Good eating habits learned at a young age is the best safeguard against obesity, and other related illnesses, in adulthood.

Local dieticians and nutritionists are aiming to get the message of good eating out to school age children... and the younger the better.

Obesity in adults is often the result of poor eating habits, habits that are developed at a young age.

"I work with teenagers up to adulthood and I do find that for adults that have been brought up with healthy eating as children, their eating habits stay," said Dietician Gladys King.

"Or maybe they go through a lull period as teenagers but they pick it back up when they are older. When you teach them young it does stay with them regardless.

"They will eat their vegetables at night, but there are some people who have no direction with a healthy diet at any time in their life and by the time they are older they just do not know how to eat properly and don't have any idea what is good for them. That's why we want to focus on the small kids."

A mother of two young children, Mrs. King has already begun teaching them good eating habits.

"When we choose food and learn about food we usually learn about it from ages of two to about six," she stated. "We learn it from our families, from our schools and our parents.

"It keeps coming up over and over again that there is a conflict in schools as far as what the children are eating and the growth of obesity from which we see an ongoing process of chronic disease at a younger and younger age of between 20 and 30. Things like heart disease and diabetes are coming on at 30 where traditionally it came on in your 40s and 50s.

"That's why there is a concern for our children to make dietary changes now."

A daily guide for two to six year olds calls for children to be eating from the grain group (six servings), the vegetable group (three servings), fruit group (two servings) as well as two servings from the milk and meat groups. They should be eating less fats and sweets, but that isn't necessarily the case.

"What they generally found is nine times out of ten, parents will either give them soda, very high sweet drinks, like fruit juices that are very high in sugar, potato chips and corn curls, which is one of the biggest culprits," said Mrs. King.

"You'll find in nine times out of ten that a lunchbox will hold a sandwich and a drink and will rarely go beyond that.

"What we would like to see the schools do is encourage the parents to not put those high fat foods in there, to encourage them to use the food guide pyramid as a baseline, to make a sandwich and use lean meats, but also to add in the fresh fruit.

"I have to give kudos to the schools because most of them have been very good about asking (parents) to always send a fruit. Most of the time the elementary schools have a little more control."

The older school age students, especially those in middle and high school, tend to buy lunch from canteens or shops as opposed to taking a prepared lunch from home.

"One of the things the other Dieticians talked about is basically they find when the kids reach middle school age their parents say `you're on your own, here is your money'," stated Mrs. King.

"And where they are getting their food, they don't have healthy food choices. They are either getting it from one of the corner marts, or from the school and the school may not have a healthy selection. That's what we would really like to see that the parents still stay involved, even though the child is in middle school and high school age.

"They should try to encourage them and to talk to them and say `I bought this, let's put your lunch together' to keep up with the healthy guidelines."Peer pressure begins at a young age and it is not uncommon for young children to be pressured into eating junk food.

"It's also socialised that if you don't eat the hamburgers and french fries your peers will pick on you," the Dietician revealed.

"Fast food is adding to the problems. Obesity is a huge problem here in Bermuda with our children.

"There was a study in the middle and high schools done by Dr. Leonard Gibbons which shows the trend of obesity in our children and the lack of physical activity.

"Usually you will find that they are eating the wrong foods, high fat foods, or just high quantity foods but are not getting any exercise.

"Also some of the schools tend to cycle their physical education programmes instead of having them full time, especially when they get to middle and senior school ages. Physical activity has to be continuous to be effective."

Mrs. King feels parents can make the preparation of their children's lunches fun by involving the child in the process.

"To not make lunches a tug-of-war, parents can ask their children what they want and give them options, but options of healthy choices," she says.

"`What kind of sandwich would you like, would you like a tuna fish or turkey sandwich?' Peanut butter and jelly is fine as well. Peanut butter is a good source of iron, zinc and protein. Start with the foundation of the food guide pyramid and use your grains."

"The idea is to have three servings of vegetables for children between six and 11. Generally you want to get in about three servings a day and lunch is a perfect time to get that in.

"Cut up pieces of vegetable with dip - broccoli and carrots are kids' favourites. You can also slice up fresh fruit, bananas, oranges.

"Some kids really like salads, and if they like salads then encourage them. Most children do not get enough servings of milk, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children shouldn't get more than 4.28 ounces of juice a day, but generally our children get a whole lot more than that."

"Yogurts are a great snack, quick and easy, and if they are not going to drink the milk then put a yogurt in. Puddings do add a bit of benefit but are not as good as yogurts."

As far as cheeses go, Mrs. King says she prefers the natural cheeses rather than the processed cheeses, such as sliced cheese. Crackers and cheese are fine.

It has been widely accepted that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

"They did a lot of studies that show that children who eat breakfast have better attention spans, aren't so sleepy and just generally do much better in course work than children who don't eat breakfast," said Mrs. King.

"What we need to watch with breakfast is we tend to give our children very high sweet cereals and what we want to do is switch to a healthier whole grain cereal with low fat milk or bread with peanut butter and banana.

"If parents show their children that they are eating a normal breakfast that is good for you, then they tend to do it too.

"Plus, it is a good social time in the morning, before everybody goes running off for the day."

"Parents just need some guidance more than anything and a Dietician can give them some good direction when faced with picky eaters and where to get the foundation of good eating.

"When we do things as families, we tend to focus a lot on food.

"Food is everything, it is how we socialise, meet and greet.

"We celebrate at a birthday party and we're surrounded by food, but are we also playing volleyball or just sitting at the picnic table?

"We've been running on convenience foods for so long, but if we just make that one little effort to cut up a cantaloupe it can make a big difference in a child's vision of food...that this is a good food to eat."