Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #1 - Role Model
Your heath and weight directly effect your child healthand weight. Children with just one
overweight parent have a 25% risk of becoming an overweight or obese
adult. If both parents are overweight
the risk of becoming an overweight adult jumps to 50%.
Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #2 - Be Positive
No one enjoys
receiving negative feedback. Talk to
your child with compassion and encouragement. Instead of saying, 'Lose weight',
say, 'Let's be healthy and start taking care of our bodies'. Focus on the foods you can eat, not the ones
that you cannot. Say, 'Let's go pick out fruits and make a fruit salad,' not
'Don't eat that.'
A family that eats
together, eats better, according to a recent study in the journal Archives of
Family Medicine. Children who report frequent family dinners have healthier
diets than their peers who don't, the study showed. Also fill your refrigerator
and cabinets with fresh fruits, nuts, low-fat cheese, and things for everyone
to snack on.
Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #4 - Eat Breakfast
A breakfast that
consists of protein, starch and fat will keep your children more alert during
school. Studies have shown that weight
loss is much more difficult in people who skip breakfast.
Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #5 Make time for
physical activity
Make physical
activity a family activity. Every night after dinner in the summer, go for a
half-hour walk and make it an activity that kids look forward to. If you can
afford it, enroll your kids in dancing or a sporting activity that they enjoy
because they need to enjoy it to keep doing it. Or just turn on some dance
music and have a dance party around the house.
Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #6 - Don't say diet
Put your child on any
diet and you are setting them up for an eating disorder - whether binge eating
or closet eating or another type of disorder.
Lifestyle changes have proven to be the most effective to lose weight
and keep it off.
Tips to Health and Weight Loss for Kids #7 - Avoid portion
distortion
When serving the food
try to portion out meal on dishes and avoid buffet-type or family-style
eating. When exposed to so much food it
is easy for your eyes to be bigger than your stomach. Resist the first temptation to have seconds
then check in with yourself to see if you are really hungry.
