A University of Miami study designed to prevent childhood obesity in preschoolers is showing promising results. According to Dr. Sarah Messiah, “We wanted to keep normal weight children normal weight so it's really a prevention intervention."
Researchers developed the program to teach inner city kids about healthy foods and why they need to eat them. A new report shows it’s working. Kids in the program stopped eating chips almost entirely. Cookie consumption dropped by 50 percent and fresh fruit and vegetable consumption increased by 25 percent.
Dr. Natale a University of Miami researcher says, “They go home and ask parents to buy them more broccoli which we were told would never happen." Almost all of the kids stayed in the intervention group stayed at the same weight or lost a little bit.
Pediatrician Dr. Lee Sanders says, “We need effective community based programs to teach about good nutrition and we need to begin very early." She continued, "while some old habits die hard, this study indicates that it's never too early to start teaching about good nutrition."
