 Hi everyone. Is your child overweight or do you think your child is becoming overweight? If so, here are some tips. 1. Whatever you do, do not keep reminding your child that they are heavy or overweight. 2. Let your child feel in control of their food intake 3. How to do this? You control what food you buy for your children. Make sure you buy foods that will give your children well rounded meals and snacks. Look at the new myplate symbol at www.choosemyplate.gov to ensure you are giving your children nutritious meals and snacks 4. Let your child feel and be in control of food outside of your home. It is important that your child is able to make choices regarding food. Splurges can be ok! The more things get denied the more we want them so it is ok to have cake and cookies sometimes if we are all eating healthy meals most of the time. 5. Encourage daily physical activity (60 minutes is the recommended amount of time). Make a plan with your child to find out what activities they consider fun and make up a schedule. Child not into group sports? How about jump rope and jumping jacks to their favorite music in the living room? How about exercise DVDs? (Denise Austin has some great ones- for different ages). How about running outside, biking, soccer, baseball, dance, etc. Find out what they consider fun and encourage it daily! You many even want to put up a star chart so they can give themselves a star for engaging in physical activity! 5. No matter what, remember to tell your children how wonderful they are and remind them how important they are! Hugs don't hurt either! |
