Daddy Clay: Cute baby fat or childhood obesity? Telling the difference, today in The Lab.
Daddy Brad: Today's episode is brought to you in partnership with Man of the House.
Daddy Clay: It seems like every day there's a new headline out there screaming that obesity
is rampant in this country and it's increasingly affecting our kids.
Daddy Brad: Yeah, but what does that mean on the ground? How do you know if your kid's
obese or just husky? And is the threat really serious? What can we do about it as parents?
Daddy Clay: And to get some answers, we went to the Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy
Living at the University of Texas. Deanna Hoelscher: Approximately one out of
every five children is obese. One of the things we're finding is these chronic disease and
conditions that you used to not see until adulthood are manifesting in childhood. We're
facing the first generation to have a shorter life span than their parents, which is scary.
There's a lot of emphasis now on what they call the toxic environment. Examples of that
are It used to be that when you went clothes shopping,
you didn't necessarily see candy bars when you checked out. It used to be that you couldn't
bring food into classrooms or into certain areas. Even when you're using the TV now,
you would have to get up to change channels, now you can do everything with the remote
control. There's several web sites that you can go in and you can measure your child for
height and weight and plug those in. And they come out with a value called the body mass
index or the BMI. And the BMI is linked back to criteria saying whether the child is overweight
or obese or a healthy weight. There's several concrete steps that parents can take to prevent
their child from becoming overweight. One of the first things you can do is to make
your house a safe zone. So, what I mean by that is, make it safe from unhealthy goods.
So don't bring sodas in to the house. Don't bring a lot of snacks into the house. If they're
not in the house, you don't have to tell the child no. Generally, if kids are more involved
in sports teams, they tend to be more active, that's an organizational way to do that. Another
thing is to plan healthy activities with your kids, so going for a walk after dinner at
night. Going out and playing with them. Encouraging them to be outside. There are a lot of parental
fears and anxieties contributing to obesity. I know one of the issues, for example, is
sometimes parents are afraid to let their kids be active. A lot of parents won't let
their kids jump on a trampoline because they're afraid that they might fall off or something
would happen to them. Well, yeah there is that possibility. But right now it's getting
to be where your chances of being overweight are greater than that. I think there'a lot
of places you can go to get more information on the subject. Right now, Michelle Obama's
campaign, Let's Move, has a lot of information on it. She's connecting to a lot of other
sites. There's a lot of resources there. There's also a lot of good resources in the communities.
A lot of times schools, by mandate, have to do health programs. So, they can be good sources
of information as well. Daddy Clay: Well it seems obvious that you
need to monitor your child's nutrition and physical activity. But it must be harder than
it seems. And I think it may have something to do with the fact that parents feel so much
anxiety because there's so much information coming in all the time about all the dangers
lurking outside so it's very difficult to encourage your kid to just go outside and
engage in free play. Daddy Brad: And another thing that we struggle
with, especially around here, is setting a good example for our kids.
Daddy Clay: What are you trying to say? Daddy Brad: I'm just saying that with our
busy schedules and hectic life, sometimes it's hard to eat right and also exercise.
But we need to because our kids are watching us and we need to set a good example.
Daddy Brad: And it's not about just right now. It's also about when they grow up. You
want to model what it's like to be a healthy active adult so when they grow up, they take
care of themselves. Now this brings up a whole bunch of different issues. We want to hear
from you, what you think. So leave us a comment on this video. Join the conversation at DadLabs
or at Man of the House. You're certain to hear back from us.
Daddy Brad: We'd like to thank the good folks at Man of the House as well as the folks at
the Susan and Michael Dell Healthy Living Center. Well that's all for us here in The
Lab. Did you model husky jeans when you were a kid?
Daddy Clay: Does this internet make me look fat?