” Often the parents feel they fall into the same unhealthy routine. Clearly, many environmental factors such as unsafe neighborhoods, advertising, and local or school food availability are driving the obesity epidemic, but there are steps that parents can take to help their children grow and develop healthfully. 

• Get off to a good start: Breastfeed. Pediatricians recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, with gradual weaning to solid foods occurring in the second half of the first year.

• Set a regular schedule of meals and snacks for children. Babies need to feed on demand, but toddlers and young children should move toward a regular pattern of three meals and two or three snacks a day. Frequent snacking or grazing can undermine a parent’s efforts to provide a nourishing meal. One father told our focus group that both of his kids eat a lot during the day and then their appetite goes way down at dinnertime. Among older children, a pattern of frequent snacking can easily result in overeating, particularly when children do not get enough exercise.

• Serve small portions to young children. “What I do is, I don’t serve them that much. If they want some more, then I will serve them some more,” a Latino mom told our focus group. Babies and very young children can usually stop eating when they are full. Many parents try to bribe their children into finishing a meal by withholding TV or promising treats, even though the child is not hungry anymore. Insisting that young children eat when they are not hungry may override their natural ability to eat according to appetite. A better strategy would be to limit constant, in-between meal snacking and serve smaller portions of food at meals. 

• Continue to offer healthy foods, even if your child initially rejects them. Young children may need to try a new food eight to 10 times before learning to like that food. Many parents, especially recent immigrants give up too easily on offering nutritious traditional foods and wind up giving whatever the child requests. “Sometimes she makes the meal and the 4-year old does not want to eat – he wants some other food. So, in order to get the child to eat, I have to accept his whims,” one father told our focus group. While that practice may satisfy a child in the short run, it does not foster the long-term development of healthy eating patterns.

• Limit the amount of juice to six ounces or less a day and encourage your child to drink water to quench thirst. Two studies have shown that cutting back on sweetened beverages can prevent some children from becoming overweight or reduce weight among teens who are already overweight.

• Limit the amount of “junk food” brought into the home. Trying to restrict children from accessing foods that are clearly present may actually increase their demand for those foods, so it is probably better not to bring home too much junk food. Parents have told us that if they leave their children, “They eat what they want, they start to eat anything – sandwiches with honey – and they eat every minute, grabbing cookies, quick foods, burritos, foods from a package for the microwave.” One parent held herself responsible, saying she brought home quick foods to heat up and eat. And the kids only got fatter, the parents say. But – just as parents can take care of their families by limiting visits to fast-food restaurants to an average of less than once a week – advocating for schools, governments and corporations to address environmental causes of childhood obesity is important too.

• Be active. Even though the weather may be chilly, bundle up and get moving or find other ways to be active indoors. With the little kids, take them out to the park or outside to walk and bike. Parents find that their kids come home tired and hungry and eat well. The current recommendation is at least 60 minutes a day of physical activity for children and teens.

• Finally and most important– Be a good role model.  Eating more fruits and vegetables, enjoying family dinners and being physically active with your children are all ways that parents can model and reinforce healthy behaviors to prevent childhood obesity and promote health of the entire family.

Lucia Kaiser, Ph.D., is a registered dietician and community nutrition specialist in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, Davis.

Su Conexión

www.commonsensemedia.org: A Boston study reports that kids who watch TV eat the food products they see advertised and are at greater risk for obesity.

www.eatbettermovemore.org: A Strategic Alliance website for promoting healthy food and activity environments shifts the debate on nutrition and physical activity “away from a primary focus on personal responsibility and individual choice to one that examines … the role of the environment in shaping eating and activity behaviors.”

www.thelatinavoz.com: Click on The Latina Voz’s archives for the January/February issue’s story on “drive-through marketing” that puts kids on a “collision course” with childhood obesity. Next to Dana Calvo’s story is a list of ways parents can make change; see http://www.thelatinavoz.com/Archive/JanuaryFebruary/family.html