Eating healthfully is a major component of preventing and reversing the obesity epidemic, but everyone knows that putting it into practice is harder than it sounds. To make it easier, families need support not only from schools but also from health care providers and even their workplaces, said nutrition experts during the UI 2008 Conference on Obesity, held April 8 at the Iowa Memorial Union. The Iowa Biomedical Imaging Institute and the Institute sponsored the conference for Clinical and Translational Science at the UI.

During one of six breakout sessions, Linda Snetselaar, PhD, UI professor of community and behavioral health in the College of Public Health, and Teresa Marshall, UI assistant professor of preventive and community dentistry, discussed how to help families make better nutritional choices to help create a lifetime of better health for their children.

For the first time in history, Snetselaar pointed out, children today may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents because of the increase in obesity. Obesity carries with it a number of health complications for young people, including poor self-esteem, depression, sleep apnea, steatohepatitis or fatty liver, hypertension, atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes. Some major changes in how people eat, work and play are needed to change this trend.

As an example of how this might be done, Snetselaar pointed to a research program the UI is conducting in the Muscatine, Iowa school district called “Youth Wellness to Prevent Obesity, an Iowa Project.” The Iowa Project brings together community members ranging from parents and teachers to local industry to make a strong commitment to health. Some components of the program include a student-teacher walking program, early morning exercise to music that is served up alongside a healthy breakfast, and choices of two health alternatives for snacks. The school also purchased bicycles for use in the gym and to ride to nearby community recreation facilities.

To help educate parents, the Iowa Project initiated family dinner nights at the school that included a demonstration program for parents to teach them how to plan and prepare healthy meals. There are also parenting classes to learn healthful feeding for infants and toddlers, since research is showing that health eating and good nutritional habits start early — perhaps even before birth.

“There’s some evidence now showing that the flavors of whatever food the mother eats pass through the amniotic fluid to the baby, and after birth, those flavors pass through the breast milk,” Snetselaar said. “If the mother is eating healthy foods during pregnancy and breastfeeding, the child will be more accustomed to those flavors and more likely to eat them on his or her own later.”

Furthermore, a child’s eating habits are mostly set by the time the child is two years old, so early education is critical. Pairing with other health professionals is one way to make sure that happens. Snetselaar would like to see more emphasis on nutrition during already existing “teachable moments,” like prenatal visits, the hospital stay following birth, and regular pediatrician visits.

Marshall, whose research in the UI College of Dentistry focuses on diet and its effect on oral health, said an especially exciting idea is involving dentists in the overall health of their patients. As children grow older, Marshall said, they are likely to see a dentist more often than their pediatrician, which means more frequent opportunities to discuss nutrition.

“The diet we need for systemic health is very closely tied to oral health,” Marshall said. She noted that “dietary enablers” — like large portion sizes, unstructured eating times, increased availability of foods and beverages, and processed foods — are everywhere in our environment and are contributing to the rise in obesity as well as a decline in oral health.

Educating parents is important, but sometimes even if a parent has all the knowledge they need to make good choices, it’s still difficult to put into practice. Marshall recommended making small changes first—like eliminating pop and making sure families have structured meals and eating periods so that children aren’t eating all day long.

Snetselaar and Marshall agreed that more research is needed to identify barriers to healthy eating — to find out what prevents people from changing their habits — and it involve not just schools and families, but ideally would reach even into the workplace. Snetselaar pointed out that a few companies are taking the lead by providing healthy foods on-site as well as nutritious meals employees could purchase to take home to their families.

“We need to find out more about how to set up programs so that they really fit the population,” Snetselaar said. “We would like to find out what makes it easier for things to really click for a parent and for a family so that it will be easier for them to make healthy choices.”