How to trick your kids to eat better?
Hello everyone,
We’ve had a number of fascinating questions and some insightful expert answers on Metafact. Here’s what I’ve learned this week:
Don’t reward kids with treats…
This week the World Health Organisation published a big investigation on the future of the world’s children. It’s a huge piece of science, but here’s one staggering number that jumped out at me:
Worldwide, the number of obese children and adolescents increased ten times from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016.
The authors point to increasing access to ‘junk food’ helping this 10-fold increase in childhood obesity. OK, yes - lollies, cupcakes, and ice-cream are cheap, easy to get and taste fantastic. And yes, marketing tactics and big-budget food advertisers are contributing to the childhood obesity crisis. But what can we do at home? Can we play our own type of psychological tricks to encourage healthy eating in kids and reverse this trend?
I wanted trusted answers, so this week I asked Professor Jane Ogden, an expert in eating behavior from the University of Surrey. Here’s what she said:
Yes definitely! There are 3 things to do as parents:
Be a good role model and eat well in front of you kids. Cook from scratch, eat fewer ready meals or takeaways and eat three meals a day rather than snacking in between. Eat at a table and eat as a family as much as you can then they can see you eat well and food becomes about having a chat rather than the food itself.
Say the right things by talking about healthy food in a positive way – call it tasty, crunchy, great. Praise them for eating well but don’t use food as a reward (you have done your homework have a biscuit) or reward food with food (eat your vegetables and you can have pudding) as these will backfire in the longer term.
Manage their environment so only buy the foods you want them to eat, use peer pressure to get them to eat more healthily and get a fruit bowl with fruit in it in case they do want to snack. Then also use mindless eating in a good way by throwing grapes into the back of the car with them or giving them chopped up veg whilst watch TV
You can read Prof Ogden’s full answer here on Metafact.
Quick reminder that if you enjoy this newsletter please share it to your friends to sign-up here:
Good news on Coronavirus…
The coronavirus outbreak continues to saturate health headlines. Every day my kids come back from school freaking out over the classroom chatter going on. I wanted to give you an update from my previous mini-review from Feb 1.
Although the number of total cases (~75,000) and deaths (~2,000) are increasing, new reported cases have been consistently decreasing over the past week in China (raw data). That’s good news if the numbers hold up.
Milder than SARS, worse than the flu
New research was just published analyzing 44,672 of those confirmed with the new Coronavirus. It found 81% of those infected had mild symptoms, with 14% as severe and 5% critical. So it’s a mild illness for 4 out 5 people who get it.
A separate analysis from researchers at Imperial College London estimates that the novel Coronavirus will have a mortality rate of ~1%, which if plays out will be about 10-times less than the mortality rate of SARS (~9.6%). It’s important not to be complacent writes Professor Steven Riley, an infectious disease expert from Imperial College London:
We estimate that approximately 1 percent of people infected with this virus will die as a result of that infection. Although this is lower than diseases such as Ebola or SARS, it is considerably higher than seasonal influenza.
Older more at risk, so take precautions
The new data strongly confirm the greater risk of death for older people. Of the 446 children aged 0-9 years of age who contracted the virus, none died. The mortality rate for those aged between 10-39 years of age increased slightly to ~0.2%. But this rapidly increases with age, with mortality rates from 8-15% for those >70 years age, particularly with pre-existing cardio-respiratory conditions. So best to take appropriate precautions as Metafact experts explained here and here.
Notes and Reminders
Last week we learned about how alcohol hand sanitizers were an important hygiene strategy for reducing your risk of getting colds and flu. That brought up the question about whether we can be too clean for our own good? I’ve had 4 experts share perspectives so far, and just waiting on another and will share the facts soon…
REMEMBER TO VOTE! It’s really important that we are investigating topics you care about. The February poll is open: Go vote here!!
Stay well and May the facts be with you!
Ben McNeil, Founder Metafact
How to get better sleep?
February Metafact Review
Exclusive reviews for our fact-loving members.
Each month we investigate a topic voted by members by asking the world's top experts to review the evidence. Reviews are what you need to know. Read all the reviews here.
We gathered more than 50 of the world’s top researchers in neuroscience and sleep research to share the facts about insomnia and ways to get better sleep. From finding out about the optimal sleep environment, using sleeping pills, diet, therapies or having a night-cap, this review gives you the latest science-backed intelligence you need to know to get better sleep.
If you enjoyed this edition of Verified, consider clicking the little heart (to give it a “like”), and sharing it with a friend where they can sign-up here: