Five Life-Changing Steps You Can Take to Help Your Overweight Child
- Replace sugary juices and soft drinks with pure water
Children can easily cut down on the amount of sugar they eat by eliminating soda and juice and only drinking water. This step alone can have a dramatic effect on your child’s weight and health, since every soft drink or sugar-sweetened beverage consumed increases the risk of obesity by a whopping 60 percent.
It’s important for parents to encourage their children to eat healthy, nutritious foods, focusing on fresh whole foods (preferably organic whenever possible).
This does not mean you should not allow your child to eat when he’s hungry, however. Children need calories and nutrients to grow and develop -- just make sure to encourage healthy foods geared for your child’s nutritional type, and bypass junk and processed foods.
Remember that any meal or snack high in carbohydrates or sugars generates a rapid rise in your child’s blood glucose level. To adjust for this rise, the pancreas secretes insulin into the bloodstream, which lowers your child’s glucose (sugar) level. Insulin is essentially a storage hormone, which is used to store the excess calories from carbohydrates in the form of fat.
Insulin, stimulated by the excess carbohydrates in overabundant consumption of grains, starches and sweets, is responsible for your overweight child’s bulging tummy and fat rolls.
Even worse, high insulin levels suppress two other important hormones -- glucagons and growth hormones -- that are responsible for burning fat and sugar and promoting muscle development, respectively. So insulin from excess carbohydrates promotes fat, and then wards off your body's ability to lose that fat.
- Decrease or eliminate TV time and remove the TV from your child’s bedroom
TV is often a destructive influence on children. Not only does it encourage inactivity, but it also exposes them to commercials promoting worthless foods. Just as you don’t want your child exposed to ads for cigarettes during Saturday morning cartoons, neither should your kids be bombarded by non-stop commercials for sugary foods and snacks.
Alternatively you can implement a rule that allows your child one minute of video (TV or game) time for every minute of exercise.Exercise is extremely important for all children. Your overweight or obese child needs at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, and major studies have shown that 60 minutes a day is best.
Any activity that gets your child up and away from the television set, video game or computer is a good idea. Start out with a daily walk with your child, and then gradually increase the intensity to include activities such as jogging and using an elliptical machine.
- Help your child address emotional eating
Emotions play a major role in childhood obesity and often, weight loss efforts get sabotaged by emotional eating. Your child may also have a hard time giving up junk food snacks.
This is where the Meridian Tapping Technique/Emotional Freedom Technique (MTT/EFT) comes in. MTT/EFT can be profoundly helpful in alleviating not only food cravings, but also the underlying emotional challenges, such as low self-esteem, that can lead your child to eat unhealthy food or overeat.
More Tips for Creating a Healthy Eating Environment
Ultimately, teaching your child the importance of healthy foods and exercise is the key to maintaining health. With that in mind, here are some tips to foster a healthy view of food and self-esteem in your child.
- Lead by example and seek to maintain optimal body weight for yourself and your spouse
- Refrain from making jokes about your child’s weight, even if no harm is intended
- Explain the health risks of being overweight to your child, but avoid comparing your overweight child to other children, including thinner siblings
- Cook healthy meals for your family, and let your child be involved in making dinner, but avoid making your child eat different food than the rest of the family
- Encourage your child to make healthy food choices and praise them when they do instead of putting your child down about weight or eating habits
- Instead of using food as a reward or punishment, have healthy snacks available at all times, and explain to your child the benefits they’ll get from eating these fresh, whole foods
Creating health is actually quite simple when you get right down to it. It’s a matter of returning to the basics of whole, fresh, organically-grown foods packed with all the nutrients your body needs. Team that with exercise and proper sleep, and you have the recipe for growing an optimally healthy child.
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