July 15, 2015
Do you know why there’s so much talk these days about obesity in children?
Children who are overweight when they are young have a much harder time losing weight when they are older than adults who were not overweight as kids. If you make improvements in your child’s diet and increase the amount of physical activity he gets now, you will have a much better chance of keeping him healthy as an adult.
Here are a few ideas to make changes in your family’s diet:
- Drink water! (no juice, no soda)
- Eat at home! (don’t eat out more than once or twice a week)
- Keep cut up fruits or vegetables around so your kids will snack on them instead of chips
- Eat together! Keep the TV off!
- Make sure you have 20-30 minutes to eat together (eating too fast makes it easy to over- do it)
- Eat 3 meals a day! (skipping leads to overeating )
- Keep junk food out of your house!
- Make salads with vegetables, not eggs, meat or cheese
- Toss your salad to use less dressing
- Treat yourselves sometimes!
Here’s some suggestions to increase physical activity in your family:
- Ride a bike
- Go for a walk after dinner
- Dance
- Swim
- Play sports
- Walk when you talk on the phone
- Take a martial arts class
- Limit TV and video games to 1-2 hours per day
Good luck and enjoy the rest of your summer.
