How 'Crunch Time' Between School And Sleep Shapes Kids' Health : Shots - Health News : NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/22/172717996/how-crunch-time-between-school-and-sleep-shapes-kids-health?ft=1&f=1128&sc=tw How 'Crunch Time' Between School And Sleep Shapes Kids' Health Image courtesy of The Bishop family (left), The Benavides family (top right), NPR (center) and The Jacobs family (bottom right) It's an important question for American families and the nation as a whole: Why do so many kids weigh too much? There are recent hints the epidemic may be abating slightly. Still, one in every three American kids is overweight or obese. To understand why, NPR conducted a poll with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. It focuses on what happens in American households during the hours between school and bedtime. This is crunch time for most families — when crucial everyday decisions get made about food and exercise. Our poll used a unique design to get at what is actually happening in the life of a "target child" in each household. We supplemented their responses with more than 800 that came in when we asked parents, through NPR's Facebook page, to describe their own "crunch times." The most striking finding is that U.S. parents "get it." When we asked a parent or other principal caregiver in our poll how important it is that their child eats and exercises in a way to maintain a ...
Source: Dr Portnay - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs