income, resources, time and stress,” says Staiano, who directs the Pediatric Obesity and Health Behavior Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, La.
The good news is, there are national programs that have been shown to improve diet quality among preschoolers and school-age kids — such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which gives nutrition assistance to low-income women with young children, and the National School Lunch program.
“I think school breakfast and lunch programs have improved a great deal,” Staiano notes.
In fact, she adds, it is often during the summer months, when kids are out of school, where excessive weight gain happens.
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More targeted approaches to managing childhood obesity
In comparison to those school-age years, early childhood has traditionally gotten less attention when it comes to preventing and managing obesity, both Staiano and Yaroch say. But that is changing.
Yaroch points to a government-funded program called the National Early Care and Education Learning Collaborative, which was implemented in a number of U.S. states to foster healthy eating and exercise, and curb “screen time,” in child care settings.
“The 0 to 5 years are when you’re establishing taste preferences and behaviors,” Yaroch shares. “And the earlier you can intervene, the better.”
In the new study, researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital Holbaek, in Denmark, followed 335 preschool children and 657 school-age children, aged 6 to 8. In both age groups, about 14% were overweight — meaning they had a body mass index above the