PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

New Canadian guidelines to prevent and manage obesity in children must focus on family

Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care issues tools for physicians to help children and parents

2015-03-30
(Press-News.org) New guidelines from the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care to help prevent and manage obesity in children and youth recommend regular growth monitoring at routine health care visits as well as a focus on family lifestyles and health behaviours. The guidelines, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), are aimed at helping primary care practitioners address this major public health issue.

Growth monitoring includes measuring weight, height or length, calculating body mass index and plotting these according to age using the measures on the WHO (World Health Organization) growth charts adapted for Canadian children.

Obesity puts children at an elevated risk for various health conditions through its association with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. In Canada, childhood obesity has more than doubled since the 1970s, with about 32% of children and youth classified as overweight (20%) or obese (12%). More than twice as many boys (15%) than girls (8%) are obese.

"Childhood obesity is complex; influenced by different parenting styles, family lifestyles and parents' knowledge of what constitutes healthy growth," states Dr. Patricia Parkin, chair of the child obesity guideline working group. "Primary care doctors and other health care professionals play an important role in the battle against childhood obesity, which is a major health challenge in Canada. To be successful, we must involve the entire family and tailor solutions that meet their varied needs."

This is the first update to childhood obesity guidelines in more than 20 years and includes the latest evidence and recommendations, consistent with those in other countries.

"Parents often underestimate their children's weight, which is why continual growth monitoring by a health care provider is important," states Dr. Paula Brauer, a member of the child obesity guideline working group. "Children naturally gain weight as they grow; by regularly measuring and plotting a child's growth, a physician or nurse can determine if the child is maintaining a healthy growth pattern or if he or she is at risk of being overweight or obese."

Key recommendations for primary care practitioners: Growth monitoring (height, weight and body mass index) should be done for all children and youth under age 18 at appropriate primary care visits using the WHO Growth Charts for Canada. For children aged 2 to 17 years who are overweight or obese, primary care practitioners should offer or refer to structured behavioural programs aimed at achieving healthy growth. Pharmacologic treatments (including orlistat) should not be offered to children or youth who are overweight or obese. Referral to surgery for overweight and obese children and youth is not recommended.

Structured behavioural interventions include exercise, healthy nutrition and lifestyle changes, as well as counselling, education and other supports.

The literature showed that "most effective behavioural interventions were comprehensive, delivered by a specialized interdisciplinary team, involved group sessions, and incorporated parent and family involvement," states the Task Force.

The Task Force calls for more research, especially randomized controlled trials, into effective methods for obesity prevention in children and youth, particularly within primary care settings.

"The primary care team is an integral part of a whole-system approach to tackling childhood obesity," writes Dr. Carolyn Summerbell, Durham University, Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside, United Kingdom, in a related commentary (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/press/cmaj.150259.pdf.

"The primary care team can play an important role in supporting, encouraging and advising the public health team. Tackling childhood obesity should not be seen in two halves -- prevention and treatment. It is a continuum, and the grey area in the middle is actually where many children lie for at least some time during their childhood."

The guideline from the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care will be an important resource for primary care practitioners and for the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity recently created by WHO, states Dr. Summerbell.

INFORMATION:

For the complete report and tools to help physicians interpret the recommendations, visit http://www.canadiantaskforce.ca.

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care's mobile app for primary care practitioners is now available on iTunes and Google Play. Please visit: http://canadiantaskforce.ca/resources/ctfphc-mobile-app/.

About the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has been established to develop clinical practice guidelines that support primary care providers in delivering preventive health care. The mandate of the task force is to develop and disseminate clinical practice guidelines for primary and preventive care based on systematic analysis of the scientific evidence.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Seabed samples rewrite earthquake history near Istanbul

2015-03-30
SAN FRANCISCO--Located in the Marmara Sea, major earthquakes along the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) system have repeatedly struck what is current-day Istanbul and the surrounding region, but determining the recurrence rate has proven difficult since the faults are offshore. Cores of marine sediment reveal an earthquake history of the Cinarcik Segment, a main branch of NAF, and suggest a seismic gap where the next earthquake is likely to rupture, as detailed in a new study published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA). The area has experienced ...

Building block for memory and learning identified

2015-03-30
Researchers have been fascinated for a long time by learning and memory formation, and many questions are still open. Bochum-based neuroscientists Prof Dr Denise Manahan-Vaughan and Dr Hardy Hagena have discovered a key building block for this complex process. A particular neurotransmitter receptor, namely the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5, is a switch for activating opposing forms of plasticity in the hippocampus, a brain region vital for memory forming. They reported in the current edition of "The Journal of Neuroscience". Synapses between neurons process different ...

