Parents can lead the whole family in adopting more healthful eating and physical activity habits to help improve health and control weight. A new brochure from experts at the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation may help them do just that.
The IFIC Foundation partnered with NIDDK’s Weight-control Information Network (WIN) to produce Helping Your Overweight Child, a four-page fact sheet filled with practical advice and useful ideas. Tips for improving eating habits include eating meals together as a family, eating fast food less often, trying not to use food as a reward, and avoiding controlling the amount of food that a child eats. Healthful snack ideas are listed, as are fun physical activities the whole family can enjoy together.
The release of this new fact sheet is timely. New data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) show continuing increases in children’s weights. Data from the most recent survey conducted from 1999 through 2002 show that 16 percent of youth ages 6 through 19 years are overweight [body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile]. About one in three (33 percent) children are at risk for overweight (BMI at or above 85th percentile).
Kids who are overweight are at risk for the same health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, as adults. And odds are that they will carry excess weight into adulthood, putting them at risk in later life for heart disease, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancer.
Helping Your Overweight Child is available in print from the Weight-Control Information Network (WIN), at 1-877-946-4627, or online at www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/pubs/helpchld.htm. WIN is a national information service of the NIDDK, of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The document is also available on the IFIC Foundation’s web site at http://ific.org.
