Child Hood Obesity -- what to do about it?

Lap Band Gal blogged about being able to fit into a large child's sweater and wondered if the manufactures are designing/selling clothes that are cut bigger in order to accommodate the children of our nation who are becoming overweight and obese at alarming rates.

This is a subject dear to my heart for two reasons. One, my capstone project was how to teach school nurses how to teach about obesity prevention.  And secondly, my younger son is overweight.  His last blood work also indicated he's becoming insulin resistant.  It's scary. He's ten. It's also scary because although he needs help with portion control, he's a healthy eater.  He exercises daily (swim team, karate and on days he doesn't do that he is starting to do 20 minutes on the elliptical).  He is the unfortunate recipient of my wonderful genes.  If he actually liked foot ball, coaches would drool over him (he's tall and part of his weight is because he has some serious muscle mass on his thighs, chest and shoulders -- but I'm not kidding myself, he also has a tummy and chubby, adorable cheeks).  Because we are afraid of him developing diabetes at an early age we're putting more things in place for him. Instead of school lunches we pack his. We've nixed grazing and preplanned snacks are now the order of the day. We're reducing refined carbs to a couple a day and increasing his fruits and vegetables even more. We've reduced his 'sugar' days from the whole weekend to one day a week and on special occasions. He's on board. He understands that diabetes could be in his future and he does not want this to happen to him.

We go back in December to take a look at his blood work and see if his weight has maintained (the goal is to keep his weight the same and just let him grow into it).

So these to things, especially the second are what make me interested in ways to help the young make healthier choices.  I can't change the world, but I'm lucky that I'm in a position of a school nurse and I can give the kiddos information as they come into my clinic for various reasons.

My big thing right now is sugary drinks.  It's crazy what our kids are consuming.  This New York Times Article  was very interesting. It's about two different studies that show staying away from sugary drinks such as sodas and juices help children lose weight.  Such a simple thing.  I made this poster for the hallway outside the clinic.  Not only are the adults liking it, I get comments from some of the kids that they aren't going to drink certain drinks any more because of it.  Here's a picture:

 Meanwhile...I'm also really excited to share....Isaac's new big boy Karate-Americana bedroom....We finally finished it...you can read all about and see pictures here on my other blog, Zimmerhouse.