LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Obesity Statistics

Childhood Obesity Statistics: It’s the Diet, Stupid…

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This is not the first time I’ve pointed out the problems in society when it comes to health.  Even First Lady Obama is promoting physical activity like it’s “the” answer to childhood obesity.

Well, guess what?  The problem isn’t the exercise.  I’m not saying it’s ok for your child to sit in front of an Xbox 360 for 4 hours a day.  They should, in general, be active.  When we were kids (maybe 10 years ago, if my math is correct…) we didn’t do “exercise.”  We rode our bikes everywhere, we ran around the neighborhood and we played sports.  But we didn’t exercise just to exercise.  It was just a part of what we did.

This should be the end discussion on the contribution of exercise to our rising childhood obesity statistics.  But it isn’t.  It becomes the pivotal discussion point on combatting childhood obesity.

Previous blog articles that have focused on how little exercise promotion changes behaviors in children can be read by clicking here.

This particular study looks at the effects of physical activity recommendations from a primary care provider in 182 overweight/obese 5- to 10-year-olds after a 3 year period.  They used accelerometry to study activity (think of a pedometer).  Here’s what they found:

  • Beginning and 3-year BMI scores did not change.
  • Beginning activity scores were 334 cpm (counts / minute) and 3-year were 284.
  • For those who had higher activity levels at 3 years, BMI scores dropped by a relatively small amount only.
  • Looking at the bright side, those with higher activity levels were more likely to not gain weight (versus moving to a higher BMI category).

Overall, the results were pretty disappointing.

Rather than being discouraged, however, this should wake us all up to the fact that diet is absolutely critical in making sure our children stay at his or her optimal weight.  No one gets hurt financially when we tell everyone to move more.  Actually, companies like Nike, Reebok and Spaulding probably come out way ahead.

But telling kids to avoid soda (diet and regular) and refined carbohydrates??  THAT is going to cost the majore confectionary companies like Nabisco and Kraft millions of dollars.

As the parent, it is up to you to set the stage for your child’s health.  No excuses like little Johnny is a poor eater.  If he is, it’s because you have let him become a poor eater.

You can view my general recommendations by clicking here.

Childhood Obesity Statistics: Can the Xbox Kinect Help?

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I’ve addressed the chemical and dietary aspects of childhood obesity statistics. Clearly, though, exercise plays a role as well. Could technology help obese kids?

It’s a dream that every kid has. The parents condoning the use of video games. In the past, this really hasn’t been an option due to the inherently sedentary nature of video game playing.

But that has been changing.  It started with the Nintendo Wi and has moved forward with the Playstation move and the Xbox Kinect. If you’ve never played these games before, they vary from sitting on the couch swishing around the controller to all out physical activity with games like Just Dance, Kinect Sports, Fighters Uncaged or Kinect Adventures.

These games can really help you break a sweat. But just how much?

This particular study was designed to answer just that question.

Researchers looked at the calories burned while a small group of kids aged 11-15 played two different Xbox Kinect games for 15 minutes: Dance Central and Kinect Sports Boxing.  Here are the findings:

  1. Heart rate, oxygen uptake, and energy expenditure were considerably higher with these games.
  2. The Dance Central increased calorie burning by 150%.
  3. The Boxing increased calorie burning by 263%.

Not too shaby for something the kids may actually enjoy and can be done year round, regardless of hot or cold temps. AND, to top it all off, this is clearly something you can do as a family. Many of the games, like Kinect Adventures, allows you to compete against one another. We break the family into two teams for some nice competitive fun.

Incidentally, this is not the first study to look at what might happen in a household that uses these types of games. In May of 2011 a study looked at the weight of children who were given a Wii system instead of their normal, sedentary-type video games and found definate improvements in 6 months.

If you have played the Xbox Kinect before, what games did your family really seem to like and helped everyone get more exercise?

 

Childhood Obesity Statistics: Blame Artificial Sweeteners

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I know I’ve written frequently on childhood obesity statistics lately, but are you really paying attention to everything your child is putting in their mouth?

You’ve banned artificial sweeteners. No more diet soda. You read one of my blog posts on just how unhealthy artificial sweeteners are, and you instantly tossed what you had in the house into the garbage. You’ve scrapped the plastic water bottles and cheap soup cans to ban BPA as well.

You’ve even searched out the labels where artificial sweeteners like sucralose (Splenda) lurks; some juices, “energy” drinks, even drink “enhancers” like Mio. You’ve vowed to not use any of the Nuun Active Hydration during your Susan Komen 3-day hike because of the acesulfame potassium. You’ve told your primary care doctor that Medifast is not going to help you lose weight in the long run.

Your family is all set and your children are happily chewing their gum in the back seat, artificial sweetener free.

Wait…chewing gum?

You slam on the brakes as you pull the car to the side of the road and demand to see the pack of Trident that your son is chewing from.

You guessed it. Almost every major brand of gum available now has artificial sweeteners in it. Actually, most seem to have multiple types (Yes-that Trident sugarless gum has acesulfame potassium AND aspartame in addition to the naturally occurring sugar alcohol sorbitol–apparently Trident couldn’t decide just which sweetener it was going to use so it through them all in…).

But it’s just a little amount.

That’s what I hear. It’s just a little. Or it’s just one can of diet soda per day. Or just a few pieces of gum per day. I remember hearing one distributor for a direct marketing “health” company stating that the sucralose in their drink was “just a little.”

Make no mistake–“just a little” is enough for us to taste or it wouldn’t be in there.

Which brings us to this particular article.

Researchers looked at a group of obese children aged 6-18 and compared them to a similar group of normal weight children. They were specifically looking to see if there was a difference in the taste sensations between the two groups. There findings give us some insight into the problems our children are facing:

  1. Obese children were less able to identify salty, bitter and umami (savory) tastes.
  2. Obese kids rated 3 of 4 test strips (with increasing sweet concentrations) as being less sweet.
  3. The greatest difference was in the lowest concentration of “sweet.”
  4. Only at the sweetest concentration did the two groups of children agree on the degree of sweetness.
  5. Overall, girls and older kids were better at picking out the right tastes.

Basically, the obese children seemed less sensitive to “sweet” until the concentration became strong. To me, this would seem to identify a type of tolerance for sweet sensations, much like a drug.

Giving our children sweet this and sweet that, including artificial sweeteners with sensations 1,000 times stronger than table sugar will do nothing but cause problems. I remain very strong of the opinion that giving artificial sweeteners to our children AT ALL, at any age, begins to disassociate taste from our body and brain’s response to sweet. This process can only lead contribute to the worsening childhood obesity statistics as time goes on.

If your child is already stuck in this loop, the first step is to cut out any and ALL artificial sweeteners.   Today. If your family chews gum, switch to a xylitol based gum.

From there, begin to cut back on the “sweet” that they are exposed to. That could mean smaller serving sizes. We have frozen yogurt stores here in Arizona that sell by the ounce–you basically fill up as much as you’d like and then top it off with the selections such as bad stuff, fruit and nuts. I can tell you that, for 4 of us, we frequently pay just a little more than most of the cups that get filled and dropped on the scale. Do you really need to fill the whole thing?

You can also begin to substitute unsweetened items for the sugary stuff. If they can’t drink tea without a 50:50 sugar:tea mix, begin to gradually cut back on the amount of sugar being added until it’s gone. And do you really need the largest size Starbucks with whipped cream?

What have you done to cut back on your child’s “sweet” intake?