Pediatric Organizations
want to turn children's doctors into activity police,
encouraging them to routinely monitor how active
patients and even their parents are each day to
help conquer obesity.
Boosting daily physical activity
from infancy through the teen years is a key to
fighting fat, and parents need to set good examples
by also adopting active lifestyles, the group says
in a policy statement published in May's Pediatrics.
The policy says pediatricians
should ask patients and parents at regular office
visits how active they are. They also should document
how much time patients spend each day on sedentary
activities and urge them to follow academy guidelines
recommending no TV for children under age 2 and
no more than two hours a day of TV, video games
and other "screen time" for older children.
Also, schools should reinstate
mandatory daily physical education from kindergarten
through high school. These classes should allow
participation by all children, including the disabled.
Overweight and obese children should be encouraged
to participate in activities such as water-based
sports and strength training rather than weight-bearing
activities, including jogging, that may be more
difficult for them, the policy says.
Government figures published
in April show that more than one-third of children
in the USA are overweight and about 17% are obese.
The policy encourages parents
to "become good role models by increasing their
own level of physical activity" and to make active
pursuits a part of the family lifestyle starting
when children are infants.
Preschoolers should take part
in unorganized outdoor activities and begin walking
"tolerable distances" with family members. Older
children and adolescents should be physically active
for at least an hour a day, and organized sports
may be started when children are school-age, the
policy says.
"I've been giving this advice
for a long time. Most of the time parents don't
feel that it is an imposition," says policy co-author
Jorge Gomez, a pediatrician at the University of
Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
For parents who say busy work
schedules and other lifestyle factors make it hard
for the family to be active, "we sit down and troubleshoot,"
Gomez says.
"It doesn't have to be strenuous,
it doesn't have to be organized," just "something
to promote the habit of being outdoors and active."
