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There is a lot of hype in the media about the causes of childhood obesity. Various “consumer advocate” groups pile the blame on a variety of causes. What we should be doing instead of blaming is solving. One step to that end is to clear up some rather popular myths.

My child gets enough exercise through X sport: There are two problems with this thought. One is that most sports are seasonal rather than year round. What does your child do for exercise in the off season?

The second is the assumption that the sport mentioned focuses on overall exercise or just preparing the athlete for that particular activity. Cardio workouts should happen on a regular basis, and if said sport doesn’t provide it, it’s not doing enough.

Fast food made me do it: No fast food chain is to blame for anyone’s obesity. They’re a business and they sell what their customers want to buy. If no one bought burgers and fries, they would find something else that sells quickly enough. There is even one possible benefit to some of these chains; they provide a “playplace” for the kids. Believe me, the kids like to play on and in them…and they are exercise. If you order the right food, you may be doing your kids a dietary favor.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of hearing how bad our huge waistlines are and that our kids are too fat. The fact that it’s true makes it even more annoying. It’s time to lose the negative and find some positives. Here are some of my ideas:

1) Go Play: Seriously. Go play, with your kids. Get out the bat and ball, pick up the roller blades and get moving as a family. Most aspects of play are also exercise, running bases in a softball field, skating down the sidewalk with the kids and going for long family bike rides can bring you closer as a family, lift your spirits and… help you get in shape.

2) Good Food: Good tasting food doesn’t have to be bad for you. You may need to experiment to find the right mix, but it’s possible. We’ve developed a couple of habits that make healthy eating fun and natural. One is sort of odd, but works really well. We lightly steam broccoli (just enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re chewing on a twig) then eat it as is like popcorn.

Another is an appetizer platter. Fruit in season, favorite vegetables, whole grain pretzels and other tasty foods are served before dinner or during the evening movie time. This does a couple of things quite painlessly. The first is that it helps your family get the fruits, veggies and whole grains they need to be healthy and second it dulls the appetite a little so that heavier foods aren’t as desirable. I’ve found that if you switch around the various components so the tray doesn’t get old, it can be a very useful way of having good food safely.

Recent research published in the Acta Paediatrica journal by Daniel Cohen has highlighted concern that children today are able to do less physically than children the same age were able to do ten years ago, suggesting that they are weaker with less muscle mass.

Dr Gavin Sandercock, a children’s fitness academic at Essex University and researcher at London Metropolitan University investigated the strength of approximately three hundred ten year olds in 2008 and compared them with a similar number of ten year olds in 1998. All records were taken from children sampled in the same area and from the same type of schools. Results showed that the group of ten year olds in 2008 could do seven less sit-ups in thirty seconds than the group in 1998 and they had 26% less arm strength and 7% less grip strength. Furthermore, one in twenty children could not hold their own weight in 2008 whereas it was only one in ten who could not do so in 1998 which is indicative of a reduction in upper body strength endurance.

These measures focused on upper body strength, but standing long jumps which is a test of lower body strength indicated that the more recent group of children were better, so it’s not all bad news when it comes to the health of our children and researchers are not sure as to why there is this incongruity. There were no significant differences in stature and Body Mass Index (BMI) between the two groups suggesting that the more recent group of children probably have more fat and less muscle than the group ten years earlier. However other studies have shown that children are in fact becoming heavier due to more sedentary lifestyles.

A project funded by the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) is photographing student lunch trays before and after kids eat to determine how many calories each child consumes. Will this be a big help that leads to healthier children or is it a step toward more big brother involvement in the lives of all Americans?

The $2 million study is being conducted by the government agency in five schools in the poorest section of San Antonio, Texas. According to the research firm in charge of the project kids faces won’t be photographed. Parents will be provided eating information through a bar code system in hopes that at-home eating habits can be changed.

Unfortunately, the study does not expand its scope of interest to include the other known factor relating to the obesity issue: exercise. If a camera was aimed at a child’s physical activities during and after school, maybe officials would come to the same conclusion the rest of us reached many years ago. There is a simple answer to most weight issues, which is to burn more calories through exercise than we take in by eating.

The schools where the four-year study is being conducted has an obesity rate of 33%. This is about twice the national rate of 16% for both elementary and secondary schools. Obesity has increased by 50% since 1994 and three to four times the levels of 1970 and before. Few will argue that there is a problem, but are the choices made by the children or the foods available at the schools the answer?

Childhood obesity is a rapidly growing problem of the modern countries especially USA is severely facing childhood obesity due to many factors. One of the factors is irregular eating habits that play a very important role in childhood obesity. Obesity is simply the imbalance in the energy intake by the body. In simple terms if we take more calories and spend less these extra calories will be turned into fat and deposited on different areas of body. Eating high calorie diet and sedentary lifestyle is the root cause of childhood obesity. To avoid childhood obesity we should follow the following guidelines. These are simply but effective things to follow.

1. Provide children with high fiber diet like whole grains and beans. Fiber modulate the intake of calories and regulate the absorption of fatty acids so high fiber diet is very important to avoid childhood obesity.Fried stuff should be strictly prohibited as it not only produce energy imbalance in body but also provide our body with harmful fatty acids that may cause other serious medical conditions like Atherosclerosis. Hypertension and narrowing of blood vessels.

2. Try to use low fat milk and milk products. Milk and milk products are very important for the normal growth of children so always try to include them in the diet of children.

3. Avoid frozen and packaged food as it is very difficult to avoid such product especially in urban settings. So try to balance it with fresh products as much as possible.