He added that within the context of a balanced diet, no single food should be considered unhealthy regardless of its fat content. The AAP statement on cholesterol advises that fat in children's diets can be safely limited to approximately 30 percent of calories. It also cautions that pediatric diets with less than 30 percent of calories from fat can be detrimental to proper growth and development. The conference also examined current evidence on children's physical fitness in relation to weight management and total health. Some 20 to 40 percent of American youngsters are physically unfit, according to Russell Pate, Ph.D., chairman of the Exercise Science Department at the University of South Carolina.
Surveys indicate only one-third of high school students are physically active on a regular basis.
The majority are not involved in organized sports. Pate said that physical inactivity has been correlated with other poor health behaviors such as low consumption of fruits and vegetables. Schools could encourage more physical activity by reorganizing the school day and involving athletic role models. Schools also could improve their efforts in nutrition education, said Barbara Shannon, Ph.D., R.D., professor of nutrition at the Pennsylvania State University. In order to empower them to become judicious consumers, we must give them the tools to make choices regarding the advertising message and the product.