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Home » Diets that Work » Low-carb diets help obese kids but tough to follow

When it comes to managing children's obesity, cutting portion sizes and cutting carbohydrates can work equally well -- though carb control is tough for many kids, a new clinical trial finds.

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If there were a "Saturday Night Live" skit that sums up Kevin Roberts' life, it would have to be The Loud Family. "My family is full of loud talkers," says the 42-year-old author and educational consultant from Detroit.

Many adults have tried to win the battle of the bulge by shunning carbohydrates, especially highly refined or starchy carbs like white bread and potatoes.

But much less has been known about how those eating plans work for kids, including whether they are safe and nutritionally sound -- since low-carb diets tend to be relatively high in fat.

For the new study, researchers randomly assigned 100 obese 7- to 12-year-olds to one of three eating plans: one that followed the conventional wisdom of portion control; a low-carb diet; or a "reduced glycemic load" plan that cut down on certain carbs that typically cause surges in blood sugar -- like white bread, sweets and white potatoes.

Over one year, all three plans worked equally well in controlling kids' weight gain. The difference, researchers found, was that the low-carb plan was tough to stick with.

"All of these plans can work," said lead researcher Shelley Kirk, of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

"But the low-carbohydrate one was really challenging for kids to follow," Kirk told Reuters Health. The diet still helped control kids' weight, she said, because they followed it to an extent -- reducing carbs and calories, but not to the strict limits of the low-carb plan.

All of that, Kirk said, suggests that a modified version of low-carb could work well for at least some kids.

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Low-carb diets help obese kids but tough to follow

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Home » Diets that Work » Low-carb diets help obese kids but tough to follow