Food Politics

I would also recommend “LA Sprouts: A Gardening, Nutrition, and Cooking Intervention for Latino Youth Improves Diet and Reduces Obesity,” J.N. Davis, E.E. Ventura, L.T. Cook, L.E. Gyllenhammer, and N.M. Gatto in the August issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (J Am Diet Assoc. 2011;111:1224-1230). The paper’s results and the program is described at:
http://uscnews.usc.edu/health/nutritional_lessons_boost_health_of_latinos.html

Thanks for sharing this latest research. Most of our adult eating habits are deeply rooted in childhood experiences. Finding ways to intervene and make changes early on with kids is so key to their lifelong health.

The first article was interesting in that intervention in these middle schools had the same end result on obesity (measured in terms of BMI) over the three years studied as non-intervention. Then it goes into conjecture to explain the similarity in results.

I think part of the underlying issue here is that middle school age kids are still undergoing puberty. Another issue is that BMI is simply a quick and dirty measurement of height and weight, which is not really how most people think of obesity/overweight and it’s not a great proxy for assessing overall health. Penn and Teller’s show “Bullshit!” had an entertaining segment on this aspect of the obesity debate, which I highly recommend.

The second study wasn’t too earth shattering: kids who have some measure of discipline and behavioral self-control are more likely to not become obese or overweight compared to kids who lack such habits and inclinations.

The third article is mainly just a few executives of smaller so-called healthier food companies being thrown soft ball questions while simultaneously advertising themselves as solutions or alternatives to what they perceive as wrong with unhealthy Big Food.

The last article could’ve been more informative if it described some of the actual results and outcomes (outside of customer satisfaction) of these different family-centered interventions. It would’ve also been interesting to speculate on how feasible any of these interventions could be applied to larger populations.

I totally agree with Charlie that BMI is a quick and dirty measurement and unfortunately not totally an accurate reflection of overall health. I work mainly with adults and have seen this quite frequently.

I have not read the articles yet but one thing that quickly comes to mind and has always concerned me is how using BMI, which labels a subset of a children as “obese”, will ultimately affect that those kids in the long run.

I have worked with parents who have been quite upset that their child has been labeled “obese” based on BMI measurements done in their schools. One case that stands out most in my mind was a situation where a school was trying to implement health programs for the school and part of the program was doing the BMI assessments and sending the result to the parents. The parental concern was that the children, who are already mentally vulnerable at such a young age, were going to feel labeled and embarrassed.

So I’m curious on what others think about using BMI to evaluate children and if so, and in what way should this information be used by schools and parents? And ultimately should parents be discussing this with their children?

I have similar issues with the exclusive use of the BMI as a measure of health. Anectodally I know many people with a BMI in the obese range without health issues. In my clinical work I often charted a similar observation.

I have also wondered if the switch to the BMI as the primary measurement tool has caused the sudden obesity “epidemic”. Is it akin to moving the goalpost?

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/childrens_bmi/about_childrens_bmi.html

The above link is a discussion of how and why BMI is used for children. For those who object, what would you recommend as an alternative?

How to present weight problems to parents is no doubt a sensitive issue, especially if you want to gain cooperation, but that seems to be where the discussion lies.

THis is very common in new generation and it truly touches the impact theme of whats going on with children. awesom info

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