Rising to the Family Challenge
Join Five Families in Eating Better, Moving More and Getting Healthy

By Sally Squires
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Parents pass down a lot to their children, from hair and eye color to family heirlooms. But these days, an increasing number of children inherit something else: obesity and inactivity.

According to the latest government figures, nearly two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. And how much a parent weighs is the single most important predictor of whether a child will be overweight or obese.

Not surprisingly, childhood obesity has more than tripled over the past 40 years, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in six youngsters ages 6 to 19 is now obese and at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol levels and premature heart disease. An additional 15 percent of children and teens are at risk of becoming obese.

But there's also evidence that the families who grow large together can change together. With that in mind, this week we kick off the Lean Plate Club Fit for Fun Family Challenge. During the next four weeks, you'll find simple food and exercise goals to help your family spring into a healthier summer, whether you want to be more active, tweak your eating habits or both.

Along the way, you'll meet five Lean Plate Club families from the District, Maryland and Virginia. Like you and your family, they're already doing some things right, but want to do better. They'll be taking the challenge with you and we'll report on their progress in the coming weeks.

Getting children to eat more fruit and vegetables might sound like a challenge in itself, but it's an easy place to start making some habit changes -- without resorting to threats, bribes or begging.

"When people talk about restructuring their diets, they usually talk about deprivation," notes Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and author of "I'm, Like, So Fat: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World" (Guilford, 2005). "With fruit and vegetables, you're talking about adding food, not denying yourself."

Plus, studies in children as young as 2 and as old as teens consistently show that offspring follow parents' eating patterns. So the more fruit and vegetables you eat, the greater the chances that your children will eat more, too. "That's the strongest of all factors in influencing children's eating behavior," says Mary Story, professor of public health at the University of Minnesota. "If Father is saying, 'No way I'll eat that broccoli,' then it's very likely that kids won't eat it, either."

Those fruits and vegetables not only provide key vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and fiber, but they're also low in calories and high in flavor. A study of 36,000 Minnesota adolescents points to a correlation with academic performance, too. Teens who earned the highest grades were also more likely to eat more fruit and vegetables.

Merely stocking these items, however, doesn't boost kids' intake.

"You need to make these foods not just available, but appetizing and accessible," says Christie Befort, a preventive medicine researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City and lead author of a new study of fruit and vegetable consumption in 200 teens in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. "Canned fruit buried in the pantry is not something they are going to eat. They're not likely to eat frozen fruit in the freezer, either, but having fruit and vegetables sitting there to just grab and eat, or cut up and ready to go in the refrigerator makes them easily accessible."

Each week during the challenge, you'll find one way to improve your family's eating habits and at least one way to boost activity. Follow the suggestions and you'll be on your way to a healthier lifestyle.

This challenge isn't designed to help you fit into a bikini. It won't turn your family into competitive athletes. But it will produce small, gradual and achievable changes, which research suggests help build a foundation for more long-lasting healthy habits.

(Find additional information and printable forms to track your progress at http://www.washingtonpost.com/leanplateclub , where you can also log your family's activity online and see how it compares with others taking the challenge. Also, see today's KidsPost for tips on how elementary-school students are increasing their activity.)

The activity challenge for this week: Get your family's gear in order (workout clothes, comfortable shoes, etc.) and take a five-minute walk together. That's a necessary first step toward a more active life together.

The eating challenge is to meet that timeless mandate: More fruit and vegetables. Here are some tactics to help meet that goal no matter what your age or whether you're a family of one or 10:

Provide plenty of "hidden" vegetables . Teens participating in focus groups told University of Minnesota researchers they welcomed foods with hidden vegetables. Favorite foods that don't seem like vegetables include salsa, guacamole, hummus and baba ghanouj. Spaghetti sauce, vegetable stir-fries, bean burritos and soups such as minestrone, tomato and split pea are other options. Pumpkin pie -- make it crustless in small, individual containers -- also counts as a veggie. Baked sweet potato "fries" are another healthy choice.

Exploit hungry moments. Most kids are ravenous after school, "so there's a really high chance that they will eat fruit and vegetables," says Neumark-Sztainer, who is a mother of four. Dinner preparation is another high-appetite opportunity. So have fresh baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and other veggies ready with low-fat dip. Also, place fruit and vegetables in strategic places where hungry kids scrounging for food are most likely to find them: on the kitchen counter and washed and cut up in bags at eye level in the front of the refrigerator. Or have jars of dried fruit available where kids are likely to grab and go.

Serve the whole fruit, not the juice. Fruit provides more fiber and fewer calories than juice. In February, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advised delaying introduction of 100 percent juice until babies are at least 6 months of age. Then serve it only from a cup, not a bottle (to reduce dental problems). The AAP also recommended limiting juice to four to six ounces per day for children ages 1 to 6 and eight to 12 ounces for those aged 7 to 18.

Smart juice option: orange juice. Four ounces provides about a day's worth of vitamin C and is rich in potassium.

Choose calcium-fortified and you add even more nutritional punch. Another good option: vegetable juice, which isn't sweetened and is low in calories, although it can be high in sodium. (For more on fruit and vegetable servings, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/leanplateclub .)

Try 10. That's the average number of times a child needs to try a new food before liking it. "You can't expect kids to like new foods right away," Story says. So keep offering fruit and vegetables even if your child seems uninterested. "Familiarity should increase their intake," adds Neumark-Sztainer.

Offer options . When Story's three sons were young, she discovered that if she provided two or three vegetables at dinner, there was a higher likelihood that at least some would be eaten. "That way, if they don't eat the broccoli, who cares?" she says.

Resist the temptation to bargain. "Eat your vegetable and you can have dessert" just puts you in a power struggle over food. The AAP advises that parents choose the time to eat and what is served, but notes that "children then can choose what to consume." And, yes, fruit makes a great dessert. ·

Join the Lean Plate Club Web chat today from 1 to 2 p.m. at www.washingtonpost.com/leanplateclub. Meet Sally Squires on Saturday, April 29, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street NW, where she'll speak and sign copies of "Secrets of the Lean Plate Club" (St. Martin's Press). Space is limited. RSVP to 202-334-7969.