Post: Preventing Obesity in Our Kids
Preventing Obesity in Our Kids
The American Academy of Family Physicians put out a tip sheet for parents concerned about preventing obesity in their kids. Among the tips: Limit T.V. watching, and limit fast food to once a week.
We'd like to add something else to that list: Teach your kids to deconstruct media messages. Here are some question to ask your kids, from media education consultant Frank Baker.
- Why do you think the advertiser put a commercial on this particular program?” This gets to the heart of an important media literacy concept: all messages are designed for a particular audience.
- “Why do you think advertisers use slogans or catchy music?” You may even ask them to recall other songs or slogans they remember from ads. Many of us can remember a particular phrase or jingle that we heard 10 or 20 years ago.
- “What is appealing in this commercial? Is it the way the food looks; the happy family seen eating the food; the nice colors and backgrounds?” Remember commercials are constructions, and every detail is studied so that it has mass appeal.
- What might the advertiser be leaving out of the commercial and why?” Most ads for food are not designed to tell us the nutritional values. Encourage your kids to look elsewhere for the missing information.
- ”Does it make a difference to you that a celebrity was in that commercial?” Teach your children about the popular techniques ad-makers use, such as testimonials from celebrities -- or everyday people. This will help your kids know how they’re being influenced.
- Here’s another idea: Consider muting the sound during commercials and asking your kids to provide dialogue. Ask, “What are they saying?”, “What music is playing?” This will help them become more aware about popular techniques -- and may be kind of amusing, too.
There are 5 replies to this post
Date: March 14, 2007
I am a parent of two (11 and 4), and posts like these leave me scratching my head. I have a problem in regards to linking TV to obesity.
I grew up watching hours of TV each week; far too many hours in my parents eyes, no doubt. I can recite the the classic You Deserve a Break Today jingle by heart. The last thing I or any of peers cared about was 'nutritional information.' Yet neither I nor my brothers were ever overweight.
We never got to fast food outlets more than once a month.
How is it we have this need to recommend to parents (as you do above) limit fast food to once a week... whatever happened to parents acting like parents? Why do we make it the sponsor's job to inform our children on nutrition, when their job is to sell their product?
How do kids get all this disposable income to go to fast food outlets without their parent's knowledge?
What am I missing?
Link: http://whatsit2you.blogspot.com
Date: March 14, 2007
What about using diet supplements like Stacker 2 or Morphoplex? I never used them, but they are supposedly completely safe, and burn fat without the user ever having to change anything as far as diet or exercise.
Date: March 21, 2007
I think a major tip we need to provide parents, is to be a good role model!
Psychologists have told us that children learn behaviors by modeling their parents actions. Currently, 78.2 percent of men aged 40 to 59 in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Those of us that are parents know that children learn more from our actions than our words.
If we really want to make a difference in our childrens lives, we need to start by looking in the mirror, and determine if the portrait we are seeing is one we wish our children to copy!
Lynne Eldridge M.D.
Author, "Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time"
http://www.avoidcancernow.com
Date: March 25, 2007
All of the above graze the multiple issues involved:
Permissive parents and food marketing, fitness cutbacks, food systems & access issues (safety to play outdoors, proximity of healthy food)psychosocial, community/family values and modeling behavior, etc.
In short, we need to take a 'macro' approach, not a 'micro' one...Frank Baker and I provided our data to create the CSM 'tip sheet' above, and though one might think this is 'common sense', you'd be surprised!
Our Shaping Youth "Media, Mind & Body" student logs (in our Dare to Compare nutrition counter-marketing sessions) have yielded some huge surprises from both the kids AND the adults in terms of purchase power, influencers, healthy choices and branding.
We're counter-marketing this as fast as we can, but up against BILLIONS of dollars taking kids in an unhealthy direction, and confusing the consumer issues to boot. In fact:
Shaping Youth is launching a new session called "healthy foods that aren't" because parents AND kids are caught in the hype and can't seem to discern fact from fiction with a steady diet of media marketing streaming 24/7!!
We have an entire category devoted to "Childhood Obesity" since this media and marketing equation can't be separated from the pragmatics. Tons of studies, links and data are embedded within that will enlighten and inform...Enjoy!
p.s. Also, found a great parent blog called "The Expatriate's Kitchen" that has been running a nutritional series using the IOM data.
It's written in a fun, informative manner and tackles some of this too: http://expatriateskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/03/childhood-nutrition-series.html
Link: http://www.shapingyouth.org
Date: July 17, 2007
If you value the quality of education of our kids, you have to find answers in ways to change the usual into the commonsense unusual. The future will be obese if the mindset of the children cannot be changed from eat what you see on the tv to eat what your body needs.
If you find it necessary to restrict you child's behaviour - then do it with love.
The best way to teach our children is to be the way we want them to be.
If you are not around as much as the tv, you have to accept the product your child will turn out to be.
Link: http://foodthatburnfat.com