Nutrition education efforts failing

But an Associated Press review of scientific studies examining 57 such programs found mostly failure. Just four showed any real success in changing the way children eat - or promise as weapons against childhood obesity.

"Any person looking at the published literature about these programs would have to conclude that they are generally not working," said Dr Tom Baranowski, a pediatrics professor at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine who studies behavioral nutrition. Among the results:

- Last year a major federal pilot program offering free fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren showed fifth graders became less willing to eat them than they had been at the start. Apparently they didn't like the taste.

- In Pennsylvania, researchers gave prizes to schoolchildren who ate fruits and vegetables. That worked while the prizes were offered, but when the researchers came back seven months later the students had reverted to their original eating habits: soda and chips. The forces that make children fat "are really strong and hard to fight with just a program in school," said Dr Philip Zeitler, a pediatric endocrinologist and researcher who sees "a steady stream" of obese children struggling with diabetes and other medical problems at The Children's Hospital in Denver.

Kate Houston, deputy undersecretary of the US Department of Agriculture's Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, oversees most federal funds - $696 million this year - spent on childhood nutrition education in this country. Houston insists the programs are successful.

"I think the question here is how are we measuring success, and there are certainly many ways in which you can do so and the ways in which we've been able to measure have shown success," she said.

Fighting childhood obesity nationally, obesity rates have nearly quintupled among 6- to 11-year-olds and tripled among teens and children age 2 to 5 since the 1970s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Dr James Holsinger Jr, the surgeon general nominee, says fighting childhood obesity is his top priority.

The obstacles:

Parents - Experts agree that parents have the greatest influence, even a biological influence, over what their children will eat. "If the mother is eating Cheetos and white bread, the fetus will be born with those taste buds. If the mother is eating carrots and oatmeal, the child will be born with those taste buds," said Dr Robert Trevino of the Social and Health Research Center in San Antonio.

Poverty - Poorer children are especially at risk, because unhealthy food is cheaper and more easily available. Parents are often working, leaving children unsupervised and with access to snacks. Low-income neighborhoods have fewer good supermarkets with fresh produce.

Advertising - Children age 8 to 12 see an average of 21 television ads each day for candy, snacks, cereal and fast food - more than 7,600 a year, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not one of the 8,854 ads reviewed promoted fruits or vegetables. AP