Experts explore impacts of childhood feeding practices, policies on vegetable consumption

2015-03-30
While the body of evidence for feeding recommendations for children continues to evolve, one constant remains: Children do not eat enough vegetables. In fact, more than 90% of young children fail to meet vegetable recommendations, and these patterns often persist into adolescence and adulthood, making it important to understand the factors involved in establishing feeding patterns in early childhood. Are children not eating their vegetables because of texture, lack of role modeling, negative sensory experience, delayed introduction, bitter taste, infrequent exposure, rejection ...

Ice hockey helmets to get safety stars

2015-03-30
A new star rating system can help hockey players to know just how well each helmet on the market can protect them from suffering head injuries and concussions during the course of a season. The "Hockey STAR" (Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk) rating is an extension of a similar rating system developed for football helmets. It was developed by researchers from Virginia Tech in the US, led by Bethany Rowson, and reported on in Springer's journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering. More ice hockey players suffer concussion while playing hockey than their counterparts ...

Crowdsourced tool for depression

2015-03-30
Researchers at MIT and Northwestern University have developed a new peer-to-peer networking tool that enables sufferers of anxiety and depression to build online support communities and practice therapeutic techniques. In a study involving 166 subjects who had exhibited symptoms of depression, the researchers compared their tool with an established technique known as expressive writing. The new tool yielded better outcomes across the board, but it had particular advantages in two areas: One was in training subjects to use a therapeutic technique called cognitive reappraisal, ...

Odds of reversing ICU patients' preferences to forgo life-sustaining care vary, Penn study finds

2015-03-30
PHILADELPHIA -- Intensive care units across the United States vary widely in how they manage the care of patients who have set preexisting limits on life-sustaining therapies, such as authorizing do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and prohibiting interventions such as feeding tubes or dialysis, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work is published in the current issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. "We've long known that end-of-life and critical care varies across nations, regions and centers, whether from ...

Study debunks common misconception that urine is sterile

2015-03-30
Bacteria have been discovered in the bladders of healthy women, discrediting the common belief that normal urine is sterile. This finding and its implications were addressed in an editorial published by researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine (SSOM) in the latest issue of European Urology. "Clinicians previously equated the presence of bacteria in urine to infections. The discovery of bacteria in the urine of healthy females provides an opportunity to advance our understanding of bladder health and disease," said Alan Wolfe, PhD, lead author ...

Mount Sinai scientists establish link between ALS and the body's response to viral infection

2015-03-30
A key protein previously implicated in Lou Gehrig's disease and other neurological diseases plays an important role in the response to viral infection, according to a study led by scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published today in Nature Immunology. Neurological diseases have long been associated with inflammation, part of the body's response to injury or infection that occurs when immune cells home in to attack invaders like bacteria and viruses, and to drive healing, but the link between them has not been understood. This new study result ...

How immune cells facilitate the spread of breast cancer

2015-03-30
The body's immune system fights disease, infections and even cancer, acting like foot soldiers to protect against invaders and dissenters. But it turns out the immune system has traitors amongst their ranks. Dr. Karin de Visser and her team at the Netherlands Cancer Institute discovered that certain immune cells are persuaded by breast tumors to facilitate the spread of cancer cells. Their findings are published advanced online on March 30 in the journal Nature. In Western countries about one in eight women will develop breast cancer. Of the women who die of this disease, ...

'Lightning bolts' in the brain show learning in action

2015-03-30
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have captured images of the underlying biological activity within brain cells and their tree-like extensions, or dendrites, in mice that show how their brains sort, store and make sense out of information during learning. In a study to be published in the journal Nature online March 30, the NYU Langone neuroscientists tracked neuronal activity in dendritic nerve branches as the mice learned motor tasks such as how to run forward and backward on a small treadmill. They concluded that the generation of calcium ion spikes -- which ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

UMass Amherst Nursing Professor Emerita honored as ‘Living Legend’

New guidelines aim to improve cystic fibrosis screening

Picky eaters by day, buffet by night: Butterfly, moth diets sync to plant aromas

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Leanne Redman honored with the E. V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition

CCNY physicists uncover electronic interactions mediated via spin waves

Researchers’ 3D-printing formula may transform future of foam

Nurture more important than nature for robotic hand

Drug-delivering aptamers target leukemia stem cells for one-two knockout punch

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

New sea grant report helps great lakes fish farmers navigate aquaculture regulations

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

Healthy nutrition and physical lifestyle choices lower cancer mortality risk for survivors, new ACS study finds

[Press-News.org] New Canadian guidelines to prevent and manage obesity in children must focus on family
Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care issues tools for physicians to help children and parents