Does Your Children Weigh To Much
The nightly news often shows stories about a issue that is getting bigger in the U.S. They report that the problem of obesity is a severe problem in our country today. In addition to the general population being overweight, there is also a concern that our nation’s children are also battling a weight issue. We are putting the health of our children at risk by letting them be overweight.
When our nation was first formed, families had to work hard just to survive. They had to grow their own food, chop down trees to build shelter, and walk miles just to go to the one room school house to learn. As we grew into an industrialized nation, the need to work as physically hard has decreased, and with that so has the waistline of Americans. Because of all of the technology that is available to us, creating a meal for the family rarely requires much physical labor and the family can sit on their butts and enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor. The only time that we are active and doing physical things is when we decide that we want to do them. Working out only happens because we have a desire to work out instead of working out to survive. This lack of activity is a major cause of obesity in children.
The emergence of more and more processed food makes it difficult for the young to maintain the proper weight. Kids are growing up on a diet that is full of high fat, high calorie fried foods. We are bombarded with advertisements for these high calorie foods. In addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner children fill up on a bunch of unhealthy snacks. All of this combined with the lack of exercise is causing problems for our children. It is time to attack the problem.
It might not be practical to expect a young child to start doing a fitness regimen that includes a lot of six pack ab exercises, but there are many things that a child can do to get more active throughout the course of the day, so the first key is to turn off the electronics that are filling up our houses. Turn off the video game and run around in the great outdoors. If you really expect that your child will get up and get active, than it is important for them to see you doing the same. An overweight child does not have to learn how to lose weight fast, they need to understand how to exercise daily and eat a nutritionally balanced diet that will help them maintain a healthy weight for the rest of their life.
In addition to exercising, a child should also eat a proper and nutritious diet when trying to lose weight. Although it often seems easier to go out to the local fast food joint and pick up a dinner that includes a burger and fries and a soft drink, those foods are not healthy. A child must limit the intake of fat and other bad foods and make sure they get the daily requirements of fruits and vegetables. In addition, the size of the dish has an effect on weight also. In addition snacks need to be healthier too. Although they are not the easiest thing to get a kid to eat, they are better off when they eat healthier snacks.
Getting a child to a healthy weight is not a simple chore to accomplish. Many parents think it is impossible to do. If a parent is looking for help, it is available in many places from their child’s doctor, to a school’s dietician to online chat rooms such as the biggest loser forum where people are able to talk about all sorts of weight related issues. It is important for the parents to get off of the sofa and recognize the problem and then guide their child through the solution. It should be done for the kids.
Filed under Parenting |