Sound nutrition and fitness habits
developed during childhood have the potential to last a lifetime.
To examine how today's youth measure up in terms of diet and activity, the International
Food Information Council Foundation and the International Life Sciences
Institute-North America recently convened a conference, drawing on experts in
pediatrics, nutrition, exercise physiology and education.
In recent decades, public health authorities have stressed the need to
modify children's diets to reduce their risk of chronic diseases. But several
conference speakers labeled the link between children's diets and chronic
illness "tenuous" and in need of further study.
According to Rudolph Leibel, M.D., associate professor in the Human Behavior
and Metabolism Laboratory at New York's Rockefeller University, the traditional
measurements of obesity such as body mass index or skinfold thickness are
arbitrary. Such measurements may not be indicative of chronic disease risk
because they fail to take into account associated medical consequences, such as
high blood pressure or elevated blood cholesterol levels.
Rather than focusing on chronic
disease prevention, Ronald Kleinman, M.D., chief of the Pediatric
Gastroenterology and Nutrition Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital stressed
the need for diets that support children's optimal growth and development.
"Because the data linking the
composition of children's diets to chronic illnesses later in life are
preliminary and incomplete, the primary focus of childhood nutrition should be
to provide diets that optimally promote growth and development," he said.
Kleinman, who is also chairman of
the American Academy of Pediatric's (AAP). Committee on Nutrition, pointed out
how dietary recommendations have changed over the years as scientific
understanding has improved. For example, in the 1940s, infants began eating
solid foods at six-to- eight weeks of age, whereas today solids are usually
introduced at six months.
"Recommendations that
children's diets should be leaner seem reasonable, but we must keep in mind
that undernutrition and hunger are significant and growing problems for
American children today, many of whom don't get enough food to sustain proper
growth and development," Kleinman said. He added that within the context
of a balanced diet, no single food should be considered unhealthy regardless of
its fat content.
The AAP statement on cholesterol
advises that fat in children's diets can be safely limited to approximately 30
percent of calories. It also cautions that pediatric diets with less than 30
percent of calories from fat can be detrimental to proper growth and
development.
The conference also examined
current evidence on children's physical
fitness in relation to weight management and total health.
Some 20 to 40 percent of American
youngsters are physically unfit, according to Russell Pate, Ph.D., chairman of
the Exercise Science Department at the University of South Carolina. Surveys
indicate only one-third of high school students are physically active on a
regular basis. The majority are not involved in organized sports.
Pate said that physical inactivity
has been correlated with other poor health behaviors such as low consumption of
fruits and vegetables. Schools could encourage more physical activity by
reorganizing the school day and involving athletic role models.
Schools also could improve their
efforts in nutrition education, said Barbara Shannon, Ph.D., R.D., professor of
nutrition at the Pennsylvania State University. Currently, only nine states
mandate nutrition be taught in schools; 21 schools include it as a required
topic in other subjects such as health.
Shannon predicted that "If we
better prepare educators to teach nutrition, they are likely to be more
interested in the topic and devote more time to teaching it."
Is teaching children how to analyze
food advertisements better than banning such ads
from children's television programs? "Absolutely," said Arthur
Pober, Ed.D., vice president of the Children's Advertising Review Unit, Council
of Better Business Bureaus, Inc.
Pober, a specialist in early
childhood education, said, "Children will be faced with choices in the
marketplace their entire lives. In order to empower them to become judicious
consumers, we must give them the tools to make choices regarding the
advertising message and the product."
Ultimately, children should
understand that advertising gives them some, but not all, of the information
needed to make informed choices. "The best way to make this point is by
example and involving children as young as four years old in decisions about
family purchases," Pober advised.
Reprinted from the International
Food Information Council Foundation