CHILDREN, CHOLESTEROL, FAT
How do you teach children to eat low-fat, low-cholesterol foods – so that they can get a head start on preventing heart disease when they’re adults? This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health. Most authorities agree that American children would be a lot better off if their collective diet contained less cholesterol and saturated fat. The only exception to this may be in very young children – those under age 2 – where ample dietary fat has traditionally been considered important for long-term development. But numerous studies have shown that American children over age 2 take in too much saturated fat and cholesterol. One expert who has reviewed the subject, Dr. Matthew Gillman form the Harvard Medical School, says that simply reducing the fat in dairy products, like switching from whole mild to low-fat milk, “would go a long way toward improving the situation.”
T2
Writing in the Pediatric
Alert newsletter, Dr. Gillman also cites some revealing articles about how
children respond to the food they’re given. If you just offer more low-fat entrees in
addition to the usual high-fat fare, the kids will eat more low-fat food. If you try to accomplish the same thing by
education parents to tell their kids to look for low-fat items, it
doesn’t work as well. Of course,
educating parents and kids is critical to foster health eating; but, putting formal
programs aside for a minute you come full circle back to an age old
fundamental: whether at home or in
school, put low-fat foods in front of kids – and they’ll eat them. ^ Speaking of Health,
I’m Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, for CBS News.
E-Mail
drdavis@davishealth.com
Dr. Steve Davis
7810 Louis Pasteur #200
210/614-3355
