Mar 13, 2008 9:22 am US/Eastern
Good Eating Habits Could Curb Childhood Obesity
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
A new report titled "Preventing Childhood Obesity" presented at the American Heart Association's Conference on Nutrition shows teaching children at a young age good eating habits could help them avoid gaining unnecessary weight.
Preschoolers took part in a University of Miami experiment designed to prevent childhood obesity.
Dr. Sarah Messiah of UM said, "We wanted to keep normal weight children, normal weight so it's really a prevention intervention."
Dr. Ruby Nathale also of UM added, "This was a prevention study. So we didn't want kids to lose weight, we just wanted to prevent them from becoming obese."
Drs. Messiah and Nathale developed a program to teach inner city kids, ages 2 through 5 about healthy foods and why they need to eat them.
When a child was asked why it was important to eat vegetables, he responded that it's "to make you strong and healthy".
The "Preventing Childhood Obesity" report shows the plan is working.
Children in the program stopped eating chips. Cookie consumption dropped by 50%, and fresh fruit and vegetable consumption increased by 25% even at home.
"One of the biggest benefits we've seen actually is that they go home and ask parents to buy them more broccoli, which we were told would never happen," added Dr. Nathale.
Almost all of the children stayed at the same weight, or lost a little.
The program seemed to work so well that it is being expanded in the upcoming year from seven to ten centers. The hope is it will start an educational trend nationwide.
"It's very clear that we need effective community- based programs to approach that and we need to begin very early," explained pediatrician Dr. Lee Sanders.
While some old habits, like eating candy, are hard to break, this study proves it's never too early to start a healthy one.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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