We are all pretty tired of hearing about childhood obesity. Recent news tells us over and over again that:
o The number of children classified as obese has doubled in the last two decades.
o One in five children will become obese.
o The number of American children undergoing surgery for obesity has tripled in recent years.
o Now that childhood obesity is considered an epidemic, adult ailments are more often found in children, including heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and high blood pressure.
These are early statistics, but unfortunately few of us are listening anymore. We have heard this bad news so often that we have become desensitized to the seriousness of the situation that experts predict will make this generation the first to live shorter lives than their parents.
So let’s stop talking about it and do something about it. But where to start?
Whose fault is it?
Let’s find the root cause and start there. In the typical blame game we could point fingers in many directions:
Ø Fast food restaurants: American children eat a fast food one out of every 3 days.
Ø School lunches: One in five public schools in the US sells brand-name fast food in the cafeteria, and just one of those cheeseburgers is 590 calories.
Ø The Government: To balance the budget and increase instructional time, school boards across the country are doing away with recess and eliminating physical education.
Ø The electronic age: Video games, televisions, computers and iPods keep children indoors and immobile.
All of this is true, but blaming restaurants, schools, the government, and electronics won’t help our kids. Instead, it’s time for us as parents to put love into action and take full responsibility for our children’s health.
Here are some dos and don’ts that will help you make the dietary and lifestyle changes that will change those statistics and give your children the foundation for a long and healthy life.
Model a healthy lifestyle
If you really want to help your child achieve and/or maintain a lean, fit body, you need to be the first in your family to make the changes that will put you all on the right track in this race for fitness. Whether he has a weight problem or not, the way he lives his life sets the tone for his children’s lifestyle habits. You can’t be a junk food eater and inactive couch potato and expect your child to be any different:
o Drastically reduce your intake of processed pastries (doughnuts, bagels, coffee cake), fast food, high-calorie vending machine-type snacks, and soft drinks.
o Supplement your own daily diet with whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and water.
o Be physically active in some small way every day: take the stairs instead of the elevator, park the car away from the store.
o To ease your stress at the end of the day, skip the donut or glass of wine and instead take a brisk walk or use the stationary bike.
Control your child’s free time
Even if you’re a working parent, it’s important to schedule active and productive time after school and on weekends for your child that doesn’t include snacks and passive electronic entertainment:
o Set a limit of one hour for the time you spend sitting in front of the TV/computer/video game each day.
o Schedule active time that includes participation in sports or family outdoor activities, such as walking, biking, or hiking.
o When they are old enough to handle the responsibility, let your children walk, bike or skate to destinations within a reasonable distance. Don’t take them to the movie theater which is two blocks away!
Control your child’s diet
As kids get older and spend more time away from home with money in their pockets, it’s hard to micromanage every bite of food they eat. But at the very least, make sure the food in your home is low in calories and nutritious:
o Clean out the kitchen pantry and eliminate most high calorie junk food snacks (ie chips, ice cream, pastries, sugary cereals, soda or sugary juice at home). Children need some sweets, but all in moderation.
o Replace junk food with healthy snack alternatives like fresh fruit, celery and carrots, nuts, low-fat cheese, whole-grain English muffins with low-fat peanut butter, and low-fat yogurt.
o Don’t let anyone in your household eat fast food more than once a week.
o Do not put your child on a restrictive diet. Remember: it’s more important to know what types of foods you’re eating and what your portion sizes are than trying to stick to specialized “fad” diets. Most “diets” are unrealistic and promote deprivation instead of promoting healthy lifestyle change and smart decision making.
o Practice portion control. In 1987 we were drinking 6 ½ ounce bottles of 85-calorie soda; today the typical bottle is 20 ounces and 250 calories. A fast food cheeseburger in 1987 contained 333 calories; today it’s 590 calories. This is part of the reason we are such a great nation. Put less food on the plate, as simple as that.
o Create a daily meal plan that focuses on these three key elements: variety – serve different foods from all the food groups; balance — offer enough servings from each of the groups to meet nutritional needs; and moderation — not too much of any food or food group.
Practice Saying “No”
Give yourself permission to say “no” with confidence. You are the father; You have the right and responsibility to be in charge of your child’s health and well-being:
or “No, you can’t have a second helping.”
or “No, you can’t have ice cream for lunch.”
or “No, you can’t have soda with your meal.”
or “No, you can’t have a car to the corner.”
or “No, you can’t watch any more TV today.”
Become an advocate for healthy eating at school
As a parent, you have some influence over what your children eat at school. Of course, you can pack your lunch box with nutritious foods, but if non-nutritious foods are being offered for sale to all the other kids, it will be hard for many youngsters to resist ditching their homemade whole wheat vegetable wrap for a Twinkie. For this reason, many parent groups have made changes to the way food is prepared in their school cafeterias. A sample of these efforts includes:
o At Promise Academy in New York, all meals served in the cafeteria are cooked from scratch, and the menu (heavily subsidized by private donations) now includes dishes like turkey lasagna with a side of fresh zucchini.
o In Santa Monica, California, there is a salad bar at every school in the district, with produce brought in from the local farmers’ market.
o At Grady High School, outside Atlanta, the student body president, a vegetarian, convinced the company that runs the cafeteria to provide stir-fried tofu, veggie burgers, and hummus.
o In Irvington, NY, a group of concerned parents established a No Junk Food Week, in which all unhealthy food was removed from the cafeteria and replaced with offerings from a local chef named Sushi Mike and donations from a nearby Trader Joe’s .
Since one of the main sources of fat and sugar in a child’s diet comes from school lunches, you can start fighting for your child’s health by talking to school administrators about eliminating vending machines overflowing with snacks and the elimination of foods high in calories and fat. menu items. That alone will help many children resist the temptations that spoil even the best of intentions.
Is it easy to keep our kids fit while we live in a world of high-calorie, junk food? Not at all. But that’s why our kids can’t do it alone. They need our guidance, support, and example to help them establish lifestyle habits that will lead to a long and healthy life.