Kids fatter than ever; can exercise lower cancer risk?

According to a National Institutes of Health study (summarized in a ReutersHealth article), American kids are fatter than ever:

"In 1980, 6 percent of children aged 6 to 18 were overweight," [Edward Sondik, director of the National Center for Health Statistics,] said. "For 2000, it is 15 percent. That's two- and-a-half times what it was just 20 years ago," he said. . . .

Doctors are now finding diabetes and heart disease in children, when 20 years ago those were diseases only of adults.

Meanwhile, most Americans eat everything on their plates (whether they need it or not) and have a poor understanding of what increases or decreases risk of cancer, according to a this Reuters summary of a study by the American Institute for Cancer Research:

Only 36 percent [of adult Americans] recognize that lack of exercise is implicated in cancer, just 33 percent know that eating too much red meat is strongly linked with cancer and only 38 percent know that alcohol can increases the risk of cancer--not just liver cancer but also breast cancer.