Montreal Gazette - Wanted: healthy, chubby kids

Tamara Cohen likes to play with her food. A registered dietitian at the Mary Emily Clinical Nutrition Research Unit on McGill's Macdonald campus, Cohen works with families struggling to maintain healthy eating and smart fitness habits in a supersize world.

She's discovered you can learn a lot about what goes on the dinner table from a child's Play Doh version of a typical helping of meat, starch, vegetables and dessert.

"I also have plastic models of most standard portion sizes. Eyebrows go up when people discover what a pancake is supposed to look like." Cohen is part of a fledgling McGill study which will target obesity in young children, before chubbiness turns to flab and it's increasingly difficult to reverse the effects of a junk-food diet and sedentary lifestyle.

Led by McGill professor Hope Weiler, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Nutrition, Development and Aging, and sports nutritionist Hugues Plourde, the MY LIFE study is on the hunt for 150 healthy kids age 7 and 8 who already weigh a whole lot more than they should to see whether a year of monitoring and professional consultation will help them drop pounds, build stronger bones and stay healthy.