Dealing with childhood obesity

Do you know that more than 17% American children and adolescents suffer from childhood obesity? In fact, the problem of obesity or abnormally high weight is continuously rising among children. This has resulted in a growing concern for both health care providers and the parents. What is even more alarming is that not many people are fully aware of the consequences of this problem. The complications which may arise due to uncontrolled obesity include diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, sleep apnea, arthritis, and reduced mobility and life expectancy.

For the same reason, it is vital for the parents to address the issue as early as possible as, after all, prevention is better than cure. Read on to discover some simple, easy and cost-effective measures to deal with the condition.

So, what makes your kid fat?

Your child’s body gets the energy it needs from the food he / she eats (Input). This energy is used to perform physical activity (Output). The unused energy is stored in the body is stored as fat. Therefore if, for some reason, this input is more than the output, it will cause your kid to become fat or obese.

What are the risk factors?

Some common factors that may cause your child to become overweight or obese include:

Food preferences: Foods rich in fat and sugar
Lack of physical activity: Sedentary lifestyle

Family history: If parents are obese, children have more chances of being over weight

What you can do?

Remember, being closer than anyone, parents have the main influence on the diet and life style pattern of their children. Therefore, simple measures and easy tactics in the home can have a significant impact on reducing your child’s overweight or obesity. It is always better to address the problem as early as possible as most overweight children become overweight adults as well.

Following recommended measures are of utmost importance in managing the overweight or obesity of your child.

Enhancement in physical activity

TV viewing should be limited to no more than 2 hours per day, discourage TV in kid’s room.

Plan and execute activities that kids and family view as fun. Walking the dog is great daily exercise that also teaches children about having the extra responsibility of something in their care.

Develop plan for increasing activities, such as family outings to parks. Alternatively, you can suggest indoor activities such as dancing or jumping rope. Children also love to play games like skipping, hide and seek, hopscotch and tag.

Suggest gifts/rewards that promote physical activity, such as active games, music CDs, or DVDs. With a little incentive you could get the kids doing chores like sweeping the yard, cleaning the family car or even weeding the garden.

It is, however, important to remember that when you child is involved in long exercises; they should include a gradual warming up and cooling down periods. Examples of warming up exercises are brisk walking or jogging on the spot. Similarly, when cooling down, stretching exercises help to restore the muscles resting length.

Improvement in eating habits

You should choose a balanced diet for your child, essentially representing the major food groups of whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes. It should also include dairy products, fish, meat and poultry.

Look for unhealthy dietary habits. Limit fast foods or providing lower fat alternatives, eliminating soft drinks or switching to low calorie drinks, changing to 2% or skimmed milk, substituting low-calorie, high-fiber snacks (low-fat popcorn, fruits, or vegetables) for the high calorie ones.

Never let your kid skip his / her breakfast.  However, you should limit your kid’s daily food consumption to frequent small meals instead of a fewer large meals. A difference of three hours between two meals is mostly recommended, constructing 4 to 5 small meals each day.

In short, if managed early and properly, childhood obesity can be successfully controlled. Necessary measures, if taken early by the parents, can change the outcome for obese children or even prevent it happening in the first place. However, such change should be gradual and parents must plan for small, single changes at a time.

Creating An Extreme Weight Loss Diet Plan

Looking for extreme weight loss success? Have a deadline to reach for your weight loss goals?

Whatever the case, if you are in a hurry to shed the excess weight you’re carrying around, chances are you’re on the hunt for one of the ultra low calorie diets out there. In fact, as much as you hate to admit it, you may have even typed in ‘Crash Diet’ in the Google search bar.

You aren’t messing around here – you need that weight gone yesterday!

But, before you run off on a poorly designed extreme weight loss diet plan, it’s worthwhile to take a bit of time to educate yourself on how to do this correctly. While you should never use an extreme weight loss diet plan for the long haul (as they will cause harm regardless if carried out for extended periods of time), over the short term, if done right, they can be safe to use.

Let’s go over the main points that you must know if you’re going to be creating an extreme weight loss diet plan for yourself.

Focus On Protein

The first component to get in place on any extreme weight loss diet plan is protein. Protein is what will make sure that you aren’t burning up lean muscle mass as you go about the diet plan, so what will keep your metabolism running on high over the long term.

If you start to lose lean muscle mass, which is quite common on extreme weight loss plans, you’re headed for long-term trouble.

You do not want to miss this point. Each and every meal and snack that you consume should have protein laid out as its base.

Get Your Greens

Second, make sure that you get your greens in.  Eating enough vegetables on a fat loss diet plan is going to be incredibly important because these are the foods that are going to provide the most nourishment overall to the body and help to also keep you regular due to their fiber content.

Plus, they’re also incredibly low in calories. So for any dieter on an intense diet program, that’s really a win-win scenario.

Eating more greens throughout this diet is only going to make your life that much easier.

Drink More Water

Next up, make sure that you stay well hydrated. Very low calorie diet plans do tend to have dehydrating effects on the body, so to avoid this from happening to you, make sure that you are staying as well hydrated as possible.

Aim for 8-10 glasses of clear fluid each and every day – more if needed.

Keep A Calendar

Finally, last but not least, make sure that you keep a calendar of your time on the diet. Track how long it has been since you started and at two weeks, come off that diet. Doing it any longer than this period of time is only going to set you up to fail.

So there you have the main points to know about extreme weight loss diets. Do these wisely and you will see fast results and meet your weight loss deadline. 

The 4 Diet Myths

The most common misconceptions when dieting is to think we need to eat exclusive food groups in order to lose weight. All this really does is deprive us from the essential vitamins and minerals our body need to function. Everyone wants a strong, fit and healthy body and this is only achieved from a well -rounded, well balanced diet.  Here we expel a few common myths when it comes to losing weight.

Myth 1:

We should only eat certain food groups.

Wrong. Many diets, crash diets in particular will advise cutting out particular food groups or only eating food from one food group. Our bodies cannot run on one kind type of food, we need a well- balanced, varied diet in order to stay healthy. We need a bit of fat, a bit of protein, vegetables, plenty of water, some carbohydrates and fibre. Even some of the so-called ‘bad’ foods our body will require some of those, if only in moderation but nothing should be cut out completely.  Fruits, grains, nuts and seeds are also essential for a strong immune system which will ward of illness and keep you healthy.

Myth 2:

You can only get protein from meat.

This is not true. Fruits, veggies, grains, nuts, legumes and oils all contain protein. Meat is actually high in fat and sodium, particularly red meats which if eaten excessively is not good for cholesterol levels. While it does contain protein; not as much as originally thought. Grains, oils, legumes and nuts actually contain more. Our body needs about 30 grams of protein a day so as you can see, you do not have to eat nothing but meat to get your daily quota.

Myth 3:

To lose weight, cut out the fat.

Our bodies actually need some fat to function properly; it allows the muscles and joints to work smoothly.  What you need to steer clear of are hydrogenated fats, good nutritious health giving fats consist of avocados, olive oil and raw nuts.

Myth 4:

You have to go without to lose weight.

Women on average should not consume any fewer calories than 1,200 a day and men generally should eat no less than 1,800 calories a day. Instead of snacking on high fat, high sugar foods, if you literally ate as much fruit and vegetables as you could manage, you would not only be satisfied and not hungry but it will have no bearing on your weight. The best way to lose weight is to eat foods as naturally as you can, with no added sugar or preservatives and cut out the unnecessary fats and simply eat what your body requires and no more, you will lose weight, stay healthy and live longer.