|
Healthy eating program helps slim school kids
Reuters Health (May 11, 2007 By Maggie Fox) writes that a program that pulled a whole town into helping its children eat better and exercise more helped stop the kids from gaining too much weight, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
The children of Somerville, Massachusetts gained, on average, just less than a pound (half a kg) less than children who did not take part in the program, the researchers at Tufts University's school of nutrition in Boston found. And it got them to eat broccoli. Children who were overweight lost weight, or stopped gaining, and those who were lean continued to grow at a healthy rate. Their experiment incorporated the school lunchrooms, teachers, after-care, parents and even the local newspaper. The researchers used grants from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention and other groups to buy knives and food processors for the school kitchen, glass display cases to promote yogurt and salads, and a new oven. They gave teachers ways to incorporate lessons about healthy eating and exercise into the curriculum. Parents were sent weekly tips, recipes and coupons for brown rice, whole grain bread and other healthful foods.
In Somerville, 44 percent of the children were overweight or at risk of being overweight at the start of the study. Similar numbers were overweight in the other two communities. After a year, on average, the 6- to 9-year-olds had gained, on average, just under a pound (half a kg) less each than the children in the other two communities.
|
