Children who regularly eat breakfast and dinner with their parents are considerably less likely to be overweight, according to a new European study.

Experts said that parents who ate with their children were not only more likely to be ensuring meals were nutritious and healthy, but that togetherness at mealtimes was a marker for “family cohesion”, which carried other health benefits.

In a study of nearly 8,000 children living in eight European countries, researchers found that those who ate breakfast with their parents five to seven times per week were as much as 40 per cent less likely to be overweight, than those who had a family breakfast just two to three times a week.

The effect was similar, but slightly smaller, for dinner. Children from families which ate together more regularly were 30 per cent less likely to be overweight than those who sat down for dinner less often.

Intriguingly, the same effect was not seen in children who regularly ate lunch with their parents, who were in fact more likely to be overweight, said researchers from the University of Adger in Norway.

via Children who eat breakfast with their families ‘less likely to be obese’ – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent.

The obesity epidemic is global: 2.1 billion people, or about 29% of the world’s population, were either overweight or obese in 2013, and nearly two out of three of the obese live in developing countries.

Nearly 29% of World Population Is Overweight – WSJ.

You’ve probably heard the complaints since you were a kid yourself – children aren’t getting enough exercise. Now there are numbers behind this notion.

According to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adolescents aged 12 to 15 are considered physically unfit.

The authors of the report tested more than 600 young teenagers on treadmills to measure cardiorespiratory fitness, a measure of how well the heart and lungs can move blood to supply muscles during exercise.

They found that just half of all boys and only a third of all girls in the study met the bare minimum threshold of being called “fit.” Taken as a whole, this meant that only 42 percent of kids were fit. In 2000, by comparison, this figure was 52 percent – lackluster for sure, but still a majority.

Not surprisingly, overweight and obese children were less fit than those who had a healthy weight; only 30 percent of overweight children and 20 percent of obese passed the minimum standards to be called fit. But even so, only 54 percent of children with normal weight – barely half – had adequate levels of cardiorespiratory fitness.

Dr. Jaime Gahche, the lead author of the report, said the solution is clear – children simply need to get up and move.

“Children should spend at least 60 minutes daily,” Gahche said, “mostly doing aerobic exercise, like walking, running, participating in team sports or martial arts.”

Keith Ayoob, director of nutrition at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Rose R. Kennedy Clinic, agreed that the findings are a clear signal that American children need more physical activity.

“We have got to make sure that no kid is left on his behind,” said Ayoob, who was not involved with the study.

Competing for kids’ time with these activities, of course, is a growing proportion of the day devoted to computers, tablets and other forms of screen time.

“Kids come home after school nowadays and don’t even leave the house,” said Dr. Dyan Hes, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College, who was also not involved with the study. “Especially teenage girls – they chat, they text, they go online. It’s really a sad state.”

It’s Official: Most American Kids Are Physically Unfit – ABC News