Obesity can give rise to many other health disorders in children. Here are some tips for helping children prevent and deal with obesity.When kids are maturing emotionally as well as physically, it is the responsibility of parents to set up good nutritional habits in them for future. In fact, the issue of child’s weight has been brought into lot of attention recently. Parents are usually found in a difficult position when they are told to help their children lose weight because they are clinically overweight or obese. The reason is that this leads to many kinds of health risks over the course of their lives. It is important to help your child understand this and try to keep their weight within the limit set by experts.
What Should a Parent Do?
In case if the
child is an obese, parents should balance the calories their children get through food and drinks along with paying attention to losing some calories through physical activities in order to maintain normal growth. You have to keep in mind that you do not have to only restrict your child to eat, but also keep in mind that what she needs for normal growth and development. It is always advisable to consult a health care provider before you put your child on a weight reduction diet.
Help Children Develop Healthy Eating Habits
Children need adequate amount of healthy calories to grow in a healthy manner. Parents should help children develop healthy eating habits, look for ways to prepare their favourite food items in the healthiest possible way and reduce temptations for food items with empty calories.
Encourage Healthy Eating Habits
There are no hard and fast rules to follow for healthy eating. Here are some tips to help your children and family develop
healthy eating habits.
- Make plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grain food items available for your family.
- Start buying low fat or non-fat milk and milk products.
- Prepare balanced food while limiting the oil and sugar content during preparation.
- Encourage everyone to consume standard amount of drinking water daily.
- Limit consumption of tinned and packed food.
- Reduce the frequency of eating out.
- Limit sweetened beverages.
- Pay attention to serving reasonably sized portions.
Remember that making small changes every day will not just help you to succeed in your mission, but also help reduce pressure on your child’s mind and emotions.
Make Healthy Food Items Tastier
If you would pay attention to preparing food items, you will find many ways to prepare and present tasty food items to your child and family despite of taking care of limitations. If you do not let your child feel that there is lack of taste in the food, she will not find reducing weight a tedious and boring work. In fact, if you make few changes in the meals you prepare regularly to make them healthier making them tasty, they might become more satisfying.
Avoid Giving Unhealthy Food Items
Everything can be enjoyed in moderation, but perhaps not at present. Especially, if you are intending to help your child maintain her
weight. Remove the temptations from home and allow your child to have any of them only sometimes. Reduce calorie-rich foods, high fat and high sugar food items and instead present healthy foods as choices in front of your child. Encourage your child to have fresh and seasonal fruits instead of munching on
snacks.
Encourage Physical Activities
Encouraging your child to get involved in sport or any other vigorous physical activity would help her reduce the fat and weight faster. Even obese children start enjoying games, dancing and being active after some time. After all, they are young and feel energetic when being involved in physical activities.
Along with the tips mentioned above, educate your children about benefits of healthy living and see the difference in their attitude and approach after some time.
What are the causes of obesity in children? How to help children deal with obesity? What are the ways to help children maintain healthy weight? Discuss here.