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Current and Breaking News for Professionals, Consumers and Media |
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| Current and Breaking News for Professionals, Consumers and Media |
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CR found that doctors aren’t helping parents bridge the reality-versus-perception divide: 49% of parents with significantly overweight kids told CR their doctors had not suggested the need to shed some pounds. And severely overweight kids spend more than four hours every day engaged in screen time activities such as playing video games, surfing the web, and watching TV. Consumer Reports’ obesity poll is part of a broader effort to provide parents with health and safety information for their children. It was conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center in June through a telephone survey using a nationally representative probability sample of telephone households. CR interviewed adults with kids in the household ages 5-17 and compared their characterizations of their children to Body Mass Index (BMI) classifications by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Consumer Reports’ Back-to-School hub at http://www.ConsumerReports.org provides health and safety information for parents on a variety of topics such as healthy snacks, packing a lunchbox, vaccination schedules, how to choose a back pack, and medical guidance for treating ear infections, asthma, and ADHD, among other conditions. Perception Versus Reality Consumer Reports found that parents of children with higher BMIs—that is, those falling within the Center for Disease Control “At Risk” (85th -94th percentile) and “Overweight” (95th percentile and above) categories — failed to recognize that weight was a problem for their child. Only a small fragment—4%—of parents reported that their children were twenty-percent or more over their ideal weight; yet, 19% of children fell into this category when their BMI was examined. Role of External Influences Overall, overweight children and teens had take-out, fast food, and frozen meals several times a week or more; 42% of overweight children fall into this category, versus only 25% of kids at an ideal weight. Parents of children twenty-percent or more over their ideal weight reported that one half of such kids asked their parents to buy foods or go to restaurants advertised on television. CR found a clear need for schools to play a greater role in directing students to healthy meal choices. A definite correlation was found between meals consumed at home and weight. Kids who are overweight tend to eat more meals at school: Ideal Weight 20% Overweight Get Breakfast at School 13% 26% Get Lunch at School 54% 72% Eat Dinner out of Home 3% 19% Activities: Indoors All The Time, and Snacking Children classified as twenty-percent over their ideal weight spend less time outdoors and playing sports. In fact, these kids spend on average 255 minutes engaged in screen time activities such as watching TV, surfing the web, and playing video games. Kids at their ideal weight spend 161 minutes a day in front of a screen. Being sedentary not only prevents exercise, but provides an ideal time for snacking. CR found that 50% of severely overweight kids eat three or more servings of snack foods each day. Similarly, the consumption of sweetened drinks was high among overweight kids. Close to half (45%) of severely overweight kids consumed three or more sweetened drinks every day. Curiously, when asked to define major contributors to childhood obesity, parents were clear that lack of exercise and too much screen time were the top problems; 87% of parents identified lack of exercise as a major cause of obesity and 83% blamed too much screen time. Poor Communication With Family Doctor Overall, just 9% of adults interviewed by Consumer Reports said that a physician had suggested that their child or teen lose weight. Among respondents with kids more than twenty-percent overweight, 51% reported that their physician had suggested their child shed some pounds. That leaves almost half of all parents of severely overweight kids not engaging in a dialogue with their family doctor about their child’s weight problem. www.HealthNewsDigest.com Top of Page 
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