Posted on 12/10/2017 8:45:35 PM PST by nickcarraway
Researchers study a pilot program in New York City and conclude that giving students water with school lunches could significantly reduce childhood obesity.
There might be an easy way to reduce the rates of childhood and adult obesity in the United States.
Serve water with school lunches.
That’s the finding of a study from the University of Illinois.
Researchers say they concluded that encouraging students to drink water during lunch could prevent more than half a million young people in the United States from becoming overweight or obese.
That, in turn, could reduce associated medical and societal costs by $13 billion.
The study, a cost-benefit analysis, was based on a pilot program in 1,200 elementary and middle schools in New York City.
“In 2009, New York’s Department of Education and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene launched an intervention to improve plain water access at lunchtime by placing water dispensers in school cafeterias,” Ruopeng An, PhD, a kinesiology and community health professor at the University of Illinois, told Healthline.
“Students in intervention schools had a three-fold increase in plain water consumption and a small decline in milk consumption in comparison to their control school counterparts,” he added.
An explored the cost of expanding the New York City pilot program to all public and private schools in the United States.
He concluded making the program available nationwide would cost $18 per student for the entirety of their schooling.
This would yield a saving to society of $174 per person, adding up to the $13 billion overall savings.
Small changes for significant results According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 13 million children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 in the United States are obese.
More than one third of adults (36 percent) are obese.
The estimated annual medical cost due to obesity was estimated at $147 billion in 2008.
Expanding the availability of water at school lunches could represent a cost-effective method of reducing obesity in the United States.
“The study demonstrates the impact that even small steps can have in promoting healthy body weight. It is a positive adjunct to some of the other nutrition strategies being incorporated into schools, including more whole wheat and salad bars,” Lauri Wright, PhD, an assistant professor in public health at the University of South Florida, told Healthline.
“The habits we develop as children, even as young as two and three, strongly influence the behavior we carry into adulthood. This is why establishing healthy lifestyle behaviors in childhood is critical to preventing obesity and other disease in the future,” she added.
Losing the sugar Consumption of sugary drinks like soda has contributed to increased rates of obesity in the United States.
A 20-ounce soda has 15 to 18 teaspoons of sugar and more than 240 calories.
Consuming this amount of calories in liquid form rather than solid food will not make a person feel full, and typically means they won’t compensate for the calorie intake by eating less.
A 2011 study found that on any day, half the population of the United States drinks sugary drinks.
About 5 percent of those get at least 567 calories, and 1 in 4 get 200 calories from these drinks.
For teenagers, sugary beverages such as soda, sports drinks, and energy drinks, are the top source of calories at around 226 calories per day.
“Sugar sweetened beverages provide a ton of calories without filling you up. Some past studies have shown that sugary beverages may even increase the risk for leptin resistance as well, which in turn may make it hard to even decipher when fullness has been achieved. It may also set the stage for prediabetes,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD, a licensed, registered dietitian who manages the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, told Healthline.
She says parents can take steps to reduce their child’s desire for sweetened beverages, but concedes it won’t be easy as sugary beverages are everywhere.
“The only way to help reduce it is to eliminate it as an option at home, and, if at a social gathering, communicate that these products are only a ‘once in a while’ type food, like a dessert. The key here is to reduce the need, dependency, and intenseness of sweet on the taste buds. Like adults, once they go without it for a long enough time, they lose the desire to have it,” she said.
Beverage alternatives Wright says at meal times, the best drinks for children to have are low-fat dairy or water.
Children aged 2 to 8 should consume two cups of water per day and children aged 9 to 18 should consume three cups per day.
If your child finds water boring, Wright says to get creative.
“Have fun with water. Have a water pitcher in the refrigerator and flavor it with fresh cut lemons, cantaloupe, cucumbers, or berries. Let your children pick out a favorite reusable water bottle,” she said.
As a general rule, she says adults should be consuming 2.7 liters a day and children should have 1.7 liters.
Around 80 percent of that will come from drinks but 20 percent will come from food.
“Water is an essential nutrient for our body's health. Additionally, water is a natural appetite suppressant so it aids in maintaining a healthy weight. The vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide,” Wright said.
The Irish ruined everything!
the dairy industrial complex will be upset... but I agree, there’s no reason for kids to ever drink milk. Through most of history we consumed milk as a cultured product, butter or a cooking ingredient.
In fact, it wasn’t a drink outside of giving it to babies who couldn’t or wouldn’t nurse until the late 19th century, well after pasteurization had been invented. It was then pushed by governments in the 20th century.
1922 saw the passing of the Casper Volstead act, which gave agricultural producers the ability to create associations and market their products. Got Milk?
They could serve Lisa Douglas’s Hot Water Soup.
These children are not becoming chubby by what they are eating and drinking at school.
It’s what they are eating at home. Free packaged food and sodas provided by the foodstamp/welfare system is the problem.
Why are the taxpayers forced to provide funds for junk food and sodas to feed children? That should be the big question that needs addressed.
What is bad now is if you order water they bring a bottle of Perrier and charge you $3
Maybe they could import water from Flint for the kids to drink?
If they could force the taxpayers to pay for it ..... and Congress could get their under the table kick-back. Yeah, I’m sure that would be just dandy for the children......
Yep. Same recollections for me.
Low activity (video screens consume them), high carb & sugar (now lots of corn syrup) diets, less sleep aaaaaand...they’re fatsos.
That will start a riot in some schools.
Fats (like milk) don’t make you fat. Carbs make you fat. Fats make your arteries fat
“It (milk) was then pushed by governments in the 20th century.”
Yep, another Farmer Assistance Program, just as with corn (for syrup & ethanol).
And low/no fat milk is highly processed and adulterated. Yuck.
We only drink water or iced tea. The sodas are really bad for you.
“try this on the precious elderly....there would be riots in the streets....”
—
Since when are the elderly considered “precious”?
I’m elderly and haven’t noticed anyone treating me as something precious.
.
.
That is what other posts should say. And we actually went HOURS without food or drink, and as said, when we did eat it was not potatoes chips etc. but real food. And we did have dessert after supper. Thanks be to God.
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