Promoting healthy weight gain and preventing obesity

More people are overweight in the United States now than at any precious time in history: well over half of all adults, and now about 15% of preschoolers -- double the number 20 years ago. At the same time, research is showing a link the between excess weight gain in childhood and remaining overweight throughout adult life. helping your child avoid becoming overweight is a good example of how you can influence metabolic programming to prevent future problems. Fortunately, new strategies suggested by the latest research make this easier than ever before.

But while we want to help our children avoid excess weight gain, it is also important to prevent inadequate weight gain. This form of malnutrition in childhood -- often termed "failure to thrive" -- surprisingly does not occur only in families below the poverty level. About 15% of American children seen by pediatricians for poor weight gain suffer from accidental malnutrition. Often this is simply due to misunderstanding on the part of affluent, health -- conscious parents about what foods constitute a healthy diet for a baby or child. Paradoxically, children who gained two little weight in early childhood are 88 percent greater at risk of becoming overweight adults. This seems to be because of caloric deficit metabolically programs their bodies to be more efficient in storing calories.