Obesity study under way by Nevada medical school

Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2000 | 4:02 a.m.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, addresses one of the nation's top health problems.

"It's an epidemic," Sachiko St. Jeor, director of the school's nutrition education and research program, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"About 50 percent of adults and 20 percent of children are overweight. And (those numbers are) increasing."

The study focuses on overweight mothers with pre-school children, and is trying to determine whether family-based intervention can curb obesity effectively.

One goal of researchers is to maintain a healthy weight and develop good health habits for children early in life. Another goal is to maintain a healthy weight for overweight adults.

The idea, St. Jeor said, is to see if applying healthy lifestyle changes using a family approach is more effective than an individual approach in addressing obesity.

Researchers also want to determine if applying those changes to children at an earlier age is a more effective method for prevention of obesity.

"Preschool children really haven't been targeted by studies before," St. Jeor said. "The kids are actually at home during that stage so family intervention would have a greater impact at that point."

A key goal of the study is to avoid getting children in a restrictive regimen that plagues most failed adult fitness programs.

"We don't want to put the child on a diet," St. Jeor said. "The program is about teaching them healthy eating styles and incorporating activity in a family-based environment."