It is nice to hear compliments about your child, but for that, you need to take care of their food habits from childhood. If you want your kid to stay healthy and feel good about him/her, you need to take initiative measure in their food habits. Child obesity is on the rise. A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that increased rates of overweight and obesity could lead to high cholesterol and Type II diabetes in children. The best way to overcome is to start at the earliest when your kid is at the age of two. Making him/her conscious about his/her food habits and disciplining him/her about food timings, you can guide him/her to a healthy life. So, if your kid is overweight, you will require long-term modifications in lifestyle and eating habits. It is necessary to incorporate it into the family structure or take it as a ritual of every day’s life to maintain your child’s fitness and avoid consequences of obesity. A pound a week weight loss is a good goal for more overweight or obese children. Therefore, you need to burn more calories a day to maintain lifetime modifications. Read on to know weight loss tips for kids.
Weight Loss Tips For Kids
- There are different types of aerobic activities, to help motivate your child to expend calories. Walking, jogging, bike riding and rollerblading are all great ways to burn calories.
- Encourage your child to stay active in other ways, like using the stairs instead of the elevator, or walking instead of driving to a friend's house or the local store.
- Offer low fat foods like skimmed milk and low-fat yogurts or cheeses. Rather than potato chips, cakes and cookies, low-fat snacks like popcorn or pretzels are better choices.
- Encourage your child to eat only when she/he is hungry and not as a ritual. Serve family meals only in the kitchen or dining room without any other distractions like the television.
- A glass of fresh juice has fiber that can help your child feel more full and satisfied, and it has fewer calories. Encourage your child to have more juices and reduce the consumption of colas and other aerated drinks.
- In order to make a child successfully lose weight, you need to pack a nutritious lunch for school. Learn different ways of packing extra nutrition for lunch without making the food boring.
- Kids love display of color and if you experiment on their food with natural colors they would rather enjoy eating their food. Fruits and vegetables can create a rich color palette with full wide range of flavors and textures.
- Fill up half of the plate with fruits and veggies at each meal, because kids are often fascinated by oddly shaped fruits and vegetables.
- Foods that have a higher fiber content take longer for the body to digest and keep the body feeling full longer. So you need to choose foods that have got bulk of fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants without being removed from the grain, to help nourish the growing body.
- Eating every three hours helps to regulate blood sugar, decreasing the hunger sensation. Keep fresh fruit where kids can easily access. Keep a container with sliced vegetables for a quick and easy snack.