Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Watching TV Affects Kids' Eating Habits Beyond Screen Time

Parents may have another reason to limit the amount of television their children watch.

Watching TV affects what kids eat even when they are not glued to it, according to results from a study published this month in Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

"We found that both the amount of television viewing as well as the frequency of snacking while watching TV were related to a cluster of unhealthy eating behaviors," said Leah Lipsky, the study's lead author and a staff scientist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md.

The study also found that the relationship between television watching and some unhealthy eating patterns remained even when children were not watching TV, according to Lipsky and co-author Ronald Iannotti, also a staff scientist at the institute.

Results of the study found that, after controlling for socioeconomic factors, computer use and level of physical activity, watching television was associated with eating fewer fruits and vegetables and eating more candy, soda and fast food as well as skipping breakfast.

The unexpected result was that the relationship between television watching and some unhealthy eating habits remained even after the researchers controlled for television snacking.

"Most people say: 'Oh yeah, no, I snack when I'm at the TV. This is nothing new,'" Iannotti said. "But even when you control for snacking while at the computer or at the TV, the effect or the relationship between TV viewing and this dietary pattern continues, so it suggests that TV viewing may have an effect beyond simply what you're doing while you're watching TV. I think that's important."

Source: Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-x-tv-and-chid-health-0516-20120516,0,3859596.story

Family Routines Cut Risk of Obesity in Kids

What if the real answer to the childhood obesity epidemic isn’t just diet and exercise? Two research studies done years and an ocean apart suggest that three family routines -- setting limits on TV, having family meals together and getting the kids to bed on time – could reduce kids’ risk for obesity by 40%, while food choices and exercise alone have proven less successful.

The two studies show that routines make a difference.  In the United Kingdom, a long-running study of over 14,000 school children found in 2005 that 17 variables – including food and breast-feeding as babies – didn’t seem connected with which kids became overweight. What was: The amount of sleep kids got each night, the amount of TV they watched, and whether their parents were obese.

In the US the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of about 8000 children is getting similar results.  When researchers looked at the household routines of a group of 4-year-olds from the study, they found three variables that were related to obesity. Obesity rates were much lower in families that simply set an average 2-hour limit on TV and other ‘screen time’, had meals together at least five nights a week and got kids to bed early enough that they slept an average of 10 ½ hours per night (a healthy sleep number for 4-year-olds). Just 14% of kids whose families practiced all three routines were obese, compared to 24% of kids whose families didn’t follow any of them.

To be sure, food and exercise are still important part. What the research is telling us is that without consistent healthy routines at home and warm supportive parents who can set limits as needed, that information on food and exercise is not going to help.

Source: Philly.com
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/Beyond-Food-and-Exercise--What-Children-Really-Need-for-Healthy-Growth.html

Troubled Homes May Fuel Obesity in Girls

Girls from troubled homes are more likely to be obese at age 5 than girls from happier ones, new research shows. However, researchers did not find that same association between boys' weight and difficult family situations.

In the study, researchers looked at data on more than 1,600 preschoolers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which tracks the health and well-being of children born to mostly low-income, single-mother families. About half were black, 27 percent were Hispanic and 22 percent were white.

When their children were aged 1 and 3 years, mothers were asked about six stressors: domestic violence, depression, drug abuse, housing insecurity, food insecurity (meaning that their household didn't always have enough nutritious food to eat) and whether the child's father was in prison. Children's height and weight were measured at age 5.

At 5 years old, 17 percent of the children were obese, defined as having a body-mass index in the 95th percentile or above, or being heavier than 95 percent of their peers for their height.

Girls whose mothers reported experiencing two or more stressors when their daughter was age 1 were twice as likely to be obese at age 5. If the mother reported experiencing two or more stressors when the daughter was age 3, the girl was also about twice as likely to be obese.

