Childhood obesity has become a problem of epic proportions, our kids need fast weight loss and they need it now. The problem is that many parents don’t know the first thing about health and don’t know where to start. They have a hard enough time making wise decisions for themselves so they are setting a bad example for their children while passing along poor eating habits. So, how do we go about helping our kids loose weight and develop good eating habits?
It certainly starts at home so if you are a parent of an over weight child it is time for you to take action. Your child’s life literally depends on your ability to take action. Children who are overweight as youngsters are more likely to develop heart disease and diabetes early in life.
Here are a couple of suggestions for how you can get your child started on the road to a healthy life and kick off fast weight loss.
It is essential that your child realize that there are consequences for eating unhealthy food. Kids often do not associate the food they consume to the size of their waist line. But it is imperative that they realize that the burger, ice cream, and coke they have for lunch can have a profound impact on their health. If they start out unhealthy it is much more difficult to reclaim any type of health later in life.
Your child needs to understand that there are things that they can do to live a healthy lifestyle and that being healthy is a lifestyle. It is about the choices that they make on a regular basis and a healthy lifestyle will lead to a much more fulfilling life with a higher quality of life.
Down to the dirty. If your child watches too much TV limit the television to certain days of the week or certain hours of the day. The television is great for killing a little bit of time here and there but for the most part it has been pretty destructive to our social skills, family time and waist line. Many kids watch up to 6 hours of TV per day, most of this time is spent in a sedentary state.
Get your kids outside. This may mean that you have to be proactive and lead by example. It may seem like it is going to be a lot of work to get up and go toss a football around but in the end you will have a lot of fun. Getting up and getting active is how kids burn calories and how they build a body that will last them for a lifetime.
Get rid of all of the junk food in the house and replace it with healthy snacks. This means fruit, veggies, and other snacks besides processed food, packaged food, and plain junk. Stay away from sugary snacks, cookies, etc. Proceed with the out of sight out of mind premise. If it isn’t around they aren’t going to eat it.
Avoid going out to eat. This means fast food, upscale food, food on the go, Sunday afternoon, all of the above. Make a habit of eating at home. Your kids will eat far fewer calories and you will save a fortune. Eating at home will also lead to more family time and a less hectic schedule. It is a win for everyone. But you must develop a routine and make this a habit. Once you are into the fast food routine it is hard to break.
Fix your kids a lunch for school. School lunches are notoriously unhealthy. School districts spend around $.40 on each lunch they produce. This means that it is rock bottom food, often compared to prison food and thought to be of inferior quality.
Pay attention to things like juice, recovery drinks, and other drinks that don’t look unhealthy but are really no better than soft drinks. Limit your kids to water or milk except during special event or occasions. many children get up to half of their daily calories from soda. This is a terrifying fact because it means that from half of their calories they are getting virtually no nutrition and being pumped full of sugar and caffeine. Can you say ADD?
Putting kids on exercise programs and diets isn’t going to work, they need to do what kids are suppost to do and that is be active. I realize that it can be a challenge to get inactive kids moving but as I said before their life literally depends on it. So, get those kids moving, implement some diet fixes and education and you will be amazed to see the fast weight loss that ensues.