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Don't Say Diet

Aired October 07, 2003 - 13:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: For every parent concerned about their children's weight, a new study says dieting may actually backfire.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here to explain what the deal is.

All right, lay it out for us.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the deal is some Harvard researchers decided to look at around 15,000 dieters, these people age 9 through 17, so preteens and teens.

Now, of the girls, 25 percent of the girls were dieters and among the frequent dieters, those who dieted frequently actually gained 1.7 more pounds a year compared to other girls who didn't diet. So, in other words, the dieters gained more weight than the ones who didn't, and these girls were also, these dieters, were 12 times more likely to binge, compared to the non-dieters.

Let's take a look at the boys. The boys who dieted frequently gained 2.2 pounds per year more than the boys who didn't diet and also seven times more likely to binge.

So that tells you that in fact that the kids who dieted were worse off than the kids who didn't diet. They actually gained more weight. One of the problems, according to the study's authors, is that there was a serious lack of parental supervision when they went to diet.

PHILLIPS: All right, so what do you tell your overweight kid? Hey, don't diet?

COHEN: Right, you don't want to tell them it's fine, don't worry, because obviously some kids really need to lose weight. But what the study authors say is don't talk about it in terms of dieting, talk about it in terms of healthy eating.

And here are some pointers that they have for parents. First of all, stop super-sizing. It sounds like such a simple thing, but that can really save a lot of calories. Eat less between meals. Reduce portion sizes. A lot of parents say, eat everything on your plate, and then parents need to not do that. Also switch from whole milk to 1 percent or skim milk, because that can make a big difference in a child's diet, and also increase physical activity. Even just a little bit can help, not just with weight loss, but also with maintaining that weight loss down the line. PHILLIPS: So what were these teens doing wrong?

COHEN: They were doing a couple of things wrong. The big one is that they were binging. In other words, they would be so good for a period of time and then they would just go crazy. They couldn't maintain the diet that they put themselves on, and so they would binge.

The other thing that the study's author found is that the kids would say, OK, I'm not going to eat cake and candy, and they would be good about that, but then they would eat a lot of potato chips. They were thinking about it in terms of a couple of food they would stop eating, but they wouldn't look at it in sort of a more holistic way.

Miles is laughing. That's what Miles does.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It sounds like somebody on the Atkins Diet, all potato chips, or pork rinds, or whatever the case may be, and maybe the kids are getting the wrong message from these wacky diets that their parents are on.

COHEN: Absolutely, because a lot of diets do this good food/bad food thing, and if kids do that and they get the wrong idea, they say, oh, I can eat a lot of this if I don't eat that, and that sends mixed messages.

O'BRIEN: Get him off the couch.

COHEN: That's a huge part of it.

O'BRIEN: I mean, Nintendo and McDonald's have conspired to make our kids chubs.

PHILLIPS: Also, don't buy the bad food. My mom never did. It was like carrot sticks, you know, the peanut butter, the celery, fruit rolls. Remember the fruit rolls?

COHEN: By the time you're a teenager, it doesn't matter what your mom is buying.

O'BRIEN: If you've laid the ground work, you have got a better shot at it, and those are words of wisdom.

PHILLIPS: Our producer is saying stop going on and on.

O'BRIEN: Shut up already about the fat kids, all right. All right.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Elizabeth.

O'BRIEN: Always a pleasure to have you drop by.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 7, 2003 - 13:41   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: For every parent concerned about their children's weight, a new study says dieting may actually backfire.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here to explain what the deal is.

All right, lay it out for us.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the deal is some Harvard researchers decided to look at around 15,000 dieters, these people age 9 through 17, so preteens and teens.

Now, of the girls, 25 percent of the girls were dieters and among the frequent dieters, those who dieted frequently actually gained 1.7 more pounds a year compared to other girls who didn't diet. So, in other words, the dieters gained more weight than the ones who didn't, and these girls were also, these dieters, were 12 times more likely to binge, compared to the non-dieters.

Let's take a look at the boys. The boys who dieted frequently gained 2.2 pounds per year more than the boys who didn't diet and also seven times more likely to binge.

So that tells you that in fact that the kids who dieted were worse off than the kids who didn't diet. They actually gained more weight. One of the problems, according to the study's authors, is that there was a serious lack of parental supervision when they went to diet.

PHILLIPS: All right, so what do you tell your overweight kid? Hey, don't diet?

COHEN: Right, you don't want to tell them it's fine, don't worry, because obviously some kids really need to lose weight. But what the study authors say is don't talk about it in terms of dieting, talk about it in terms of healthy eating.

And here are some pointers that they have for parents. First of all, stop super-sizing. It sounds like such a simple thing, but that can really save a lot of calories. Eat less between meals. Reduce portion sizes. A lot of parents say, eat everything on your plate, and then parents need to not do that. Also switch from whole milk to 1 percent or skim milk, because that can make a big difference in a child's diet, and also increase physical activity. Even just a little bit can help, not just with weight loss, but also with maintaining that weight loss down the line. PHILLIPS: So what were these teens doing wrong?

COHEN: They were doing a couple of things wrong. The big one is that they were binging. In other words, they would be so good for a period of time and then they would just go crazy. They couldn't maintain the diet that they put themselves on, and so they would binge.

The other thing that the study's author found is that the kids would say, OK, I'm not going to eat cake and candy, and they would be good about that, but then they would eat a lot of potato chips. They were thinking about it in terms of a couple of food they would stop eating, but they wouldn't look at it in sort of a more holistic way.

Miles is laughing. That's what Miles does.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It sounds like somebody on the Atkins Diet, all potato chips, or pork rinds, or whatever the case may be, and maybe the kids are getting the wrong message from these wacky diets that their parents are on.

COHEN: Absolutely, because a lot of diets do this good food/bad food thing, and if kids do that and they get the wrong idea, they say, oh, I can eat a lot of this if I don't eat that, and that sends mixed messages.

O'BRIEN: Get him off the couch.

COHEN: That's a huge part of it.

O'BRIEN: I mean, Nintendo and McDonald's have conspired to make our kids chubs.

PHILLIPS: Also, don't buy the bad food. My mom never did. It was like carrot sticks, you know, the peanut butter, the celery, fruit rolls. Remember the fruit rolls?

COHEN: By the time you're a teenager, it doesn't matter what your mom is buying.

O'BRIEN: If you've laid the ground work, you have got a better shot at it, and those are words of wisdom.

PHILLIPS: Our producer is saying stop going on and on.

O'BRIEN: Shut up already about the fat kids, all right. All right.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Elizabeth.

O'BRIEN: Always a pleasure to have you drop by.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com