BodiMojo Teen Health Blog – Teenage Nutrition, Fitness, Stress, Relationships & More

We’re compiling a year-end naughty or nice column for 2008. Here’s what we found:

Naughty?: Statins are known as a wonder drug for their ability to lower cholesterol and reduce heart attack risk. And now, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended cholesterol testing for kids as young as age 2—and tots can get these meds as early as age 8. But will this encourage some docs to prescribe drugs to kids with high cholesterol instead of having them make the tough lifestyle change in exercise and diets? And what are the long-term effects of statins on the playground set? It’s not yet known.

Nice!: President-elect Barak Obama, who is pretty tech savvy himself, with his BlackBerry sidekick, Flickr page, and of course, massive scale Internet fund-raising campaign, has vowed to create the position of Chief Technology Officer. This means that consumers will have better access to personal and online health records, and also potentially will lower the cost of healthcare. This is The Change We Need.

Naughty?: Bad, bad broadcasters. A Rand Corp. study shows that too much sexual content on TV might be linked to, surprise, surprise: promiscuity. They found that teens ages 12-17 watching sexually loaded content (that probably makes little mention of contraception) were twice as likely to be involved with a pregnancy by age 20 as kids who were less plugged into the boob tube. No pun intended there.

Nice!: For the first time in nearly three decades, childhood obesity levels might be leveling off. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the number of obese and overweight kids ages 6-11, seems to have hit a plateau of about 32 percent from 1999 to 2006. That’s the good news. The “naughty” part of this: the leveling off probably isn’t because of better exercise and diet, but rather, that children who are susceptible to gaining too much weight have all hit their peak.

Naughty?: Moms who are feeling guilty about putting their kids in daycare may not like this report. According to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, babies in day care gain 0.4 lb. more than those who stay home. The researchers surmised that this weight gain could be due to less structured eating patterns. For parents already struggling with an overly chubby toddler, this isn’t going to help with the weighty choice of whether to put your child in day care or not.

Niceeee!: Three to four hours of daily moderate activity can beat the fat gene, says a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. A common genetic variance that makes people more likely to gain weight can be blocked with lots of physical activity, a discovery found after studying a group of Amish people. Even those who were saddled with a gene closely associated with obesity were no likely to be overweight than their slim counterparts, especially if they were busy walking and doing other moderate exercise.

Nice!!: Reading has multiple benefits—and, as we noted in an early BodiMojo posting, Duke University researchers say that the right type of novel might help kids lose weight. The idea that a book can positively influence weight loss and decrease Body Mass Index (BMI) is indeed a happy ending.

The naughty/nice score? Looks like we’re close to even, based on this very selective list. The good news: lots of room for resolutions in 2009. What’s your resolution?

— Contributed by Cindy Atoji, Cheers!