Obesity
Obesity in children is a major problem in kids. Here are some points about obesity (being overweight) and what you can do about it.
Other Points
The whole family has to lose weight together. It's almost impossible as well as unreasonable to expect one person to eat a meal with three peas on the plate while the rest of the family is pigging out on ribs and potato salad.
You have got to decrease the amount of time that the kids are watching television. Television leads to obesity. Why?
1. The commercial messages entice kids to eat.
2. Many television shows are suspenseful (that is what makes them interesting). Because television is a passive medium, the only way a child can control his emotions while watching these programs is by eating.
Get into a regular exercise program that the whole family can do together. Walk around the block.
Don't justify eating something just because you bought it. Once you've bought the food you've lost once; don't make up for one bad decision by making another.
One important key to losing weight is to not buy the junk food. Once the junk food gets into the house, the food will get eaten. If you do buy junk food, put it away in a cabinet somewhere where you won't easily find it (out of sight, out of mind).
Your child most likely does not have a job and therefore can not earn money to buy food; therefore the only food that your child eats with the exception of one meal at school can be controlled by you the parent. If you don't buy the junk food, they can't eat it. Avoid all foods at convenience stores as most of the food sold there is junk.
Also, make sure grandma is not feeding your child junk food at her house.
Minimize These Foods
Deep Fried Foods: Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Strips; French Fries, Onion Rings
Chips: Cheet-ohs, Fritos, Doritos, Takis.
Cereals: All cereals, including granola and Special K. I don't care how it's advertised; cereals are junk. In reality cereals are just corn chips in another form.
Dairy: Pizza, Cheeses, Milk.
You can get plenty of calcium through foods other than milk. All this nonsense that you see on TV about healthy bones through milk is advertising courtesy of the milk lobby. There are plenty of healthy people with healthy bones who can't drink milk because they are inolerant to it.
Up the Protein, Lower the Carbohydrates
Strive to increase the amount of protein in each meal while keeping the carbohydrates down. Protein will satisfy your hunger for a good four to five hours; carbohydrates will not do this. In fact, carbohydrates will up your blood sugar temporarily before driving it down in and hour or so prompting you to reach for another piece of junk or snack food.
Exercise
Exercise is good for your spiritual, mental and bodily health; but don't get into the habit of exercising in order to justify eating. If you do, you'll gain weight. Many people run for a quarter-mile so that they can come home and justify eating an entire apple pie.
Don't Buy the Junk
Once you buy the junk food, you've lost. When you eat the junk food you've bought, you lose twice. DO NOT justify your purchase by eating the junk food you bought. Give it away as charity. Take it to work and share it with others. Doing so will act as a negative reinforcer to buying junk food in the future.
The Long-term Solution
Write a letter to your congressman to ask Congress to begin taxing junk food heavily. Junk food is more expensive than quality food. Junk food robs you of your future well-being.
The Schools
Since schools offer two meals per day, it is important that you voice your concerns about the meals that the schools offer. Your kids really will do better in school if they eat healthier. Cereal is a poor food to give your kids in the morning. They will do much better with a meal containing protein, such as egg, sausage or bacon. In reality, cereal and breads shouldn't even be an option at school. The reason these foods are given is because they are easy to provide. Quite frankly, the school should be an educator and role model for proper eating. All deep-fried foods should be eliminated to be replaced by baked foods. Pizza is the worst option for your kids. Absolutely never should a school take kids to a pizza joint for a field trip.
- The main thing to do in losing weight and keeping it off is to change your lifestyle. If you crash diet and then return to the same old ways, you'll get fat again. Changing your lifestyle is easy yet hard to do. It's easy because it involves a choice of you saying no to old behaviors but hard because habits are hard to break especially if those habits were fun.
- You need to change both the quality and quantity of the foods that you eat. If you eat a ton of diet food, you'll gain weight. If you only eat cheescake, you'll still gain weight. The key to losing weight and keeping it off is to eat smaller amounts of higher quality foods.
- Most of our extra weight gain comes from the add-ons that we pile on. It's okay to eat a burger at the fast-food restaurant; what will kill you are the french-fries. It's okay to eat an occasional slice of pizza; what will kill you are the extra slices.
