I’ll bet you think your parents — or, at the very least, your grandparents — came up with this one: “Little pitchers have big ears.”

Incredible as it may seem, this saying has been around since before your parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ time. According to numerous sources, it was first recorded in print in 1546 by one John Heywood as “Auoyd your children, smal pitchers haue wide eares.”

It amazes me how old some of these sayings are; I was quite astonished to learn that “I didn’t sleep a wink last night” dates to the Middle Ages! (And in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t have a clue what “auoyd” means.)

While youngsters always seem to have radar-sharp hearing to pick up things you don’t want heard, at other times they might seem as unresponsive as the proverbial fencepost when it comes to truly important messages.

But according to studies funded by the Agricultural Research Service, there is one area of interest where your youngsters will respond — and that’s physical fitness and a healthier lifestyle.

In one study, ARS-funded researchers created weight loss and physical fitness regimens for sixth- and seventh-graders enrolled in a Houston charter school mainly attended by Hispanic youngsters. The researchers specifically targeted Hispanics 10 to 14 years old because of the high rate of overweight kids in that minority group.

The 57 overweight youngsters were divided into two groups for the six-month study. One group was assigned to a self- and parent-taught plan, while the other group participated in an intensive, instructor-led program.

As part of the self-taught program, the youngsters spent time in study hall once a week for the first three months of the program, reading a self-help weight management textbook written especially for kids. Meanwhile, the youngsters in the other group spend four class periods a week outdoors, improving their physical fitness, with a fifth session each week learning about nutrition, healthy eating, and behavior-change skills essential for living an active lifestyle and making healthy food choices.

During the last three months of the study, the kids, their parents and members of their extended families were given the opportunity to participate in followup activities including nutrition and fitness discussions in their homes.

At the end of the six-month study, the kids who had participated in the instructor-led program had significantly greater weight loss as well as greater “physical quality of life,” as measured by their answers to a questionnaire, compared with the kids in the self-taught group.

“Of course,” I can hear you saying, “a kid will do anything for a little while — until the novelty wears off.” But there was more to it than that.

The scientists checked back with the youngsters at one year and at two years after the start of the study. What they found wasn’t just some “flash in the pan” short-term improvement. Instead, the youngsters who had participated in the instructor-led team had significantly greater decreases in their body mass index, which is a height-and-weight based calculation that gives an indication of body fatness, compared with the self-taught youngsters. (Regarding your BMI, the lower the number, the better — up to a point.)

The scientists reported that more than 79 percent of the youngsters in the instructor-led group decreased their BMI in that first year after the study, and 62 percent still had a decreased BMI at the two-year point. Those numbers are even more impressive when you compare them with the youngsters from the self-taught group: Among those kids, 64 percent increased their BMI in the first year after the study, and 65 percent had an increased BMI at two years after the start of the study.

This is one of the few studies to show, with Hispanic youngsters, that sustained success with weight loss and weight management is definitely possible. Another important message from this study: A school-based weight-management program can be effective at reaching large numbers of kids, especially if there’s already a good physical education and health education program in place at school.

So yes, it’s true that little pitchers have big ears — and it is actually possible to get those little pitchers to retain some great messages about physical fitness!

The Agricultural Research Service is the chief in house scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

You can read more about ARS discoveries at http://www.ars.usda.gov/news.