Childhood obesity easily avoided

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We're living in a country where approximately one in every five children is overweight. This number has been on the rise over the last several decades, and most researchers do not expect the problem to decline any time soon.

In our society we do whatever we can to protect our children. We buckle them up in safety belts and give them vaccines to prevent illness. So how do we protect our children from the epidemic of childhood obesity?

Options for activity

Four-year-old Jackson Brus attends gymnastics class every Friday morning. Jackson participates because it's fun for him. Mom Tori Barnes-Brus takes her son every week so that he has the opportunity to let out some energy and be active.

"We've done other Parks and Rec. things in the past and we thought this would be a good place for him to be able to get some energy out that's in a structured environment," Barnes-Brus said.

Barnes-Brus takes her son Jackson to a class at the Lawrence Gymnastics Academy, which is part of Lawrence Parks and Rec. Gymnastics Director Carrie Blaisdell said she realizes the importance of health in childhood and encourages parents to enroll their children in gymnastics.

"For all ages of children, it gets them active, it keeps them moving and teaches them agility if they don't already have it," Blaisdell said.

Start them early

Experts would say that Barnes-Brus is on the right track with her son. Research emphasizes the importance of health early-on in life. Associate Professor of Psychology Ric Steele says that it's far worse for a person to develop obesity as a child than as an adult.

"Kids who are obese tend to have more negative health consequences as adults than adults who become obese as adults," Steele said.

Hit the basics

However if a child is already obese it's not too late. Steele says childhood obesity can be reversed if corrected early enough. It all goes back to two basic concepts everyone has known about for years.

"The bottom lines is, for most people increasing activity level and decreasing the high-caloric density foods is really what needs to happen in order to maintain a healthy weight," Steele said.

Steele has done studies on childhood obesity in the past, and the federal government recently awarded him a $600,000 grant for some new research. He will be looking for 120 participants between the ages of 7 and 17 who weigh more than 20 percent of their ideal body weight. Steele's study involves the entire family. He has found in the past that activity and effort involving the entire family results in a much higher success rate by the child.

Necessity of education

As a part of the study, families get together to learn more about healthy food and lives because Steele says it ultimately comes down to a lack of education.

"Even though we have standardized food labels, not everyone knows how to read them. So part of it's education and helping people to understand what they're reading when they're reading these food labels. We were actually surprised by how little knowledge some of our families actually had," Steele said.

Assistant Professor of Applied Behavioral Science Lynn Marotz agrees that there is a lack of education, not only on the part of parents but also among child care providers.

"Those people that are child care providers, many of them don't have, most people don't have, a lot of nutrition training, so they're in a position of having a lot of other concerns and nutrition is probably the least of their concern," Marotz said.

Who's to blame?

The research Marotz has done focuses on the role that child care providers play in a child's health. She believes this is an area that many people forget about, but since so many children spend a significant amount of time with these people every day it's crucial to educate child care providers.

"I think it's really helping our child care providers understand how to provide a healthy diet and what constitutes a healthy diet," Marotz said.

Unfortunately, in her research Marotz found that children aren't always getting the nutrients they need. In fact, they're often receiving high amounts of unhealthy foods.

"We found that children are getting a lot of calories and a lot of saturated fat because the providers are serving a lot of pre-prepared food," Marotz said.

The consequences

Steele said that obesity in children can have tremendous health consequences as those children grow up. These complications could include joint problems, heart trouble and diabetes.

"Type II diabetes is one of the primary consequences of pediatric obesity. One of the things we know is that even kids with long-term moderate obesity are at increased risk for diabetes than kids without obesity," Steele said.

Barnes-Brus understands the potential harm childhood obesity has. She thinks about avoiding these consequences now while her son is still young.

"We do have a family history of diabetes, so I want him to learn early-on to eat healthy and make good choices and to be able to exercise and to just have it be a part of his everyday life so that when he's older he already has those behaviors established," Barnes-Brus said.

Making time for health

While she tries hard to keep her son active and eating a healthy diet, Barnes-Brus does admit that the task can be challenging at times.

"Our society is so fast-paced and our parents are so over-extended and our work is so demanding that sometimes it's easier to put a kid in front of a television or in front of a video game instead of getting them out. So if you can find that balance early-on hopefully by the time they're able to make their own choices they'll make some that are better for their bodies," Barnes-Brus said.

Marotz realizes that child care providers may also need some motivation to keep children active.

"You have to figure out a way to help the providers see that by making these changes that there's some benefit to them, because they're not interested in making any changes if they don't see any benefit to themselves," Marotz said.

Steele understands that it can be difficult to keep children active and eating healthy all the time, especially if they are already overweight. But he encourages people to be patient, work together, and take it one day at a time.