Want Leaner Kids? Parents May Need to Toe the Line
SUNDAY, Oct. 11 (HealthDay News) -- It's a trend that has health experts worried: Young kids are becoming increasingly oversized -- leading, they fear, to overweight teens and, ultimately, overweight adults with health problems.
But parents could be poised to do something about this. After all, some experts contend, parents are part of the problem.
"Parents might be contributing to the overweight epidemic," said Dr. Elsie Taveras, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School, who has researched the issue.
They do so unwittingly, of course, Taveras said. And the point is not to make parents feel guilty about contributing to their children's weight problems, she said, but to get the word out because the trend is headed in the wrong direction.
Today in the United States, infants up to 6 months old are 59 percent more likely to be overweight than were babies 20 years ago, according to a study published in Obesity.
In her research, Taveras discovered that infants who gain weight quickly early in life face weight problems by the time they're toddlers.
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