A new study, reported by Reuters, has found that children in the U.S. snack so often that they are moving toward constant eating. The study conducted by Carmen Piernas and Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina found that 27 percent of calories that American kids consume come from snacks, and that the average child eats...

A new study published in the online version of the journal Pediatrics, found that efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin far earlier than currently thought, perhaps even before birth. The study, reported by EurekAlert, tracked 1,826 women,  (1,343 white, 355 black and 128 Hispanic) from pregnancy through their children’s...

In the United States over 30% of children are overweight or obese, and childhood obesity is associated with type 2 diabetes, hypertension and a high risk for adult obesity and cardiovascular disease.  According to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, and reported in ScienceDaily,  extended...

Diabetes UK reports more than 3,000 emergency hospital admissions a year for children with diabetes. The latest figures show that last year there were more than 3,300 cases of children in England admitted to accident and emergency departments with Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Children and youth under the age of 18 accounted for around...

A new study, to be published in the March issue of Diabetes Care, found new mechanisms in muscle cells that may explain severe insulin resistance and a reduced response to aerobic exercise in young obese patients with type 2 diabetes. The researchers from Trinity College Dublin collected muscle biopsies from young type 2 diabetes subjects...

A new study out of Seattle Children’s Research Institute shows that the amount of calories selected by parents for their child’s hypothetical meal at McDonald’s restaurants were reduced by an average of 102 calories when the menus clearly showed the calories for each item. The study, reported by Eurekalert, is the first...

A new study conducted at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai found that young children may be more apt to have high blood sugar, a precursor to diabetes, if they average 8 hours or less of sleep a night, Reuters reported The team headed by Dr. Zhijie Yu investigated sleep duration and blood sugar levels in 619 obese and 617 non-obese...

A survey conducted by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) found 9 out of 10 mothers misunderstood the nutritional information on children’s foods. The BBC reports that the BHF said mothers believe claims such as “a source of calcium, iron and six vitamins” mean a product is likely to be healthy. The survey found that...

According to a press release dated Dec. 7, researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that a gene already implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in adults also raises the risk of being overweight during childhood. The findings published in the...

A study reported in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) can cause memory dysfunction in children with type 1 diabetes.  DKA occurs when the body has an insufficient amount of insulin and burns fat, rather than sugar, for energy. The UC Davis study examined 33 children with type 1 who had a history of DKA,...