Childhood Obesity
I am determined to work with folks across this country to change the way a generation of kids thinks about food and nutrition - Michelle Obama
image by: Gaulsstin
HWN Suggests
It's Not About the Calories
The past few years have seen the launch of many admirable initiatives to solve the problem of childhood obesity in America, but I'd like to respectfully suggest that these programs are, quite simply, doomed to failure. This is not because the food industry will subvert their efforts. It's not because the children and parents in this country lack the willpower to tackle this problem and certainly not because they lack the motivation. It's because the advice these anti-obesity initiatives give isn't going to help, and the science they're based on is misguided.
Take Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign, one of the most high-profile examples of this mistaken approach to the problem.…
Resources
A new study links early childhood obesity to lower IQ scores
Childhood obesity comes with a myriad of health risks, ranging from increased risk of heart disease and cancer to asthma and type 2 diabetes. A new study shows how obesity can have an impact on children’s cognitive development as well.
Has Childhood Obesity Become A National Security Threat?
If we do not take comprehensive action to address childhood obesity, generations of children will grow up to have serious and potentially life-threatening health issues. Having spent a significant portion of my medical career as a heart and lung transplant surgeon, I am intimately familiar with how unhealthy habits that start at a young age can quickly become dangerous.
We’ve become numb to one of the biggest drivers of obesity
A new study shows how sports leagues like the NFL fan the childhood obesity epidemic.
Limiting Exposure to Unhealthy Food Choices on Campus the Right Move
Some might say it's government intrusion, but we're talking about children, and we're only saying that public schools ought to be providing them with more than just proper mental nourishment.
More American children and teens aren't just obese. They're morbidly obese.
Public health researchers cheered an encouraging trend recently: Childhood obesity rates, which rose steadily through the 1980s and 1990s, seemed to have plateaued in the 2000s. But new research suggests a different, troubling problem lurking behind that plateau — a steep rise in the rates of severe obesity, particularly among older and minority children.
The Poisoning of Our Children ~ Fighting the Obesity Epidemic in America
Children born in America today will live shorter lives than their parents and grandparents because of the obesity epidemic. Despite heightened awareness of the problem and advances in healthcare, present strategies are not working to reverse the trend.
Breakfast Initiative
The Breakfast Initiative set out to answer important questions about an important meal. What is the best way to deliver a healthy school breakfast? And, how does a healthy school breakfast impact key measures for children, including weight status and academic outcomes?
Childhood Obesity Increased More Than Tenfold Since 1975
So unless you live on Mars (the planet and not the candy manufacturer), the childhood obesity epidemic is affecting your country and you.
Did the Great Recession make kids fat?
Growing up during the Great Recession of the late 2000s was rough for a lot of American kids: The only world they knew was a post-9/11 one, and the economic future looked grim. Now, it turns out the hard times may also have long-term effects on their health, and their waistlines in particular.
Fat Kids
In an effort to win the war on obesity—the spoils of which include an estimated tens or hundreds of thousands of lives per year, and billions of dollars in health care savings—they've shifted their target. Leave the adults alone; aim for the children.
Jamie Oliver – A Food Revolution from Across the Pond
Obesity is quickly overtaking smoking as the number one cause of death in the U.S. as well as Canada and the UK. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is on a mission to change America’s eating habits one plate, one school lunch and one impoverished town at a time.
Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
Jamie Oliver is transforming the way we feed ourselves, and our children. Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father's pub-restaurant.
Kaiser Permanente Shows How To Start Tackling The Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Kaiser Permanente seems to get it. You can't combat childhood obesity from just within hospital and health clinic walls or by simply telling kids to lose weight. That's like trying to win a soccer game with no one on your team besides a goalie. Therefore, for its Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) initiative, Kaiser Permanente ventured out into the community to try to make some changes...
Leave the Fat Kids Alone
Efforts to fix childhood obesity are aiming at the wrong target.
