girls tended to respond to the advice from the nurses more so than the boys

A new study shows that nurses could have a big impact on helping overweight and obese children from putting on weight. The Harvard Medical School study made clear when the nurses helped the children to follow a program which included follow-up meetings and advice to cut back on sugar laden fizzy drinks, fast food and television the results were significant.

Interestingly it appears that the children who did best with the program were those who lived in households which earned below $50,000 a year. They also noted that girls tended to respond to the advice from the nurses more so than the boys and that those children from higher income households did not benefit from the intervention.

Dr. Elsie Taveras, who led the research said that the study had not been purposely designed for children living in low income households or for girls in particular and so the results were a surprise.

The study which was released by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine is one of these research projects which prove that the simple act of giving good advice for children can have a big impact on their health.

This program centered around three very simple things, cutting back on fast food, cutting back on TV and cutting back on high fat fizzy drinks. The difference between having an overweight child and a normal weight child could be as simple as instilling these three principles into their lives.

Setting clear limits on the amount of TV that your kids are allowed to watch is always a good idea. You should also tell your children that fast food will make them fat and unhealthy therefore should be eaten very rarely and compensated with exercise.

The younger your children are when you teach them healthy eating patterns the more likely they are to stick with them throughout their lives. Children who get to their teenage years being overweight or obese are likely to be that way for the rest of their lives, so don't wait till it's too late!