Medical Daily – Samantha Olson
“The heart is the engine of the human body, but the way each child treats it can determine his health for the rest of his life. New research, published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, outlines the American Heart Association’s new findings on the long-lasting health effects of a child’s diet…Researchers found most of us start out with a heart fit for a lifetime of activity, but it is in childhood that a heart’s health makes a turning point that will affect the person throughout adulthood. The team examined body mass index, diet, total cholesterol, and blood pressure, which represents four out of the seven components that determine one’s heart health…Even though none of the children were found to have all four of the healthy heart criteria, all of the children had at least one measure. But as far as their diet went, fewer than 10 percent ate the recommended amount of fruit and vegetable, fish, and whole grains each day, while 90 percent of them ate more sodium and 50 percent ate more calories from sugar-sweetened beverages than recommended by the AHA. What’s worse is about 40 percent of children had moderate to poor cholesterol levels, and 30 percent of the children were obese or overweight…what we do see is that we are losing an awful lot of our intrinsic cardiovascular health very early in life, which sets us up to be unhealthy adults.”(more)