Youngsters often miss diet and exercise marks

According to their parents, pre-school children have somewhat better diets than school-age children, but both groups fall short when it comes to getting recommended amounts of exercise.

Dr Hollie A. Raynor, of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and co-investigators, assessed parents’ reports of their children’s diet and activity levels. Of 174 boys and girls, about half (49 per cent) were preschoolers (two to 5.9 years old) and 51 per cent were school-age children (six to 12.9 years).

Parental reports of physical activity levels showed just 51 per cent of kids, aged two to 12 years old, participated in sweat-inducing play or exercise for the recommended minimum of 60 minutes on most days, they report in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour.

Overall, 47 per cent of the school-age kids were at risk for or were overweight, compared with 22 per cent of the pre-school age kids, the investigators found.

They also found that fewer pre-school kids ate salty and sweet snacks daily – 14 and 16 per cent, respectively. Conversely, reports showed nearly double this intake among school-age kids – about 26 per cent ate salty and nearly 30 per cent ate sweet snacks daily.

On average, parents’ reported pre-school children ate minimum recommended daily servings of low fat dairy products, but school-age children did not.

Moreover, while kids, regardless of age, minimally met recommended vegetable intake of one to 2.5 cups daily, and generally ate the recommended one to 1.5 cups of fruit daily, parents reported nearly 74 per cent of the children ate fast food at least once a week.

In this study, parents’ perspectives, as a whole, suggest “children’s eating and leisure-time behaviours are not close to meeting current recommendations,” Dr Raynor said.

As unhealthy eating and activity habits tend to increase as children age, Raynor and colleagues surmise, it may be necessary to assist parents of young children establish healthy lifestyle habits before their kids’ start school.

Reuters Health

Source: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour, January/February 2009