 Working on Project Viva for the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and completing study visits with dozens of moms and their children. In addition to collecting in-person physical measurements like height, weight and waist circumference, we also administer questionnaires to our participants to capture their behaviors outside of the visit room. One of the most common questions our teen participants ask about their questionnaires -- aside from “What’s margarine?” -- is how to respond to the question “How often do you have gym class?”. Most of our participants attend gym for only a semester of the school year, and even during that semester, may not have gym class every day. Which got me wondering: how physically active (or inactive) are American teenagers, and what is the future of physical education in the United States?
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 In my weight management clinic, I’m always telling parents to remove the TV in their child’s bedroom, both to improve their sleep and decrease their sedentary time. However, this typically is accompanied by complaints about this request from their children. I’m often caught between allying with my patients and doing what’s right for their health. Researchers have found even more reasons for me to insist that they remove their TV from their bedroom – it is associated with higher sugary drink consumption.
by Denise Simon, MPH Thanksgiving is a holiday filled with abundance, particularly of food. Usually there is a dish at the table for everyone, but this year, one young guest came up to me to share her critique of the meal. She said “I don’t like dinner, but I like these,” as she filled both fists with rolls. Her parents were quick to add some more vegetables to her plate to accompany the bread, and encouraged her “eat a rainbow,” meaning that she got a plate complete with squash, cranberry sauce, turkey, and peas. This just made her laugh as she promptly sat down and began to push the food around on her plate instead of into her mouth. This tiny guest demonstrated an age-old problem: how can parents encourage children, particularly those in “picky” phases, to try a variety of healthy foods?
 The FDA has finally taken an official stance against added sugar, recommending that consumers limit their total daily intake of added sugar to no more than 10 percent of their daily calories. “Added sugar” is simply sugar added to food during the production process; 10 percent amounts to an average of about 50 grams (12.5 teaspoons) per day, or about as much sugar as in a single can of Coke. But with over 60 forms of added sugar, it can easily be disguised on ingredient labels.
 Obesity is one of the greatest current public health concerns, as it is a major risk factor for metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of risk factors that raises risk for heart disease and other health problems.
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