Donna Spruijt-Metz, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, will present an overview of the KNOWME NETWORKS study — a program to develop a Mobile Body Area Network that monitors obesity indicators in minority youth.

The network, developed in conjunction with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, will use a set of wearable wireless sensors that measure physical activity, stress, location in time and space, body fat and a number of other factors. Data will be immediately transmitted to a secure server for storage and analyses. The KNOWME device will be calibrated for the specific user, and researchers will be able to “ping” a participant who remains sedentary for too long, Spruijt-Metz says.

Her presentation includes findings of a study led by colleague Michael I. Goran, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine, physiology and biophysics and pediatrics, and director of the USC Childhood Obesity Research Center at the Keck School of Medicine. The study looks at the impact of a computer-based education program on promoting physical activity in fourth-grade students.

Two Los Angeles County schools used interactive CD-ROMS for an eight-week long health curriculum, while two control schools received educational CD-ROMS not related to health. Researchers found that the program had a significant impact on obesity reduction in girls, but not in boys.

The results reflect the fact that girls and boys have very different activity levels and attitudes about activity, and that interventions will need to be tailored more specifically, Spruijt-Metz says. However, she believes the study also indicates that technology is an important tool in preventing obesity in youth.

“Technology gives us more objective and reliable measures than self-reporting,” she says. “It is particularly appealing because it offers immediate feedback and will allow interventionists and health professionals to respond directly to the child’s behavior as part of the intervention.”

Provided schools are given a choice on using this new technology then I think this is a good idea. It has the same ambitions as my Zippeddy project.

Led by Kinesiology and Health Studies professor Ian Janssen, the new study supports Canada’s Physical Activity Guidelines for Children and Youth, which call for children to accumulate at least 90 minutes of  moderate-to-vigorous physical activity over the course of the day, in bouts of at least five to 10 minutes’ duration. Until now there has been no scientific evidence to support the recommendation of sustained, rather than sporadic exercise.

A US team reached the figure after measuring the body’s oxygen demand in some 100 people walking on a treadmill.

They wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that a pedometer alone was not enough to gauge exercise as it gave no data on intensity.

US and UK guidelines urge half an hour of moderate exercise five days a week.

But there is often confusion as to what constitutes moderate exercise, and the amount of gardening, housework or walking needed to confer health benefits.

Researchers at the San Diego State University based their conclusions on exercise tests given to 97 healthy adults who had an average age of 32.

In general, men needed to walk at a pace of 92 to 102 steps per minute to achieve a moderately intense workout for their hearts. The range for women was between 91 and 115 steps per minute.

“Because health benefits can be achieved with bouts of exercise lasting at least 10 minutes, a useful starting point is to try to accumulate 1000 steps in 10 minutes, before building up to 3000 steps in 30 minutes,” said Simon Marshall, lead researcher.

While this was a study targetted at adults, I hope that this research will spur further work examining targets for children.

With 17 percent of US children between ages 2 and 19 classified as obese, new research shows that parents may not be recognizing their own children’s risk factors. A new study shows that parents are likely to misperceive their child’s weight – especially those parents who are overweight themselves.

This reminds me of a NewsRadio segment I was listening to the other day. A children’s health expert (I forgot his name) and he made the argument that it’s a case of “monkey see, monkey do.” A child will pick up the unhealthy habits of parents. The best way is to help your child is to lead by example.

School children who have a daily recess break behave better and are likely to learn more, according to a large study of more than 10,000 third-graders.

Researchers studying US girls and boys, 8 to 9 years old, found that a break of 15 minutes or longer was associated with better classroom behaviour (as rated by teachers).

But many kids now have less free time and engage in fewer physical activities at school because, in response to the US ”No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001, many school districts cut time allotted to recess in order to focus on reading and math.

The trend especially affects kids who are black, come from poor families, and go to public city schools.

The researchers concluded that “recess may play an important role in the learning, social development, and health of children in elementary school.” They encourage parents to learn about physical activity and recess programs when selecting a school for their child.

For kids, exercise means playing and being physically active. Kids exercise when they have gym class at school, soccer practice, or dance class. They’re also exercising when they’re at recess, riding bikes, or playing tag.

You might not be able to ensure your kids get a daily recess break at school, but you can make sure they’re active at home. Encourage kids to do a variety of activities so that they can work on these three elements:

1. Endurance – developed when kids regularly engage in aerobic activity
2. Strength – push-ups, stomach crunches, pull-ups, climbing, and wrestling all help tone and strengthen muscles
3. Flexibility – stretching exercises help improve flexibility, allowing muscles and joints to bend and move easily through their full range of motion

How much is enough? According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), all kids 2 years and older should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on most, preferably all, days of the week.

The gene variant most strongly associated with childhood obesity and adult morbid obesity in the study is located near the PTER gene, the function of which is not known. This variant is estimated to account for up to a third of all childhood obesity, and a fifth of all cases of adult obesity.

The second variant associated with child and adult obesity is found in the NPC1 gene. Previous studies in mice have suggested that this gene has a role in controlling appetite, as mice with a non-functioning NPC1 gene suffer late-onset weight loss and have poor food intake. This gene variant accounts for around 10 per cent of all childhood obesity and about 14 per cent of adult morbid obesity cases.

The final variant is found near the MAF gene, which controls the production of the hormones insulin and glucagon, as well as chains of amino acids called glucagon-like peptides. These hormones and peptides are known to play key roles in people’s metabolisms by metabolising glucose and carbohydrates in the body. In addition, glucagon and glucagon-like peptides appear to have a strong effect on people’s ability to feel ‘full’ or satiated after eating. This variant accounts for about 6 per cent of early-onset obesity in children, and 16 per cent of adult morbid obesity.