Michelle Obama's Weighty Issues with Childhood Obesity
I am determined to work with folks across this country to change the way a generation of kids thinks about food and nutrition - Michelle Obama
Obesity Is Skyrocketing Among African Children
Sugary beverages and soft drinks are a leading cause of a growing epidemic of obesity in Africa, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. The number of obese children across the continent has doubled from 5.4 million in 1990 to 10.3 million in Africa today, the WHO's Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity found.
Parents’ Denial Fuels Childhood Obesity Epidemic
Despite widespread publicity about the obesity epidemic, parents increasingly seem to be turning a blind eye as their children put on pounds.
The Urgency in Fighting Childhood Obesity
Life-threatening ailments like heart disease, cancer, stroke and Type 2 diabetes most often afflict adults. But they are often consequences of childhood obesity.
What Do Chubby Kids Eat?
A new study breaks down the foods most strongly associated with childhood weight gain.
Who’s Responsible for the Childhood Obesity Crisis?
Who’s responsible? I can tell you who isn’t: the children themselves. Let’s think about it.
It's Not About the Calories
Why existing efforts to combat childhood obesity are bound to fail.
Action for Healthy Kids
Action for Healthy Kids® fights childhood obesity, undernourishment and physical inactivity by helping schools become healthier places so kids can live healthier lives. We partner with a legion of dedicated volunteers -- teachers, students, moms, dads, school wellness experts and more -- from within the ranks of our 80,000+ network to create healthful school changes. After all, everyone has a part to play in ending the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic.
Alliance for a Healthier Generation
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, founded by the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation, works to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity and to empower kids to develop lifelong, healthy habits.
Childhood Obesity Conference
Obesity is a leading cause of mortality, morbidity, disability and discrimination in health care, education and employment. It is a public health challenge of near equal magnitude to that of tobacco use and exposure.
Childhood Obesity Foundation
This website is dedicated to educating Canadian children, their families and care givers, educators, business and government about the problem of childhood obesity. We hope that everyone can take steps to stop the current epidemic of childhood obesity in Canada.
ChildObesity180
Experts and leaders from diverse disciplines are coming together, generating urgency, and finding solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic.
Jamie Oliver
What we eat affects everything: our mood, behaviour, health, growth, even our ability to concentrate. A lunchtime school meal should provide a growing child with one third of their daily nutritional intake.
Jordan Levin Childhood Obesity Foundation
The Jordan Levin Childhood Obesity Foundation (JLCOF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was founded in 2009, with the goal of fighting the childhood obesity epidemic one child at a time. The foundation is currently helping to finance and assist overweight/obese children in accessing education, exercise and nutritional counseling.
Let’s Go!
Let’s Go! is helping kids and families eat healthy and be active. We understand it’s important to have a consistent message about healthy habits where you live, learn, work and play. So we partner with teachers, doctors, child care providers, and community organizations to help share the same four healthy habits of “5 2 1 0” everyday:
National Childhood Obesity Foundation
Created for the general purpose of proactively developing, uniting, integrating, targeting, and communicating a positive ecologically and scientifically based health care empowerment nutrition and physical activity education intervention program message to those directly and indirectly affected by the national obesity epidemic.
Obesity Society
The Obesity Society is the leading scientific society dedicated to the study of obesity. Since 1982, The Obesity Society has been committed to encouraging research on the causes and treatment of obesity, and to keeping the medical community and public informed of new advances.
Voices for Healthy Kids Action Center
Voices for Healthy Kids Action Center is the only online national network of people solely dedicated to ensuring our kids grow up at a healthy weight. We connect advocates across the movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters in advocacy efforts to implement policies that will help reduce children nationwide grow up at a healthy weight.
CDC
This Web site provides information about childhood overweight and obesity, including how overweight and obesity are defined for children, the prevalence of obesity, the factors associated with obesity, and the related health consequences.
KidsHealth
The percentage of overweight children in the United States is growing at an alarming rate, with 1 out of 3 kids now considered overweight or obese.
Raising Children Network
In 2007, 23% of Australian children were overweight or obese. The number of overweight children nearly doubled between 1985 and 1995, while the number of obese children more than tripled in the same period.
WHO
Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. The problem is global and is steadily affecting many low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings. The prevalence has increased at an alarming rate.
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