Keep them moving! The average child spends 25 hours per week playing video games, surfing the net and watching TV. The massive amount of sedentary behavior has left little time or room for physical activity. In a nutshell, it is prudent to have your children participate in 1 hour of physical activity daily. Whether it is joining a community center, team sports, bike riding as a family or swimming lessons -- start by committing the entire family to exercise.
Eat a healthy breakfast. A recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology concluded that skipping meals and eating less frequently result in weight gain. Skipping breakfast was linked with a greater chance of obesity. People who skipped breakfast were more than four times more likely to be obese than those who ate breakfast daily.
Do NOT put your child on a calorie-restricted diet. Children do not respond well to a calorie-restricted diet. Often times children sneak food from their parents as a sort of rebellion to the negative pressures of a diet or because they are just plain hungry! The best approach for prevention and effective weight loss is to load a child's diet with the “good stuff” and get rid of the “bad stuff”. For example, a child's diet should be filled with fresh fruits, vegetable, eggs, chicken, fish, whole grain bread, cereal and pasta, nuts, seeds and low fat dairy products. Processed and refined floury items, fast food, and sugar-laden products should be kept to a minimum, and saved for an occasional treat such as birthday parties or holidays.
We must come together to help protect our children from the health and social consequences that comes with being overweight or obese. By implementing the steps above on an all-at-once or one-by-one basis, we can slowly turn the epidemic of obesity into fit and lean, healthy kids for life.
Dr. Joey Shulman D.C., RNCP, is author of Winning the Food Fight (Wiley, 2003) and The Natural Makeover Diet (Jan. 2006). For more information, visit www.drjoey.com.