Further research is needed to determine whether the gene variants are acting independently, but if they are, then together these three new variations may account for up to half of all cases of severe adult and child obesity.

Professor Tim Olds, from Uni SA, says one in five children is still battling with weight issues, but that is no greater than a decade ago.

“If you had a look at the data until certainly the early 2000s and you put them all together, it really did look as if things were increasing exponentially - there was a runaway increase in overweight and obesity,” he said.

“So it’s not that these people misinterpreted the data, it’s just that recent data has shown a change in the pattern.

“When we put all those studies together, and they encompass about 70-80,000 children, what we noticed was there was a very clear flattening out of the prevalence the rate of overweight and obesity in children, it started in the late 90s and it’s continued until today.”

Professor Olds was quick to point out that the survey did not mean childhood obesity was not a serious problem in Australia.

I have to take issue with ABC Online’s headline: “Rising childhood obesity a myth: study.” I saw no mention Professor Olds that rising childhood obesity levels are a myth - he still acknowledges that it is still a problem. So it’s not surprising that we get the counter headline and article not two hours later:

Childhood obesity no myth: health expert

Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute of W-A, Mike Daube says the claims are ludicrous.

He says childhood obesity is still a serious problem and now fears people could become complacent.

“Of course it can’t keep increasing exponentially, you know there comes a stage where it has to plateau out but if it’s plateauing out at the height of Everest rather than the height of Bluff Knoll then we need to do something about it,” he said.

“There is are real risk that we say, well the problem isn’t increasing as fast as it was so there isn’t a problem and that’s the wrong way to look at it.

“What we need to say is we have a massive problem if it’s plateauing that’s encouraging but we still have an obesity epidemic.”

Spot the difference? There is none really, both Daube and Olds agree that it’s still a problem.

Earlier articles on obesity levelling off here and here.

Baylor College of Medicine has been awarded a $1.5 million grant for research related to obesity in children.

The Human Nutrition and Obesity Program grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Research Institute.

Researchers will evaluate a community program to be held in Houston aimed at prevention of obesity among high-risk children.

“Healthy Kids–Houston” will hold three six-week sessions for minority children ages 9 to 13 that will include physical activity, nutrition education and behavioral lessons at various Houston Parks and Recreation Department community centers.

The program is a partnership between Baylor, Houston Parks and Recreation Department, Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority and Texas Children’s Hospital, including Texas Children’s Pediatric Associates.

With the myriad of child obesity programs out there, it is important that we have some independent research performed (such as the one above) on programs to ensure it’s effectiveness and efficiency. While I still believe that parents are in the best place to decide what’s best for their children, this sort of oversight can offer some level of transparency into public health funding.

The recent release of the CSIRO’s Australian National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, which studied the habits of more than 4000 children, found the number of overweight and obese children in Australia has only increased marginally since the last major survey in 1995.

The study found Australia does not have a childhood obesity epidemic, but it does have too many overweight (17 per cent) and obese (6 per cent) children, while many more have significant problems with their diets.

It is not that Australian children are eating too much food - they are not eating the right food.

The survey revealed that while childhood obesity rates seem to have plateaued over the last decade, very few children are now eating to established dietary guidelines. The result: many are at risk of nutrient deficiencies and other diet-related issues. The survey showed the levels of saturated fats, sugar and salt being consumed were too high, while intake levels of micronutrients, including calcium and magnesium, were too low.

For too long the food and beverage industry has been labelled by some as being the sole cause of childhood obesity by providing too many high salt, high fat and high energy food products. This could not be further from the truth.

Read on.

My take is simply based on the fact that parents make the choices on what their children eat. If there were no demand for these types of food and drink, companies would simply stop producing them. I know that many are concerned that the marketing barrage of “junk food” ads makes parenting harder. However, in a free society, we are free to choose how we live our lives and how we choose to raise our children. If we blind our children to advertising and not teach them the skills of self-discipline and leading a healthy life, what happens when they grow older and are suddenly exposed to these “evils?” They simply will not have the aptitutude to make informed and rational choices for themselves.

The California Department of Education (CDE) looked for a correlation between fitness scores and test scores. They found that kids who were deemed fit (by a standard test of aerobic capacity, BMI, abdominal strength, trunk strength, upper body strength and overall flexibility) scored twice as well on academic tests as those that were unfit.  In the second year of the study, socio-economic status was taken into account, to possibly eliminate that variable as an explanation. As expected, those in the upper-income brackets scored better overall on the academic tests, but within the lower-income set of students, the same results were observed — kids who were more fit performed better academically.

Also from the article, a quote fromJohn Ratey, a Harvard clinical associate professor of psychiatry:

In his latest book, “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” (2008, Little, Brown), John Ratey, a Harvard clinical associate professor of psychiatry, argues for more physical fitness for students as a cure for not only their obesity but also their academic performance.

“I cannot underestimate how important regular exercise is in improving the function and performance of the brain.” Ratey writes. “Exercise stimulates our gray matter to produce Miracle-Gro for the brain.” That “Miracle-Gro” is a brain chemical called brain-derived neurotropic factor, or BDNF. When we exercise, our working muscles send chemicals into our bloodstream, including a protein known as IGF-1.

Once in the brain, IGF-1 orders the production of more BDNF. The additional BDNF helps new neurons and their connections grow. In addition, levels of other neurotransmitters are increased after a strenuous exercise session.

“Dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine — all of these are elevated after exercise,” says Ratey. “So having a workout will help focus, calming down, and impulsivity — it’s like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin.”