Unlock a Lifetime of Health: The Surprising Habit That Can Protect Your Child from Obesity – Starting as Early as 3 Years Old

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A study has shown that providing parents with a text-based service on child health management based on pediatrician health advice and health knowledge is effective in reducing the likelihood of obesity in infants and young children within 24 months of birth.

Professor William Heerman’s team at Vanderbilt University found this by randomly assigning 900 parent-child pairs to one group that received pediatrician counseling and another group that received counseling and health information services, and then studied growth of children for two years.

Childhood obesity often leads to obesity in adults and often has negative long-term health effects, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so preventing overweight and obesity from appearing in infants and young children is a task of health authorities of each country.

The research team announced the results of this study, noting that although infant and child growth processes are thought to predict obesity and long-term cardiovascular disease, most interventions aimed at they have failed to prevent obesity in the first 24 months of life.

In this study, the research team recruited 900 pairs of parents and children born in six hospitals in the United States. 451 couples participated in a pediatrician counseling group and 449 couples participated in a program that provided advice and information on child health management through responsive texts. messages and web boards Children were randomly assigned to groups and observed changes in their weight/height (kg/m) for 24 months.

As a result, the average weight/height of the doctor consultation group was 15.1㎏/m, and the doctor consultation + health management information service group was 14.8㎏/m. When health management counseling and information service were combined, the weight/height at 24 months of age was 14.8㎏/m2 and decreased by 0.33 kg/m2.

The percentage of children who were overweight or obese at 24 months was also higher in the medical consultation group (24.5%) than in the health management information service and medical consultation group (23.2%).

Additionally, health management information services have been shown to be effective in racially and ethnically diverse groups, including those at high risk for childhood obesity.

The research team said: “These findings show that adding a health information-based digital information service to a pediatrician’s health management consultation can lead to healthier weight changes and reduce the incidence of obesity by the two years,” and further research for widespread implementation. he said it was necessary.

The research results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Kim Joo-mi, children’s mom reporter mikim@kizmom.com

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