BusinessWeek.com reported yesterday that more kids ages 10-17 are obese.  They're reporting about the Health Findings from the March issue of Health Affairs based on the U.S. National Survey of Children's Health.  You can read the whole article here, http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/636504.html, but basically there were two points they pulled out of the report:  poorer children tend to be affected by obesity more and children living in neighborhoods that parents felt were unsafe had higher levels of obesity due to not being able to play outside.  

One other interesting finding of note was the increase in snacking between mealtimes for kids.  As one of the researchers from the study says, "Kids still eat three meals a day, but they're also loading up on high-calorie junk food that contains little or no nutritional value during these snacks."  

As a mom, I often struggle with the eating choices I make for my kids.  Not so much for my daughter who is pretty much old enough now that she is making the choices for herself, sometimes with my input and othertimes, not so much.  But my son is still young enough that a lot of what he eats is still controlled by me.  I was thinking about this study and the snack issue.  My youngest has always been a "grazer" which I've heard was a good thing.  He doesn't eat a lot at mealtimes, but then he's snacking all day long it seems like.  We do our best to limit the snacks to healthy items, cheese, yogurt, fruit, but I'll admit to the occassional request for a cookie or crackers being okay'd too.

Obviously this is better than always allowing cookies and crackers and, in our house, candy is considered a "treat' or a "dessert" not a snack so I guess we're okay there, but I doubt the authors of this study would say it's a bad thing to provide a snack with decent nutritional value to a kid who's hungry rather than making them wait for mealtime?  Or would they?? 

BTW, this makes for two posts in one day...haven't done that in awhile.  It feels pretty good!!