New report urges parents to invest early in childhood obesity prevention

These are among the recommendations in a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the first comprehensive studies analyzing what should be done to help prevent obesity in children up to five years of age.

In recent years there has been much emphasis on fighting overweight in school-age kids, but weight problems often begin in younger children, the report says.

About 20% of kids are overweight or obese before they go to school, with higher rates among low-income children and African-American and Hispanic children, the report notes. Government data shows a third of school-age children are overweight or obese.

Many young children don't grow out of their baby fat, and that extra weight increases their risk of obesity later in life, says Leann Birch,chair of the IOM committee that prepared the report and director of the Center for Childhood Obesity Research at the Pennsylvania State University .

Debra Haire-Joshu, a committee member and director of the Obesity Prevention and Policy Research Center at Washington University, St. Louis, says obesity is "a multifaceted problem for young children, just like it is for adults," and it needs to be addressed on many fronts.

The report is aimed at child-care regulatory agencies, child-care providers and early childhood educators, but much of the advice could apply to parents, too. Among the recommendations:

• Increase physical activity in young children . Kids should have the chance to be physically active throughout the day.

For instance, toddlers and preschool children should have opportunities for light, moderate and vigorous physical activity for an amount of time that averages out to at least 15 minutes per hour while children are in care. "This would average out over the course of a day," Birch says.

Adults should avoid using restriction of play as a disciplinary measure, and kids should have opportunities for daily outdoor time for physical activity whenever possible.

• Decrease sedentary time for young children. Activities for toddlers and preschoolers should limit sitting or standing time to no more than 30 minutes at a time.

• Encourage and support breastfeeding during infancy. Adults who work with infants and their families should promote and support exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months and the continuation of breastfeeding in conjunction with complementary foods for one year or more.

Wall Growth Chart for Your Kids

Many of you must remember your childhood days when you had just started gaining height very slowly by fractions of centimeters or inches and you always looked for a clear wall against which you could stand and measure your height with a color pencil to mark it. Well gone are those days. Now we have beautiful, colorful, wall growth chart for your toddlers and children. Because first of all if you mark on the wall it will not only look dirty and it may be washed off when you try to color it with a new paint. Wall growth chart is fun and easy to maintain. These days there is a revolutionary change in wall growth chart . You can even have customized growth chart. There is theme based growth chart, also there is animal growth chart, peel and stick growth charts, so on and so forth. Tots become excited when they see their names scribbled on their things it makes the stuff very special for them.

If you have more than one kid you might then want to keep two or three wall charts but then the wall space will come into consideration. Let’s get started from the day one when you are expecting. Whether it’s a boy or a girl does not matter, you can simply decorate the baby’s room with varieties of nursery wall art like a smiling moon depicting good night in a smoky cloud or any cartoon figure such as Mickey mouse, Donald duck, Winnie the pooh etc. Canvass wall banner, canvass art, growth charts, nice wall hangs are also a part of kids wall art. But one thing you must keep in mind-whatever art work you are keeping, it should be useful for them. You have to keep in mind their safety and protection too.

Pictures for nursery can be of different types. Since they are just infants, they will like anything that is colorful and bright. If you are becoming a parent for the first time, you must be very excited and therefore it is expected that the nursery art for you child will be a master piece. Decorating children’s room is always a joy. It not only makes you feel good about being a parent but it also reminds you of your own childhood days. Some of you might have loved coloring and painting as a child but as you grew up and got busy in your life, you had to quit painting. This is a golden opportunity to re-live your childhood. Children’s wall art needs modification with time. As time has passed, with the modernization of lifestyles, we get many different things available in the market for decorating our rooms.

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