Washington: Contrary to popular belief, children don’t usually outgrow their baby fat — and a new report urges steps to help prevent babies, toddlers and preschoolers from getting too pudgy too soon.
That’s a growing problem: Already, one in five preschoolers — 2- to 5-year-olds —
is overweight or obese in the US.
Topping the list of proposed changes: better guidelines to help parents and caregivers know just how much toddlers should eat as they move from baby food to biggerkid fare. And making sure preschoolers get at least 15 minutes of physical activity for every hour they spend in child care.
That’s a growing problem: Already, one in five preschoolers — 2- to 5-year-olds —
is overweight or obese in the US.
Topping the list of proposed changes: better guidelines to help parents and caregivers know just how much toddlers should eat as they move from baby food to biggerkid fare. And making sure preschoolers get at least 15 minutes of physical activity for every hour they spend in child care.
The recommendations, from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), aren’t about putting the very young on diets. But those early pounds can lead to lasting bad effects on their health as children grow, says the report. “It’s a huge opportunity to instill good habits at a time when you don’t have to change old ones,” said
Leann Birch, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Childhood Obesity Research, who chaired the IOM panel. Consider: Babies drink milk until they’re full and then turn away. But children as young as 2 or 3 are sensitive to portion size, important in not inadvertently training them to overeat. “If you give them larger portions, they eat more,” Birch explained. Dietary guidelines are usually aimed at ages 2 and older — though surveys show even very young children eat too few of the fruits and vegetables they need. The report captures the “dramatic dietary transition that occurs, from consuming one single food to,
by the time they’re 2, ordering up things from McDonald’s and, we ope, having also learned to eat a lot of healthy foods,” Birch said. Of course, parents have the biggest influence over whether healthy eating and being active become a child’s norm. But the report makes the case that children’s habits are influenced
by far more than their parents — and thus it’s time to expand obesity prevention to more of the other places youngsters spend time. Among the recommendations:
Day care and preschools should practice what’s called responsive feeding: providing age-appropriate portion sizes, teaching children to serve themselves properly, requiring adults to sit with and eat the same foods as the children and following babies’ cues as to when they’ve had enough. Breastfed infants are less likely to become obese later in childhood, so doctors and hospitals should encourage breastfeeding and limit formula samples aimed at new moms. At checkups, doctors should consider the parents’ weight in assessing which children are at risk of later obesity, and then alert parents early that preventive steps are needed. About 10 percent of infants and toddlers already weigh too much for their length
