Routines are the key to cutting obesity in children

Feb 9 2010 by Joanne Butcher, The Journal

HEALTH bosses in the North East have welcomed a new study which could help prevent childhood obesity.

According to US research, undisciplined households with no routines for children could end up making them fatter.

But children who eat dinner with their parents and siblings, get plenty of sleep and don’t watch too much TV are 40% more likely to be a healthy weight.

The study, published in the journal Paediatrics, looked at household routines in the families of 8,550 four-year-olds.

Researchers found the risk of obesity was greatly reduced for kids whose parents rationed their TV viewing to less than two hours per day on weekdays, ate a regular evening meal as a family, and made sure they got at least 10-and-a-half hours sleep a night.

But in households with none of these traditional family routines, a worrying one in four children was seriously overweight.

Study leader Dr Sarah Anderson, from Ohio State University, said teaching good eating, exercise and sleeping habits from an early age could make a big difference to children’s waistlines.

“I imagine people are going to want to know which of the routines is most important: is it limited TV, is it dinner, is it adequate sleep?” said Dr Anderson.

“But what this suggests is that you can’t point to any one of these routines.

“Each one appears to be associated with a lower risk of obesity, and having more of these routines appears to lower the risk further.” Previous research had suggested that children are more likely to be fat if their mothers were severely overweight, they had low household income, their mothers left school early, or they were growing up in a single-parent home.