A new, long UK medical school study reported in the Telegraph suggests that over-feeding preschoolers–not under exercising them–is the key behavior to help change.

“Maybe the focus of childhood obesity prevention should be on parents-to-be…Children compensate for what they do or do not get,” says Terry Wilkin, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Peninusal Medical School in the UK and an author of the prestigious EarlyBird Diabetes Project

Darlene Superville at HuffPo smartly shows that Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden—and heck, vegetable gardens everywhere–can have the opposite effect.

“Her children were like sponges, she said, and soaked up the information about what foods do to their bodies. They even police her diet, too.”

The idea that childhood obesity is about food and starts early is not new.  What is new is that parents do not recognize obesity in their kids, and that “normal weight” is now publicly perceived to be much greater than 85th percentile for age.

90 per cent of excess weight gained by girls  before puberty is before they are five years old. The figure is 70 per cent for boys.

Plant a garden, grow a healthy, normal weight child.