Junk food nation: how parents ruin children’s health

Health experts say that children’s diets in the United States have deteriorated dramatically in the past two generations at skyrocketing prices of obesity and diabetes that put children at risk for other diseases and shorter lives. But as many parents know, eating healthy isn’t always easy, especially when you say a mother of three growing young, Raleigh, NC resident Michelle Morton.

Morton, who is a professional organizer, tries to buy only healthy groceries from the supermarket for their 15, 11 and 7 year old sons. But it’s difficult, especially in the morning, when she tries to get her kids out of the door in time for school and not everyone is a fan of instant oatmeal.

"It is the time of day when you have the least amount of time so that you like,"OK, so we had to eat today, Fruit Loops"" Morton told MyHealthNewsDaily. "That was the hardest for me."

Morton tries to keep her children from eating junk food only to keep healthy snacks in the house, such as fruit, yogurt and cheese. She left the occasional brownie or toaster pastry from time to time, but usually saves it for special occasions.

But as much as she encourages healthy eating, kids are always attracted to junk, she said.

"they tend to always want the stuff or at least that’s how it is at my home," Morton said. "It is always difficult to try to find the balance to teach you to eat healthier and why to eat healthier, but at the same time not to completely deprive you. "they’re just always dressed."

Health experts say treating the occasional is acceptable as long as it is not in large quantities and is not a daily ritual. For children who already have bad eating habits early in life, their sweet tooth is not entirely to blame – they are attracted to these foods because they learn to eat at home and at school, which they are OK with, said Eileen Kennedy, pediatric Psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. [Tips for promoting healthy eating for children]

The contributing factors

Today, 17 percent of all children and adolescents are overweight, which is three times the rate of a generation ago according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The American diet is unlikely to help anyone. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000 found the average that Americans / 27 percent of their total daily energy comes from junk foods. Most people don’t know how bad it got. Around 90 percent of Americans in a recent Consumer Reports report reported healthy eating, although their weight and other factors suggest that this is not the case.

"So many people think that what they eat is healthy – diet frozen dinners, fat-free / ice-free, 100-calorie pretzel packs. Or they say: "I never eat fast food", but that doesn’t mean they don’t eat a lot of other unhealthy things", Molly Kimball, a nutritionist at Ochsner Elmwood Fitness Center in New Orleans, said this survey.

And that’s not an easy topic: Obesity puts children at higher risk for a whole range of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even cancer. Approximately 151,000 children under 20 years of age have type 1 or 2 diabetes. And in the past two decades, type 2 diabetes – formerly called adult diabetes – has been reported more and more frequently among US children and adolescents according to the CDC.

Driven by junk-

It’s not necessarily that parents try to fatten their kids up with junk food and fast food, said Kennedy, the pediatric psychologist. Rather, it has to do with convenience and lack of meal planning.

"We have a widespread availability of fast food options, it’s just a flat-out convenience for families very busy," Kennedy told MyHealthNewsDaily.

There is also a general lack of importance on food planning in American culture, she said.

"A common problem is that it gets to 6:00 p.m., and mom dad looks at dad looking at the kids, and everyone wonders what to eat that night", said Kennedy. The solution will drop by the fast food restaurant around the corner, it’s a habit and routine, she said. "You’ll do it until you actively decide that you don’t do it as often." Instead, families should plan their meals early in the week so that they can cook and eat together if possible.

But as much as stress and lack of account for some children’s bad eating habits, parents’ submissiveness time – the situations in which they allow children, enforce even with food – is also a big factor, Kennedy said. [7 Diet Tricks That Really Work]

intervention programs

To optimize eating habits at Children it is important that the same food applies to both in and out of school Kennedy said. A parent can feed a child as much healthy food as he or she wants at home, but if the child is eating junk food for lunch at school, those efforts are free, she said.

A new study, presented earlier this month at an American Heart Association meeting, showed that school interventions during sixth grade helped keep children cholesterol and resting heart rate four years later.

The intervention included teaching children to eat more fruits and vegetables and less fat, less sugary drinks, exercise at least 150 minutes a week, and spend less time watching TV and choosing computers.

Researchers selected middle school students for the study because the age is when children start making their own decisions regarding their activities or what they eat, study researchers said. Elizabeth A. Jackson, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.

"It’s a good time to give them some independence in a healthy way rather than a negative way," Jackson told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Eating healthy can be difficult, especially in lower-income neighborhoods where there aren’t as many healthy foods or physical activities offered at schools, she said.

"It is really a multi-stage kind of ecological type phenomenon that pushes children towards more sedentary behavior and more bad eating habits", she said.

Share: Parents usually feed children junk food because of lack of food planning, convenience and sometimes submissiveness to their children.

This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister website, LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Amanda Chan on Twitter @AmandaLChan.

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