By Alan Mozes
NEW YORK, Mar 16 (Reuters Health) -- Encouraging obese children to reduce
the amount of time they spend being inactive-- such as watching TV or playing
video games -- is an important step in helping them to lose weight, according to
researchers.
"We spend a lot of time being sedentary, and anything that families can do
to reduce that sedentary time will probably have an effect," said study lead
author Dr. Leonard H. Epstein, of the department of psychology and social and
preventive medicine at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York.
Over a 2-year period, Epstein and his team placed all the members of 90
families with obese children between the ages of 8 and 12 -- and in some cases
obese parents -- on a comprehensive weight-loss program involving diet,
educational material, therapy, fitness testing, and positive reinforcement
techniques.
The families were randomly divided into four groups with varying target
levels of increasing active behavior versus reducing sedentary behavior. All
participants completed physical activity questionnaires, and were monitored for
their body composition and fitness levels at 6, 12 and 24 months after the
beginning of the study.
According to the report, published in the March issue of Archives of
Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, there was no difference in percentages of
weight loss or time spent being active between any of the four groups, with all
participants registering significant decreases in body fat, and increases in the
time they spent being active and their capacity to engage in physical work.
Epstein and his colleagues conclude that specifically reducing sedentary
behavior had as beneficial an effect on treating obesity in these kids as
specifically increasing physical activity.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Epstein noted that the results
increased options in the treatment for obesity in children. "We found that our
approach is equally effective to a more traditional aerobic approach," he said.
"For practitioners, this may be an alternative approach to help obese kids."
Epstein also suggested that parents could help their children by looking at
ways they could change their familiar home setting, which may be encouraging
inactivity. "Rearranging the environment so there's not as much access to
sedentary things is one consideration," he said. "When you walk into a house,
there's probably a very attractive wide-screen TV attached to a dish with 100
channels and a VCR and a new DVD player and very soft chairs -- and if there's
any exercise equipment, it's probably out of the way in the basement."
He added that as with any learned behavior, children will choose activities
by example. "Parents could model more active behavior," he noted. "Some of the
kid's TV watching is probably a socialization result of the parents' habits.
Parents can, for example, have a 'turn-off-the-TV-day,' and parents should
become much more informed about how much TV and computer games their kids are
using."
He pointed out, however, that simply turning off the TV is only the first
step. "Reducing access is not enough if you don't at the same time ensure that
there are reasonable alternatives. If you turn off the TV and the kid's only
available alternative activity is to listen to the radio then you haven't really
done much."
