Kids and summer sedentary snacking

[reinhard]

Turns out no-school is even worse that school, for reasons that will ring familiar to no-essers:

From:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/0 ... /?src=recg

“Many non-school environments are relatively unstructured and unsupervised,†they wrote, “allowing children to indulge in sedentary activities and excessive snacking.â€

Although schools are a factor in childhood obesity, they added, “it appears that they are healthier than most children’s non-school environments.â€

In a recent study in The Journal of School Health, researchers at Baylor University followed an ethnically diverse group of about 3,700 children at 41 schools for half a decade, from kindergarten through grade school. The students routinely experienced “a significant increase in the velocity of weight gain during summer break.†In fact, for overweight and obese students, the school environment had a protective effect.

“If a child entered kindergarten as an overweight or obese child,†they wrote, “the school environment promoted weight loss, whereas the environment during summer vacation led to accelerated weight gain.â

[leafy_greens]

Oh, this is definitely true. I remember summer breaks just laying around eating while my parents were at work. It was a free for all (not in a good way.)

[Nicest of the Damned]

Oh yes. It's especially bad if you are in a house where your mom feels the need to have candy dishes out in the living room. I can polish off a candy dish while watching a one hour TV show- just guess how I know that. I don't have candy dishes in my house, because I know what will happen if there is candy in sight and in easy reach.

[Bssh]

My daughter has quite an active summer planned (well, she's 5 so I planned it for her ) - swimming, gymnastics, performance workshops. Even the unplanned days will include park and soft play (in UK - indoor parks for when it rains).

[clarinetgal]

This is a big challenge for me with my 5 year old. If he's not busy playing outside, or doing some sort of activity, then all he wants to do is eat. He is autistic, so it's difficult sometimes just to tell him no, because I don't always know how much he understands. That is why I'm trying to keep him outside as much as possible this Summer, to help distract him from snacking.

[noni]

Inside the house: XBox 360, Playstation 2, Wii, Netflix. Outside the house: large backyard, pool, bats, every kind of ball, basketball court, volleyball net, campfire area and brothers. Inside the house wins.