Dia Spectr
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Diabetes Spectrum 21:50-53, 2008
DOI: 10.2337/diaspect.21.1.50
© 2008 by the American Diabetes Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Purchase Article
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ponder, S. W.
Right arrow Articles by Anderson, M. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Ponder, S. W.
Right arrow Articles by Anderson, M. A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Nutrition FYI

Teaching Families to Keep Their Children S.A.F.E. From Obesity

Stephen W. Ponder, MD, FAAP, CDE and Meaghan A. Anderson, MS, RD, LD, CDE

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   Introduction
 
The word "diet" carries negative connotations in the minds of adults and especially children. Currently, 62% of men and 71% of women are dieting despite this having little to no effect on our current obesity trend.1 The focus by providers has gradually begun to shift from placing patients on diets to discussing healthy lifestyle choices. In the busy clinic setting, it can be extremely difficult for practitioners to find the time to address the overwhelming and time-consuming issue of pediatric obesity. The message delivered to families must be both practical and brief. For this reason, we developed the "S.A.F.E." message to focus, in an efficient and effective manner, on four major nutritional blind spots related to obesity.


   Excess Calorie Traps and S.A.F.E.
 
One approach to both preventing and treating childhood obesity is to identify practical solutions that yield measurable changes in a child's weight. We have created a simple acronym that any practitioner can use to prompt discussion of common reasons for excess weight gain in children and adolescents. The acronym—S.A.F.E.—stands for Soft drinks or sugary beverages, Aftermeal snacks, Fast foods, and Exercise (Figure 1). Although there are other possible interventions, current research would support these as first-line topics to explore and address specifically with families.


Figure Removed (Available Only in the Full Text)
View larger version (65K):



  		Figure 1. S.A.F.E. office wall poster.

 

   Soft drinks or sugary beverages
 
Soft drinks (sugary drinks), whether in the form of sweetened carbonated beverages, juice drinks, sweetened tea, or sport drinks, are a primary source of excess calories in the diets of most children.2 Beverages now contribute 17–18% of the energy in the diets of young children.3 Because these are discreet forms of excess caloric intake and are easily recognized by children and families, clinicians should make a concerted effort to influence their consumption.

American teenagers drink more carbonated soft drinks than water. A recent report quantified the energy imbalance responsible . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   After-meal snacks
 

   Fast foods
 

   Exercise
 

   Putting the S.A.F.E. Message Into Action
 

   Clinician Reimbursement
 

   Conclusion
 

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?




HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Diabetes Diabetes Care Clinical Diabetes Diabetes Spectrum
Copyright © 2008 by the American Diabetes Association.