Monday, May 9, 2011

Keeping kids health weight by giving family meals



If we look Kids who sit down to eat with their families are less likely to be overweight and eat unhealthy foods compared with others who eat lonely, according to U.S. researchers who call for more shared meals.
In the first report to combine all existing studies on the issue, they found kids who eat with their parents spend at least three times or more a week had actually 12 percent lower odds of being overweight.

The percentage showed that the children were also 20 percent less likely to eat junk food, 35 percent less likely to have eating problems like skipping meals or bingeing, and 24 percent proved they are more likely to eat vegetables and other healthy foods. 

The Amber hammons from University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, whose findings are published in the journal Pediatrics said that sitting down as a family give a nutritional benefit to them especially kids. Still, the 17 studies reviewed in the new work were based on observations, not actual experiments, and Hammons acknowledged that they don't prove shared meals trim waistlines.

"It's just an association," she told Reuters Health. "Families who sit down together could be healthier to begin with."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity has more than tripled over the past 3 decades, reaching close to 20 percent in 2008.

The extra pounds may weigh down on kids' self-esteem and can set them up for health problems such as heart disease and diabetes.

The new report is based on findings from nearly 183,000 children about 2 to 17 years of age. While those studies yielded mixed results and weren't easy to compare, overall they show regular family meals are tied to better nutrition. 

Parents might give big influence as well as monitor their kids during shared meals. Hammons said beside that the children also less to east eat high-calorie food

As a result, the researchers encourage families to spend more time together around the dinner table.

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