Healthful
Habits Should Start In Childhood
New Guidelines
Outline Ways To Encourage Healthiest Behaviors
When should people
start taking the steps necessary to ward off heart disease?
Try childhood.
So says the American
Heart Association (AHA), which has just released a
comprehensive summary of heart disease prevention guidelines
for pediatricians to use with their patients.
"Many studies have
shown an association between atherosclerosis and high cholesterol,
and high blood pressure and obesity, beginning in children as
young as 5 years old," says Dr. Rae-Ellen Kavey, lead author
of the guidelines.
Guidelines
Underscore Need
But while guidelines
have existed for preventive care for adults at risk for heart
disease, there were no similar, overall guidelines for children,
adds Dr. Kavey, who is chair of cardiology at Children's Memorial
Hospital, Northwestern University in Chicago.
"There are pre-existing
guidelines for children about cholesterol, blood pressure, and
weight, and now we have put all the information together into
one place for pediatricians - it is aimed at primary-care providers,"
Dr. Kavey says.
Preventing heart disease
cannot begin too early, she says. The guidelines reflect the
latest information that suggests that early intervention in
adopting a healthy lifestyle can be enormously effective in
delaying the onset of heart disease.
For otherwise healthy
children and teens, the guidelines suggest regularly assessing
a child's heart health by checking weight, blood pressure, and
lipid levels, if necessary.
The guidelines also
ask physicians to recommend healthy food choices, such
as eating more fruits and vegetables, to restrict intake of
saturated fats to less than 10 percent of a child's daily caloric
consumption, and to keep sugar intake low.
Prevention
Is Key
The guidelines also
emphasize the importance of daily physical activity and limiting
sedentary activity. For instance, no more than two hours of
television or sitting at a computer each day. The dangers of
smoking are also discussed.
The second part of
the guidelines identifies those children or teens already at
high risk for cardiovascular disease. These include children
with a Body Mass Index (BMI) above the 85th percentile for their
age, height, and weight; a blood pressure reading in the 90th
percentile for age, sex, and height; and a cholesterol reading
of 170 or higher.
Other factors that
put children at higher risk is a family history of heart disease,
particularly if male relatives had heart disease before age
55 and female relatives before age 65.
Finally, the guidelines
recommend treatments for those children already at risk for
heart disease, including dietary changes such as lowering salt
intake, losing weight, or prescribing medications if needed.
"Parents have major
questions about food, when to start solids, what are good snacks,
which kinds of formula, so the doctors are giving advice about
diet," she says. "With these guidelines, they have an opportunity
to give specific information about low-fat diets at the get-go."
"It's much easier
to establish healthy eating and physical activity patterns than
to change unhealthy patterns," she adds.
Always consult your
child's physician for more information.
|
July 2003
Healthful
Habits Start With Children
Guidelines
Underscore Need
Prevention
Is Key
Dealing
with Anger, for Health's Sake
Online
Resources
Dealing with
Anger, for Health's Sake
New findings show
that hostile children may end up aggravating their health, researchers
report.
The study by University of Pittsburgh and University of Helsinki
researchers found children and adolescents who respond with
anger to life events have a greater risk of developing metabolic
syndrome, a precursor to heart disease.
Indications of metabolic
syndrome include high blood pressure, weight gain, insulin resistance,
and elevated cholesterol levels.
The researchers examined
hostility levels and cardiovascular risk in 134 American children
aged 8 to 10 and 15 to 17. They found children who had high
scores on hostility tests were more likely to exhibit metabolic
syndrome three years later than children who did not have high
hostility scores.
Obesity and insulin
resistance were the two highest risk factors found in hostile
children in the follow-up, the study says.
Unhealthy lifestyles
such as physical inactivity, poor diet, and smoking and alcohol
use can be a way that hostile children and adolescents cope,
behavior that can contribute to development of metabolic syndrome,
the authors suggest in the journal Health Psychology.
The authors say the
study findings could be used to evaluate youngsters' behavioral
risk to developing these potential health problems.
"There is a need for
interventions designed to reduce hostility in young people to
prevent the precursors to cardiovascular disease, like obesity
or type 2 diabetes, which has become a huge health problem in
children in the US," says Dr. Karen A. Matthews.
Always consult your
child's physician for more information.
Online
Resources
(Our Organization
is not responsible for the content of Internet sites.)
American
Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
American
Academy of Pediatrics
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National
Cancer Institute (NCI) Eat 5 to 9 A Day
National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
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