Sorry, but there’s really no nice way to put it. American kids are growing fatter and fatter each year. It troubles me that we have to spend so much time, money, and effort on changing this problem. If we could just keep it simple, it would be simple. Obviously the problem stems from two things: diet and exercise. If your child or a child you know is overweight or headed in that direction, I want you to seriously consider one thing. If nothing is done NOW to change the situation, what does this child’s life look like 5 years from now? How about 20 years? Picture a tiny bit of rust on your brand new car. If you leave it alone, does it get better or worse? When leaving a problem like this alone, it does not get better on its own. It doesn’t even stay the same. It will get worse and begin to cause a myriad of other issues. Diabetes in our country, for example, is growing at an alarming 8 percent per year. At this rate our entire country will have this disease within the next 20 years. There is great news though. If you follow my recommendations here, you WILL make a positive change in your child’s life, AND if they are under 9 years old, the habits you instill are very likely to stick forever.
Diet: It is very important that you DO NOT call this lifestyle change a DIET! Putting a child on a “diet” is liable to cause emotional predispositions to eating for the rest of their life. This is the wrong path to take. Instead approach it as the entire family learning to live a longer, healthier, more fulfilling life. And make sure that you as a parent or guardian really do set the example. The simplicity of the nutritional lifestyle change is this: Eat foods high in nutrients and low in anything artificial. Another way to look at it is EAT AS CLOSE TO NATURE AS POSSIBLE. Stop worrying about your kids’ calories and portion control. Instead concentrate on letting them eat as much vegetables and pure protein as they want. We keep a container of fresh cut up veggies and hummus around all the time. When the kid’s are running by the table, they’ll grab something on the go for a perfect snack. If your kid’s aren’t huge veggie fans-it only takes 17 tries to get them there. What needs to be severely limited are breads, cereals, pastas, crackers, chips, and anything with sugar (some fruit is ok, berries are better). These limited foods are DEAD foods. They do not have usable nutrients and do not bring LIFE to the cells. If it can sit on the shelf for more than a few days, you can be sure it will be sitting around in your body that long too, doing absolutely nothing for you except clogging you up with unnecessary waste. Remember this and teach your children-food that’s alive equals a body that’s alive; food that’s dead…(have them fill in the blanks themselves). Kids are smart, this makes sense to them.
Exercise: The word exercise is actually a bad example as well. For children, we need to just call this movement or activity. The information age has all of us sitting on our backsides surfing the net, and playing video games. Kids are no longer playing outside from dusk ‘till dawn every summer day. This really concerns me. When you are eating DEAD food and it is accumulating in your body as waste, and on top of it you are sitting around all day, there’s no way you are going to live a healthy life. Set some guidelines for the entire family. For example, playing outside for a certain amount of time may allow everyone to spend a little time playing a video game or watching a favorite TV show. Play time should ALWAYS amount to more than sit around time. Remember, instilling these values early will help them stick for life.
The key for both “diet” and “exercise” in children is to start out small and work your way toward optimal. Gradient changes are the ones that work and keep working.