"Media Diet" For Kids

When it comes to keeping your kids slim and trim you might want to think about a "media" diet.

The main reason is because childhood obesity is still an epidemic in this country and part of the reason seems to be too many junk food commercials.

According to the CDC three times as many kids are obese now as they were back in 1980. A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that banning companies from advertising junk food during children's television programs could help control kids weight. This is their so called "media diet". According to one of their pediatric experts, Dr. Victor Strasburger, studies have shown that kids are psychologically defenseless against advertising. And seeing all the advertising for junk foods helps fuel their desire for these foods instead of healthier choices. Other experts don't necessarily agree that it's the junk food commercials that mainly cause this weight gain issue in children. They feel that just the amount of time spent watching TV is the main culprit. To them, 6 hours of TV watching isn't all that different from 6 hours of bed rest. The same goes for computer time.

So, some suggestions that will help keep your kids weight down include getting TVs and computers out of their rooms. That will make it much easier to monitor how much time they really spend on these activities. And limit the amount of time they spend watching TV to no more than 2 hours per day. That will give them more time to run around and just have kid fun, something that will also help them keep a healthy weight all year long.