Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Out of sight out of mind Parents often ask me what’s the simplest thing to do to help their kids to a healthy weight in a fast food/fake food world? My answer: turn your home into a nutritional safe zone. Purge the pantry and fridge of junk foods that are high in calories and low …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
So you think you can dance? There’s no two ways about it. You can. So shake it. I am often asked the following question: ‘Isn’t obesity mostly a question of biology? If you happen to be born with “fat genes,” isn’t there really very little you can do about it?’ It can seem overwhelmingly difficult …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Are your kids fussy eaters, or are they really full when they say they are? There’s no question about it, parents like to see clean plates at the end of dinner. And that’s not surprising considering the effort that goes into preparing the meal and wanting to nourish your family. A recent report published in …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
The dreaded V word Sooner or later there comes a moment that all doctors working with overweight kids dread. We pause, take a breath and utter the ‘V’ word. Vegetables. Suddenly the mother trembles, the father dives for cover and the kid erupts with some version of ‘Eewwwwwww! Yuck.’ Of course there’s nothing in a …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Happy meals for whom? Way back in the 1980s and 1990s, I was involved in a 15-year study (the CARDIA study, Lancet 2005, 365:36-42) that took a long, hard look at what happens when young people eat fast food on a regular basis. We found those kids eating fast food more than twice a week …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
We have the power to choose the shape of things to come Here’s how Patty Nolan made a difference. Patty works at Warren Point Elementary School in Fair Lawn New Jersey. Noticing a rapid increase in the number of overweight kids, she launched a novel health and fitness program along with school nurse Kathy Szabo. …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Giving kids a leg up in life You’ve heard it before, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But a lot of us skip breakfast. Not a good example for the kids because alarmingly around 40 per cent of them are breakfast skippers too – ‘too tired’, ‘slept in’, ‘in a rush’, ‘not …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Walk the walk There’s a pretty widespread belief out there that that we need bike tracks, parks and playgrounds to encourage people to exercise. That it’s the physical environment that encourages healthy behaviour. Not so says Johannes Brug, professor of epidemiology at VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. His review of 50 studies published in …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
Children’s livers turning fatty While it’s known being overweight is a big reason for the rising number of children with type 2 diabetes, it’s also increasing the prevalence of another dangerous condition: non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This is a silent but dangerous epidemic. Just as type 2 diabetes exploded into our consciousness in the …
Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids
TV ground rules Of the many factors that contribute to excessive weight gain in kids, TV may be the most influential. It certainly takes time away from active pursuits from playing sports to simply playing. But it also contributes through the mouth. A recent report from Australia published in Health Promotion International (31 August 2007) …
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