Researchers have found that the time between ovulation and conception could be critical for the health of the offspring.  They found that maternal nutrition can play a big part. For example, a mother that is deficient in vitamin B12 and folic acid having kids who, when they reach middle age, may be fatter, become insulin resistant and have higher blood pressure due to early molecular changes that happened even before conception.

In a nutshell, Science Daily states that “These studies demonstrate that maternal nutrition, protein intake and level of fat in the diet may cause epigenetic changes in the developing fetus that can have long-term health consequences.”

Yeah, no pressure there. If you are a mum, do you even remember what you were consuming before your conceived?

Source

Parents care more about keeping their daughters skinny than letting their sons get fat.

That actually came as no surprise to me and probably not you either. We’ve all witnessed something like this: people admiring a “growing boy” as he shovels it in at Sizzler, but eating in silence (or looking away) as the family’s teen girl heads back for another round of desserts.

From eScienceNews:

“Our findings mirror those of other studies that have found that parents are much less likely to recognise or be concerned about the overweight status of sons compared to daughters,” says [lead author Kyung E. Rhee, MD, MSc, a researcher with the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at The Miriam Hospital]. “These behaviours may represent a sensitivity to societal values that girls should be slim while boys have a physical or social advantage in being larger.”

Anyway, the study, which appears in the journal Obesity, is good news for parents who never really bought into the idea that kids can exercise portion control when facing an open bag of cookies.

Instead, researchers learned that controlling what and how much your kids eat between the ages of 4 and 7 leads to a healthier BMI between 7 and 9 years old. (No word on whether these restrictions lead to eating disorders, but, hey! At least the kids aren’t fat!)

Here’s a summary of the study from the LA Times:

Researchers studied 789 boys and girls in nearly equal numbers, calculating changes in their body mass index between the ages of 4 and 7, and7 and 9, to determine how their mothers’ restrictive feeding
affected how much weight they gained — or didn’t gain. The data were from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s study of early child care and youth development.

Mothers were also asked, “Do you let your child eat what he/she feels like eating?” Answers were scored on a four-point scale, from “definitely no” to “mostly no,” “mostly yes,” and “definitely yes.”

They found no correlation between a rise in mothers controlling their kids’ eating in the early age range and weight gain in the later range. So it’s OK to say, “no dessert tonight!” But spank yourself if you’re telling your girl one thing and your boy another.

Photo: agooddietforteens.com

A new study says parents aren’t packing nutrition in their kids’ lunch pails. We’re packing what we know our kids will eat.

Can you blame us? We don’t want to hear from our daycare providers that our kid was the one throwing a fit at lunchtime. And we don’t have time for the “sneak it in there” recipes in all the parenting magazines. So we cut corners. We pack a fruit cup rather than cutting up fresh fruit, because if we chuck in an apple our kids are going to moan about the peels and the teachers at daycare aren’t likely to sit down and peel it for them. We pick up crackers with the processed cheese of our childhoods, and we close one eye so only the words “whole wheat crackers” register.

According to the study in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, seventy-one percent of packed lunches don’t have enough fruits and vegetables. One in four pre-school kids don’t get enough milk with lunch.

Interviews with parents revealed more than sixty percent were packing foods they thought were nutritious – but not expecting their kids to eat them. More than sixty percent also packed foods they figured the kids WOULDeat.

So what’s the trouble? It’s hard to track what your kids are doing out of sight. You can balance how much “good” and how much “bad” they eat at home during dinnertime, but kids don’t have that guidance at a
daycare centre. It sounds like parents are giving their kids too many choices. If you know they will overeat on snacks, don’t pack them. Are we really afraid our kids will starve if we give them choices of healthy vs. nutritious?

It’s their first shot at learning to eat well and make healthy choices outside of the home, but they’re still little kids. They still need some guidance from Mum and Dad. When we’re not there, that means
making the tough choice for them.

Image: Family.Go