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• Kid Food Is Mostly Crap, and It's a Little Shocking

  I doubt most parents would assume a box of waffles with a picture of SpongeBob on the front was necessarily health food. But what if the box also had a label saying, "high in essential nutrients for growing kids"? Even if you don't consciously think about it, you might soften in your approach to the waffles. Well, I've got news for you: That food is most likely crap. Researchers in Canada analyzed more than 360 products marketed to children. They did NOT include junk food, so there's nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide on this study. Instead they covered what is sometimes packaged as "fun food", products with cartoon characters and so on pimping the contents, such as prepackaged dinners. And guess what?    Read More... Posted Jul 23 2008, 03:02 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: food, research study, nutrition, parents, dads, sports, cartoons, obesity, moms, marketing, childhood, activity, characters, junk, grocery

• 5 Ways to Keep the Kids from Growing Fat this Summer

  It used to be you could just kick the kids out of the house on a summer day, lock the door and refuse to let them back in until well after dark. But someone had to go have a hissy fit and make that illegal, so now a lot more kids spend their time indoors. Luring your kids away from their PS3’s and IPods and daytime soap “stories” is harder than ever, even when you try to convince them that the outside world is cool ‘cause it’s so totally old school. Here are some gentle ways to nudge them out of the nest and make sure they don’t spend their whole summer eating Hot Pockets. Read More... Posted Jul 10 2008, 10:00 AM by Cole Gamble with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: kids, ipod, fat, obesity, summer, activity, ps3, dangerous book for boys, squirt guns, water slides

• Weekly Check-Up: Five Ways to Exercise With Kids

  With all the news reports about childhood obesity and the sedentary lifestyles of kids, there's usually some plug for getting your kids off the couch and into some form of physical activity. This has not been a problem (so far) at my house, because I have a highly active child. My theory as to why? Exercise is a huge part of our family life. I report this without righteousness because for most of my life, I avoided physical activity, and thought I was a total shlump. It wasn't until after my child was born that I fell in love with fitness. Now here's five ways we work physical activity into our lives.  Read More... Posted May 29 2008, 06:29 PM by Kelly Mills with | with no comments Filed under: sports, obesity, fitness, exercise, walking, jogging, running, weekly check-up, activity, athlete, training, workout

• Gasp! Childhood Obesity Not Exploding

  Hey, remember how a little while back we were told childhood obesity was a horrific epidemic ravaging the land? And then every thirty seconds or so a study and accompanying news story would appear, saying that juice or distant mothers or text messaging was one of the causes? (Side note: News outlets almost always use one of maybe three pictures of overweight kids for these stories. I do hope those kids are getting royalties or something.) It seemed like you almost couldn't go a week without at least one "such-and-such is contributing to the fattening of our youth" story appearing somewhere. Well, now there's more news in the kid and weight front. Apparently... Read More... Posted May 27 2008, 07:10 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: kids, food, health, research study, racism, nutrition, childhood obesity, diet, overweight, weight, experts, activity, sedentary, poor, disparities, economic

• Kids Play More When They Have Stuff to Play With

  I would love to be in charge of a study. What would I study, given the opportunity? Well, it would certainly be something obvious. A Study to Study Something With an Obvious Conclusion. Like this one, where they determined that kids played longer and harder if they had something to actually play with. I guess rocks and sticks and bare hands weren't cutting it, eh? Read More... Posted Dec 12 2007, 08:41 AM by Karen Murphy with | with no comments Filed under: kids, exercise, activity

• Fall Babies Better at Sports

  I'm pretty athletic now (though embarrassed even using the word next to Kelly), though as a kid I was pretty hopeless: stick-thin, uncoordinated, always last or nearly-last to be chosen in teams in junior high. Balls coming toward me weren't caught, they were fended off or met slight resistance from my nose. yeah, hopeless. And now I have something to blame: my season of birth. Read More... Posted Nov 26 2007, 07:29 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: kids, sports, athletics, activity