- Get in the habit of looking at food calories as you would the money you carry around in your wallet. If you spend more money than you have, you become in debt; and that is precisely what fat is: debt. Fat is debt that you carry around with you, debt that weighs you down.
- The key to staying out of debt (staying thin) is to watch what you spend (eat).
- There are many approaches to losing weight. The easiest way is to simply cut down by 15% the amount you are eating now. In other words, don't change the quality of the foods that you are eating but the quantity. If you buy a burger and fries at McDonalds, only eat three quarters of it. This way, you can still enjoy all the foods you ate before. Now, how do you only eat three-quarters of a burger and fries? Here is the best way that I have found. Halfway through your meal, push the food away, lean back in your chair and take a five minute break.
Other Points
The whole family has to lose weight together. It's almost impossible as well as unreasonable to expect one person to eat a meal with three peas on the plate while the rest of the family is pigging out on ribs and potato salad.
You have got to decrease the amount of time that the kids are watching television. Television leads to obesity. Why?
1. The commercial messages entice kids to eat.
2. Many television shows are suspenseful (that is what makes them interesting). Because television is a passive medium, the only way a child can control his emotions while watching these programs is by eating.
Get into a regular exercise program that the whole family can do together. Walk around the block.
Don't justify eating something just because you bought it. Once you've bought the food you've lost once; don't make up for one bad decision by making another.
One important key to losing weight is to not buy the junk food. Once the junk food gets into the house, the food will get eaten. If you do buy junk food, put it away in a cabinet somewhere where you won't easily find it (out of sight, out of mind).
Your child most likely does not have a job and therefore can not earn money to buy food; therefore the only food that your child eats with the exception of one meal at school can be controlled by you the parent. If you don't buy the junk food, they can't eat it. Avoid all foods at convenience stores as most of the food sold there is junk.
Also, make sure grandma is not feeding your child junk food at her house.
Minimize These Foods
Deep Fried Foods: Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Strips; French Fries, Onion Rings
Chips: Cheet-ohs, Fritos, Doritos, Takis.
Cereals: All cereals, including granola and Special K. I don't care how it's advertised; cereals are junk. In reality cereals are just corn chips in another form.
Dairy: Pizza, Cheeses, Milk.
You can get plenty of calcium through foods other than milk. All this nonsense that you see on TV about healthy bones through milk is advertising courtesy of the milk lobby. There are plenty of healthy people with healthy bones who can't drink milk because they are inolerant to it.
Up the Protein, Lower the Carbohydrates
Strive to increase the amount of protein in each meal while keeping the carbohydrates down. Protein will satisfy your hunger for a good four to five hours; carbohydrates will not do this. In fact, carbohydrates will up your blood sugar temporarily before driving it down in and hour or so prompting you to reach for another piece of junk or snack food.
Exercise
Exercise is good for your spiritual, mental and bodily health; but don't get into the habit of exercising in order to justify eating. If you do, you'll gain weight. Many people run for a quarter-mile so that they can come home and justify eating an entire apple pie.
Don't Buy the Junk
Once you buy the junk food, you've lost. When you eat the junk food you've bought, you lose twice. DO NOT justify your purchase by eating the junk food you bought. Give it away as charity. Take it to work and share it with others. Doing so will act as a negative reinforcer to buying junk food in the future.
The Long-term Solution
Write a letter to your congressman to ask Congress to begin taxing junk food heavily. Junk food is more expensive than quality food. Junk food robs you of your future well-being.
The Schools
Since schools offer two meals per day, it is important that you voice your concerns about the meals that the schools offer. Your kids really will do better in school if they eat healthier. Cereal is a poor food to give your kids in the morning. They will do much better with a meal containing protein, such as egg, sausage or bacon. In reality, cereal and breads shouldn't even be an option at school. The reason these foods are given is because they are easy to provide. Quite frankly, the school should be an educator and role model for proper eating. All deep-fried foods should be eliminated to be replaced by baked foods. Pizza is the worst option for your kids. Absolutely never should a school take kids to a pizza joint for a field trip.