Boarding Schools for Girls

Are you the parent of an overweight child between the ages of 2 and 6? If so, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis want you to participate in an experimental online program.

Dr. Denise Wilfrey described the "Food for Thought" program as a computer intervention that teachers, parents, and caregivers can use to learn to make healthy food choices and to counteract the effect of junk food advertisements on children.

For more information and to enroll in the program, see the Food for Thought website.

Labels: overweight, children

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Girls who are allowed to drink soda at age 5 become teenagers who have unhealthy diets, according to a new study from Pennsylvania State University.

• Dr. Laura Fiorito and her colleagues followed 170 girls for ten years.
• Those who were allowed to have soda at age five showed much lower intake of fiber protein, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium magnesium, phosphorus and potassium throughout the ten-year study than those not allowed to have soda at age five.
• All the girls in the study had inadequate levels of recommended nutrients as teenagers.
• By age 15, nearly all were drinking soda, although the "early soda drinkers" were drinking twice as much.

"We think that the patterns develop when they are younger," Dr. Fiorito said. "Some studies show that children are already drinking soda or carbonated beverages by age two."

The study appears in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
 

Labels: teenagers, nutrition, children

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 1 Comment