Childhood obesity has become a national epidemic. The statistics are clear. Eighteen percent of children are overweight and eight percent are obese. These are serious statistics. What can parents do to help this situation?
1. You should be involved with your child's life.
What does this mean? Children hate parents interfering with their life and the least hint of control can and probably will turn them against you. However, the problem is serious. Parents should first form a team within themselves and discuss strategy on how to talk to the child. Then, appoint one parent to have that discussion. Keep trying. Never give up. You should have an idea of your child's life. What do they do day to day and on weekends? Invest some time getting involved with Project Child. It can be frustrating and may seem like the child will want to get rid of your involvement. However, you must persist and do it gently. You must approach it from a point of view of love, that the three of you are a team. The child's problems are your problems. Create harmony and approach the conversation from a point of view of harmony rather than a top down approach.
2. When you get past step one, then plan out where the time is spent.
Where is the time being spent? Obviously, you should get some activity into the child's life. Where can the change be made? Can you or both parents be involved in that activity? Are family activities a possibility? Explore family swim time, hike time, snowshoeing time and others. Make it a group activity. If the child resists family events, then try to organize a group activity with the child and their friends. This might also be difficult. However, give it a try. Volunteer to take them somewhere on a group hike, bike ride, snowshoe trip. You can't take the top down approach of "You need to be more active". You must come up with a plan where there is involvement of other people.
3. What is the food situation? You should take stock of your child's eating habits.
What is going on? What are the meal plans? Take ownership of this issue and start planning out their meals. Take the extra time to make their lunches and snacks. My client's daughter started working at a restaurant. She never ate her own meals properly during the time she worked. She just ate whatever was lying around in the restaurant's kitchen. Most of the time, this would be bad food, like chocolate cake. The daughter ended up gaining weight. My client then took matters into her own hands and planned out her lunches and snacks. She made them in advance and took that extra time out of her day to do that. She also planned snacks and set them out around the house so that the daughter always had healthy snacks to choose from.
Following these three simple steps can help to alleviate childhood weight issues. It is because we let things go that these issues arise. Food is always the first resource to get rid of feeling bad. Make sure this is not a frequent issue by following the three steps in this article.
