By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY
When overweight children feel left out or ostracized, they tend to eat more and exercise less, new research shows.
The findings come at a time when about one-third of children are overweight or obese, which increases their risk for type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, sleep apnea and other health problems.
Scientists
at the University of Buffalo have been studying the effects of
different situations on kids' food intake and activity levels for
several years.
In one new study, they had 40 normal-weight and overweight children play a computer game that replicates ball-tossing.
Under
one condition, the children's video characters were excluded or
ostracized during the game; and under another, the same children's video
characters were included in the game. After playing the computer game
under both conditions, the children had a chance to eat as much as they
wanted for about 15 minutes.
The findings:
•The
overweight kids consumed 200 calories more when their video character
was excluded from the game than when the character was included.
•The normal-weight children didn't eat more when their video characters were ostracized.
One
possible reason is that overweight kids seek food for comfort after
they feel ignored, says lead researcher Sarah-Jeanne Salvy, an assistant
professor of pediatrics. She is presenting her research Friday at a
meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal.
In
a similar experiment, 20 normal-weight and overweight children played
the same computer ball-tossing game under conditions in which they were
either ostracized or included, and then they were given a chance to be
physically active. The kids wore accelerometers to measure their
activity levels.
Findings: Overweight and
normal-weight kids alike were less physically active after their video
characters were excluded from the games.
It
may be that the children were so focused on dealing with the pain of the
ostracism that they stop being as active, Salvy says.
She
says the take-home message for parents is to help their children find
ways other than eating to deal with rejection and peer adversity: "Kids
may need to talk about their feelings and seek comfort in other
activities."