The study is published in the May issue of Pediatrics.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/16/troubled-homes-may-fuel-obesity-in-girls

For Many Girls, Slimming Down Doesn't Help Self-Esteem

Weight loss doesn't necessarily lead to a boost in obese teenage girls' self-esteem, according to a new study.

"We found that obese black and white teenage girls who transitioned out of obesity continued to see themselves as fat, despite changes in their relative body mass," study author Sarah Mustillo, an associate professor of sociology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., said in a university news release.

"Obese white girls had lower self-esteem than their normal-weight peers and their self-esteem remained flat even as they transitioned out of obesity," added Mustillo, who studies obesity in childhood and adolescence.

Researchers noted that the study did not prove that girls' self-esteem remained low because they continued to see themselves as overweight, Mustillo said. There could be other explanations for the girls' continuing low self-esteem in adolescence.

The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/03/for-many-girls-slimming-down-doesnt-help-self-esteem

Smoking, Drinking Teens Are Unhappiest of All

Teenagers who smoke, drink alcohol and eat junk food are significantly more likely to be unhappy than their clean- living counterparts, a study has found.

In the study, about 5,000 children were questioned on their appearance, family, friends, school and life as a whole, and had their happiness levels rated.

Researchers discovered that those who never drank alcohol were between four and six times more likely to have higher levels of happiness than those who did, while those who shunned cigarettes were about five times more likely to have high happiness scores than young smokers.

The authors of the study, based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, used data from Understanding Society, a long-term study of 40,000 UK households, to analyse the home life and health-related behaviour of about 5,000 ten to 15-year-olds.

Their results found that unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol and not taking exercise were closely linked to substantially lower happiness scores, even when factors such as family income and parents’ education were taken into account.

Source: Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2109572/Smoking-drinking-teens-unhappiest---fruit-veg-secret-good-life.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Stressed Kids More Likely to Become Obese

Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, a new study has found. The researchers suggest the reason is that ongoing stress makes it tougher for children to control their behavior and emotions -- or self-regulate. That, in turn, can lead to obesity by their teen years.

The researchers measured the height and weight of 244 9-year-olds in rural New York state and calculated their various physical and psycho-social stressors -- for example, exposure to violence, living in a substandard house or having no access to such resources as books. They also measured the children's ability to delay gratification by offering them a choice between waiting for a large plate of candy versus having a medium plate immediately. The researchers measured the children's height and weight again four years later.

While the study doesn't prove that a child's inability to delay gratification causes her to gain weight, there's strong evidence to suggest that it does, according to Gary Evans, an environmental psychologist at Cornell University, and a co-author of the study . First, previous studies have shown that chronic stress is linked to weight gain in children and teenagers, and that children eat more sugary, fatty foods when stressed. Second, there's a plausible neurocognitive mechanism that may help better understand this behavior, Evans said. "There's some evidence that parts of the brain that are vulnerable and sensitive to stress, particularly early in life, are some of the same parts involved in this self-regulatory behavior."

The study appears in the journal Pediatrics.

Source: MedicalXpress
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-stressed-kids-obese.html

Teens Who Sleep Late Gain Most Weight

In a new study, researchers at the University of South Australia found that when kids sleep is as important how long kids sleep.

Researchers compared sleeping habits--including early to bed, early risers and late to bed, late risers and found that even though each group got the same amount of sleep--the late to bed, late risers were 1 and a half times more likely to gain weight.

Dr. Nick Nicholson, from Baylor-Plano, TX, said he isn’t surprised--staying up just a few hours later can make a huge difference. "What's that person doing between nine and midnight?” Dr. Nicholson asked. “Well, we know what normally goes on and they are usually in front of the TV or computer and there is a lot of snacking that goes on during that."

Dr. Nicholson said people who sleep late exercise less--and that's exactly what researchers found--early to bed, early risers got about a half hour more of moderate to vigorous exercise.

