Parents who want fit kids shouldn’t make them diet, they should make them play team sports.
New research finds that children who play on several sports teams are nearly 40 percent less likely to be obese.
"Team sport participation had the strongest and most consistent inverse
association with weight status," wrote researcher Keith M. Drake, of
the Hood Center for Children and Families at Dartmouth in Lebanon, New
Hampshire, and colleagues in Pediatrics, in a study published
July 16. "Obesity prevention programs should consider strategies to
increase team sport participation among all students."
"Adolescents who played on three sports teams or more in the last year
were 27 percent less likely to be overweight/obese and 39 percent less
likely to be obese compared with adolescents who did not play on any
sports teams," write the researchers.
The researchers also found that teens who walked or biked to school
more than three days a week had a 33 percent lower risk of obesity than
those who took the bus or rode in a car.
In the study, researchers surveyed 1,718 New Hampshire and Vermont high
school students and their parents about their daily habits, diets,
weight, and physical activity.
Other factors associated with a lower risk of being overweight or obese
included extracurricular physical activity and eating fruits and
vegetables.
A separate study published this March in the journal Obesity
finds that the number one way parents can help an obese child lose
weight is to lose weight themselves. In the study, parents who served as
role models and shed weight themselves proved to be the most inspiring
and motivational method for their own children -- more than making
changes to the home food environment or enrolling kids in physical
activities, researchers said.
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