How can childhood obesity be prevented?

[woegelar]

How can childhood obesity be prevented?

 

[Catherine1972]

With busy schedules and tempting junk food, it's easy to let children eat too much or eat the wrong thing! If you want to cut down on childhood obesity, give one of these a try.

1. Don't reward children with food. Find other ways to celebrate good behavior. Instead of taking your child out for a scoop of icecream after getting a good grade, how about letting him / her choose out an inexpensive toy or allow him / her to decide on a fun outing such as camping or rollerskating.

2. Practice what you preach. If you're practicing healthy habits, it's a lot easier to convince children to do the same. Incorporate healthy activities into the time you spend with children. Take walks, ride bikes, go swimming, garden or just play hide-and-seek outside. Everyone will benefit from the exercise and the time together.

3. Encourage physical activities that children really enjoy. Remember that each child is unique and may have to experiment with many activities until he or she finds one that is enjoyable. Exercise could be joining the soccer team, doing heavy gardening, or going for a daily stroll through the neighborhood.

4. Limit TV, video game and computer time.
Help children develop a positive self image. Focus on the positives instead of the negatives. Everyone likes to be praised for a job well done.

5. Be an advocate for healthier children. Insist on good food choices at school cafeterias and vending machines. (How about milk and juice instead of soda; fruit and veggies instead of chips and candy?) Encourage school principals to offer more physical fitness opportunities that kids will actually enjoy.

 

[araiswan]

Many children are suffering from obesity. Regardless of cries that junk food regulations are stealing consumers' right to choose and supporting the nanny state mentality, sometimes, the regulations actually work as intended. A study released Monday in Pediatrics notes that strong unhealthy food regulations may have a strong connection with lower child obesity rates.

 

[RachA]

With busy schedules and tempting junk food, it's easy to let children eat too much or eat the wrong thing! If you want to cut down on childhood obesity, give one of these a try.

1. Don't reward children with food. Find other ways to celebrate good behavior. Instead of taking your child out for a scoop of icecream after getting a good grade, how about letting him / her choose out an inexpensive toy or allow him / her to decide on a fun outing such as camping or rollerskating.

2. Practice what you preach. If you're practicing healthy habits, it's a lot easier to convince children to do the same. Incorporate healthy activities into the time you spend with children. Take walks, ride bikes, go swimming, garden or just play hide-and-seek outside. Everyone will benefit from the exercise and the time together.

3. Encourage physical activities that children really enjoy. Remember that each child is unique and may have to experiment with many activities until he or she finds one that is enjoyable. Exercise could be joining the soccer team, doing heavy gardening, or going for a daily stroll through the neighborhood.

4. Limit TV, video game and computer time.
Help children develop a positive self image. Focus on the positives instead of the negatives. Everyone likes to be praised for a job well done.

5. Be an advocate for healthier children. Insist on good food choices at school cafeterias and vending machines. (How about milk and juice instead of soda; fruit and veggies instead of chips and candy?) Encourage school principals to offer more physical fitness opportunities that kids will actually enjoy.

I think this is excellent advice

 

[Racheldigger]

Being strict and rationing sweets doesn't work! For reasons entirely unconnected with preventing childhood obesity, which I don't think anyone had even heard of in the early 1970s, my brother and I were very tightly rationed: we got one egg apiece at Easter, and one stick of rock on summer holidays, and they were kept out of our reach and brought down every Sunday, when our father would break off one piece for each of us. All this sort of thing achieves is that you end up obsessed with getting sweets. I am now 46 and I still cannot stop myself from furtively buying some kind of snack whenever I am shopping and gobbling it surreptitiously on the way home before anyone can see me, just like I did when I was seven and smuggled my pocket money out hidden down my sock.

On the other hand, we have never restricted Rowan's access to sweets, and in March I finally melted down all her uneaten chocolate eggs from the previous Easter and made them into rice crispie cakes, because she simply isn't interested in them. She likes to think that she is, but she'll have a couple of bites and then wander off and eat an apple instead.

 

[Thermo Man]

Great points Catherine1972. Promotion of a healthy diet, feedback about bad dietary and health choices, positive reinforcement for good choices. It all helps. Tough love and support!

 

[elsielouise]

Having worked with many families with overweight children my experience is that healthy role modelling of food choices and activities that get you moving result in healtny families. Limit sedentary activities and get 'doing'.

Of course it can be much more complicated than that but almost every time I see an overweight child I see overweight family members. And controversial or not I think families of overweight children need to ensure as careers they are working towards being healthy as a starting point.

If a carer struggles to make healthy choices for themself it is very difficult to ensure a child does.

 

[hshucksmith]

...educate children to eat healthily and balanced? I always think that telling kids "if you eat your broccoli you can have sweets" is a bad thing to do too, because surely all you're doing is promising them tasty food if they eat the bad tasting food first?

 

[Yipee]

Besides that has already been said, I think cooking and eating at home can make a big difference. Packaged food is usually so full of garbage that adds empty calories without making you feel full. When you cook at home you know what's going into each meal, and are less likely to add the insane amounts of sugar and fat that are added to packaged food. What to speak of all the chemical additives put into even the simplest packaged foods. Eating good, balanced meals also makes people feel satisfied, and less likely to snack on unhealthy choices.

It doesn't mean you can't have good-tasting things. A lasagna cooked at home with half the cheese and some extra veggies and protein added will taste just as good as a frozen one that contains twice the calories and hardly any nutrition. Muffins and even cakes can be made with half the sugar as the packaged or bakery ones, and still taste delicious, and a percentage of wholemeal flour can be added for nutrition and protein, without affecting flavor and texture.

I read that in the UK, Jamie Oliver has a program where he goes into schools teaching kids to cook real food, with real ingredients. Thanks to this program, the child obesity levels have actually dropped in the UK! I wish he would come to the US and do the same, or that someone would!