Childhood Obesity

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A routine part of mealtimes for many families may actually be harming your kids. A new study has found that urging your kids to join the "clean plate club" by finishing all the food on their plates can prevent them from learning healthy eating habits.

Related: Are Parents to Blame For Childhood Obesity?

"In the 1950s, cleaning your plate meant something different," Katie Loth, a registered dietician and research assistant at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and was the lead author on the study, told HealthDay. "Portion sizes have gotten bigger over time, and if you encourage kids to rely on environmental indicators, like how much food is on their plates or the time of day, they'll lose the ability to rely on internal cues to know whether they're hungry or full."

Read on to learn more about the dangers of the clean-plate club.

Fact: Today's kids are the most sedentary generation in America's history. Only one in three children is active on a daily basis, and only four percent of elementary schools offer daily P.E. "That's not just bad for their bodies, it's also bad for their minds because being less active can actually hurt kids' academic performance," First Lady Michelle Obama said at an event we attended today announcing the new Let's Move! Active Schools initiative. The program aims to help schools create active environments where students can get 60 minutes of physical activity before, during, and after the school day, and the goal is to reach 50,000 schools during the next five years.

"This is about so much more than keeping our kids physically active," Obama said. "And it's about more than making sure that they do well in school. I mean, this is about giving our kids the structure and support they need to thrive in every single aspect of their lives. It's about giving them something to strive for, something to hope for, somewhere to belong. And physical activity is a critical part of that broader effort."

While Obama stressed that we don't need "new sports leagues or fancy equipment" to get kids moving (she suggested after-school running clubs or dance flash mobs between classes and cited her own love of double Dutch), the far-reaching program does come with some major expenses, and to help out, Nike has pledged to invest $50 million in the effort over the next five years. Keep reading for more exciting info about Let's Move! Active Schools.

Equal opportunity blame game! Moms tend to get disproportionately blamed when things with their children take a less than ideal turn. Whether it's trouble in school, difficulty making friends, or physical or mental health issues, it's the mamas who — according to most popular conceptions — bear the brunt of the responsibility. Which is why it's somewhat of a relief to see a study out this month declaring that fathers have a part to play in the childhood obesity epidemic. The study, recently published in the the International Journal of Obesity found that children living in households where the father works an irregular schedule — a phenomenon that's becoming more and more common — are more likely to become obese or overweight.

Lest the daddies get too nervous, there's another new study that places the blame right back on mama: based on data from a new study done by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, researchers from Ohio State University published an article in Pediatrics linking the quality of the early mother/child relationship with the child's risk of becoming obese as a teenager. The study claims that children who had a less than optimal relationship with their mother in early childhood were twice as likely to become obese; However, as researchers took into account other known factors related to the epidemic such as maternal education and household income, the findings were less conclusive, leaving parents with just as many questions and concerns as they had before.

Is one parent more to blame than the other?

Somebody call Jamie Oliver, because US legislators need a quick lesson in nutrition. Earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture introduced new school meal nutrition standards created in the wake of our childhood obesity epidemic. Among the lunch-line changes were new standards limiting the use of potatoes and sodium and increasing the use of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in the cafeteria.

Congress, it seems, doesn't agree with the revised standards. This week, the legislative body put forth its latest spending bill — including budgets for the USDA — that will put tater tots back on school menus and consider pizza containing two tablespoons of tomato paste a vegetable. Yes, the simple presence of tomato paste allows a white flour, fat-laden meal to classify as a veggie. Congress argues that the USDA's recommendations were too expensive to enforce.

What do you think? Should cuts be made elsewhere to ensure that kids receive healthier meals in school? Or is it OK to consider pizza a vegetable?