"This is all about behavior, when you are bored what do you tend to do?” Dr. Nicholson said. “Well, some people may smoke, some people may pace, some people, a lot of us may eat. If you find yourself with excessive free time that is a very common way of filling that time."

Source: CW33.com
http://www.the33tv.com/about/station/newsteam/kdaf-teen-sleep-weight-gain-study-20120117,0,2277643.story

Teens Not Eating Their Veggies

U.S. high school students still aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables, according to a new study by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.

The investigators analyzed data from nearly 10,800 students in grades nine through 12 who took part in the National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study 2010, and found that median consumption was 1.2 times per day for both fruits and vegetables.

Median daily fruit consumption was much higher among males than females, and much higher among grade nine students than among students in grades 10 and 12.

Slightly more than one in four (28.5 percent) of the high school students ate fruit less than once a day, and 33.2 percent ate vegetables less than once a day. Only 16.8 percent of students ate fruit at least four times a day and only 11.2 percent ate vegetables at least four times a day, the study found.

The researchers said their findings indicate that most high school students don't meet the daily fruit and vegetable recommendations for teens who do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day: 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables for females and 2 cups of fruit and 3 cups of vegetables for males. Teens who get more physical activity need to eat even more fruits and vegetables, the researchers noted.

"The infrequent fruit and vegetable consumption by high school students highlights the need for effective strategies to increase consumption," the researchers wrote in the report published in the Nov. 25 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: USA Today
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011-11-26/US-teens-dont-eat-enough-fruits-and-veggies-CDC/51409860/1

 

Today's Teens Will Die Younger of Heart Disease

A new study that takes a complete snapshot of adolescent cardiovascular health in the United States reveals a dismal picture of teens likely to die of heart disease at a younger age than adults do today, reports Northwestern Medicine research.

“We are all born with ideal cardiovascular health, but right now we are looking at the loss of that health in youth,” said Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, chair and associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Their future is bleak.”

The effect of this worsening teen health is already being seen in young adults. For the first time, there is an increase in cardiovascular mortality rates in younger adults ages 35 to 44, particularly women, Lloyd-Jones said.

The alarming health profiles of 5,547 children and adolescents, ages 12 to 19, reveal many have high blood sugar levels, are obese or overweight, have a lousy diet, don’t get enough physical activity and even smoke, the new study reports. These youth are a representative sample of 33.1 million U.S. children and adolescents from the 2003 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

“What was most alarming about the findings of this study is that zero children or adolescents surveyed met the criteria for ideal cardiovascular health,” said Christina Shay, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. “These data indicate ideal cardiovascular health is being lost as early as, if not earlier than the teenage years.”

Source: Health Canal
http://www.healthcanal.com/blood-heart-circulation/23480-Todays-Teens-Will-Die-Younger-Heart-Disease.html

Banning Sugared Drinks in Schools Doesn't Lower Student Consumption

Banning sugared beverages from schools will limit children's access to calorie-laden sodas and sports drinks but will do little to lower their overall intake of the drinks, according to new research.

Adolescents — no surprise — are adept at finding ways to get the things they can't have, so state policies banning all sugar-sweetened drinks from public schools and providing only water, milk or 100% fruit juices hasn't had the intended effect of steering kids away from drinking sugared drinks: the average teen consumes about 300 calories per day — that's nearly 15% of his daily calories — in sweetened beverages, and the food and beverage industry is only too happy to feed this need.

Researchers tracking 6,900 fifth-graders from public schools in 40 states through the eighth grade found that 85% of eighth graders reported drinking a sugared beverage at least once a week (about 30% said they drank them every day), regardless of whether their schools banned them or not.

The strict policies weren't a total wash, however: nearly 2% fewer students reported downing sweetened sodas or sports drinks between the fifth and eighth grades if their schools banned these drinks over that time, compared to schools with less restrictions.

Source: Time
http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/08/banning-sugared-drinks-in-schools-doesnt-lower-student-consumption/?xid=gonewsedit