The statistics, both nationally and locally, are alarming: Fully one-third of our kids are struggling with obesity. If you’re a concerned parent or grandparent who wants to combat this trend, we have some simple strategies that can help.
The most important thing you can do to reduce the risk of your child becoming overweight is to be a healthy role model. Be active and maintain a healthy weight. Maintaining a positive self-image is also important. Children will pick up on your views if you place too much emphasis on appearance. A better approach is to encourage your children to get involved in sports and other outdoor activities and active hobbies. Placing kids on a diet, restricting calories or depriving them of certain food choices can backfire by causing the child to sneak food or fill up on poor choices, binge eat, or feel guilty.
It’s important for your child to experience the natural cycle of eating when hungry and stopping when comfortably full, rather than having their eating forced or micromanaged. On the other hand, you can encourage children to eat slowly and engage in conversation during dinner so they can experience satiety and avoid overeating.
The following strategies and activities will create a stronger family bond, keep the whole family healthy, and create habits that your children can keep throughout their life and future parenthood.
- Make smart food choices Add more fruit and vegetables, especially those that are high in fiber. You can also try shifting the focus from meat by making it a side dish or accent instead of the main course.
- Focus your time, energy, and money on cooking at home. Include children in meal preparation.
- Eliminate or carefully restrict sugary liquid calories, such as sodas, sports drinks, or “fruit drinks” that are not 100% fruit, vegetable, or fruit/vegetable juice blends. Supply your child with the actual fruit or vegetable when possible so they can benefit from the natural fiber source.
- Choose condiments wisely. Flavor with spices, oil/vinegar-based dressings, mustard, or reduced-sugar ketchup instead of mayonnaise or creamy-based dressings.
- Prepare all your food with heart-healthy methods like baking, broiling, and grilling instead of frying. Also remove skins and cut fat from meats and avoid excess butter and salt.
- Eat smaller meals and healthy snacks throughout the day to keep your metabolism going, and strive to make breakfast a larger but healthy meal to start the day right.
Healthy eating habits will help fuel physical activity, which is equally important to avoid weight gain at any age. Many physical activity options can become part of rituals that engage the whole family and become the highlight of the week, month, or year.
- Create time for physical activity.
- Garden or complete housework together.
- Create a weekly play date.
- Seek active weekend events such as 5Ks to walk, child-distance races of any kind, and “family fun day” type activities.
- Enroll your child in swim lessons, gymnastics, dance, karate, or recreational sports leagues – all of which are offered at the Y. Tweens can begin participating in adult fitness with a parent at age 10, and at 13 can enjoy cardio and strength training and group exercise classes at the Y on their own.
- Explore a new sport or hobby as a family so you can learn new skills together.
- Include physical activity on your vacations, and take advantage of any opportunities that may be unique to the area you visit.
- And make sure to adequate amounts of sleep.
Although the current figures and trends regarding childhood and adult obesity are scary, we don’t have to stand idly and watch our children become statistics. It’s never too late to adopt healthy habits and pass them down to your children. If you are already following most or all of the suggestions outlined here, encourage other families in your social circle or neighborhood. Adopting and maintaining a physically active lifestyle can increase the happiness and longevity of everyone in your household.