Bare Essentials of Obesity Prevention

In his article "Michelangelo and the Prevention of Childhood Obesity," in the newest Exchange Essential, Nutrition and Childhood Obesity, Martin Maimom outlined this basic steps to dealing with obesity in child care programs:

• Build in at least one hour of planned physical activity on a daily basis — with structured (15-20 minute sessions) and unstructured activities.
• French fries don’t count as a vegetable. Teach kids, and the adults in their lives, about different food groups, and provide fruit and vegetable choices.
• Develop and refine a health policy that calls attention to the fact that health is critical to successful early learning. Among other important topics, it should highlight your chosen strategy for modeling healthy behaviors (e.g. physical activity and nutrition).
• Portion size — remember as we grow our stomach is roughly the size of our fist. This gives a rough guide of how much food it takes to fill our stomach. Eating too much is not good for our body. Consider family-style meal service where children serve themselves and determine their own portion size.

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