Moms who follow 5 healthy habits reduce risk of raising obese kids

Thursday, July 5, 2018 - 17:57 in Health & Medicine

Children and adolescents whose mothers follow five healthy habits — eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, keeping a healthy body weight, drinking alcohol in moderation, and not smoking — are 75 percent less likely to become obese than children of mothers who do not follow any such habits, according to a new study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. When both mother and child adhered to these habits, the risk of obesity was 82 percent lower compared with mothers and children who did not. The study was published online today in BMJ. “Our study was the first to demonstrate that an overall healthy lifestyle really outweighs any individual healthy lifestyle factors followed by mothers when it comes to lowering the risk of obesity in their children,” said Qi Sun, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and senior author of the study. One in five children in the U.S aged...

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