Child obesity levels are on the increase in America and many other countries around the world. As well as having social and psychological consequences, children that are overweight often develop potentially dangerous health problems that can affect them for the rest of their lives.

This article discusses the reason for the rise in childhood obesity and its consequences, offers some eating and exercise tips to help children lose weight, and finally discusses what we as parents can do to help our kids.

What constitutes being overweight for children?
A child with a body mass index (BMI) at or above the 95th percentile for their age and sex is considered overweight. BMI uses height and weight measurements to estimate how much body fat a person has, and parents who suspect that their child may be overweight can check with their family doctor or pediatrician who can calculate their child’s BMI using a special BMI calculator designed for children.

Why childhood obesity is increasing
Put simply, the major cause of childhood obesity is our modern lifestyle. Children today eat more and exercise less than any other generation before them and the result is that children are getting heavier and unhealthier. The characteristics of our modern lifestyle that contributes most to the problem of childhood obesity include:

• Advances in technology designed to make life easier and more entertaining.
• Unprecedented access to cheap, high-calorie, high-fat food (i.e. junk and fast food).
• Modern leisure activities such as playing computer games and watching TV.
• Exposure to increasing amounts of marketing for fast and snack foods.
• High density living with fewer parks and play areas for kids.
• Poor lifestyle habits being passed on from one generation to the next.

Let’s have a look at some of the things that can be done if your children are overweight or obese.

Eating Tips to Prevent Obesity in Children
Children who are brought up on constant diets of snack and junk food will grow into adults with ingrained bad eating habits and are destined to suffer from weight problems, even if they
somehow manage to avoid doing so as children.

To help you get your children eating as healthy as possible, here are some common and practical eating tips that anyone can implement:

• Be a role model and set a good example for your children by eating healthier yourself.
• Use your authority to control what food is purchased and cooked in the home.
• Do not put your child on a restrictive diet without expert medical advice.
• Encourage your children to lead healthy lives and don’t just focus on weight loss.
• Encourage your kids to eat healthy food by making sure it is tasty, well prepared, and easily available at home.
• Don’t bring “problem” foods home, like chocolate, potato chips, ice cream, candy, cakes and fizzy drinks.
• Prepare meals with your children - kids often enjoy cooking and as well as having fun, they can learn about healthy cooking and food preparation.
• Don’t force children to finish their food if they are full, they’ll eat more than they need to
  and will adopt the ‘clean plate’ eating philosophy for life.
• Be aware of “emotional overeating” and try to address the cause of any stress and tension in your child’s life.
• Don’t use food as a bribe or reward.

If you need more tips or you’re still not sure what and how much to feed your children to ensure that they develop good eating habits and grow up as healthy and happy as possible, seek professional advice from a registered dietitian or nutritionist.

Exercise tips to prevent or reverse childhood obesity
As well as doing whatever we can to make sure our children are eating healthy foods, it’s just as important to also make sure they are getting enough exercise and developing a love of being
active.

If you want to help your child avoid becoming overweight, or if you already have a child who is overweight, the following tips may be useful:

• Make exercise as fun as possible and don’t call the activities your children engage in “exercise” which has the wrong connotations for children.
• Try to help your child get at least thirty to sixty minutes of “exercise” broken downinto ten or fifteen minute segments.
• Be a role model by being active yourself and engage your children in activities like walking, hiking, tennis, swimming, basketball, or bike riding.
• Make fitness a family affair.
• Let children set the pace and intervals of family walks, bike rides, etc.
• Encourage your children to play sports without being pushy.

How parents can help their kids
Although it’s easy to blame the growth of childhood obesity on our modern lifestyle, many parents of overweight children need to recognize the significant role they’ve played in making their children that way if things are going to change.

Remember, most children with poor exercise and eating habits have learned those habits from their parents. Here are five of the most important things a parent can do to help their children avoid or reverse childhood obesity:

• Be a role model - eat healthy food and be active yourself and your children are likely to follow your lead.
• Help your kids to develop basic fitness skills by helping them to enjoy swimming, walking, cycling, running, dancing, hiking, skating, etc.
• Fill your cupboard and fridge with healthy foods and drink and limit the amount of snack and junk foods your children eat.
• Spend quality time with your children and have fun with them away from the TV and computer.
• Make small changes first and build on them over time - radical change is unlikely to be accepted and adopted long-term so take small but progressive steps forward.

Author: Scott Haywood
About the author: Scott Haywood is the editor of Australia’s leading weightloss and healthy lifestyle website.
Weightloss.com.au is a free weight loss resource that has healthy recipes, weight loss product reviews, a weight loss business directory and a very popular weight loss forum

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Are you currently pregnant and discouraged about getting back into shape after having your baby? Or maybe you’re a new Mom who is exhausted and getting to the gym is the last thing on your mind! Either way, I hope the following tips help you lose that baby weight.

I don’t have any fancy initials behind my name, I’m just a Mom of 4 kids. I’ve been able to get into my favorite Gap jeans fairly quickly after my babies, and I’ve observed that women who do the same have a few things in common. Here are my tips for losing the weight postpartum:

1) Don’t use pregnancy as an excuse to binge.
Pregnancy is the time to get strict about nutrition. Eating junk food will produce a small baby and a big Momma. Make your pregnancy a time to turn over a new leaf if you are a junk food junkie. You’ll be developing habits that will serve you well as you teach your children about nutrition.

At the same time, don’t obsess about weight gain. I gained between 35-50 pounds for each of my pregnancies, and still didn’t have trouble getting back into my old clothes within a few months postpartum. Focus on good nutrition, stay as active as you can, and you won’t go wrong.

2) Breastfeed your baby.
Breastfeeding burns around 500-700 calories a day. Wow- that’s not bad for sitting around relaxing on the couch! Your body puts on 9 pounds during your pregnancy specifically for the purpose of lactation. The extra weight is laid down on your thighs to make sure you will have enough fat to burn to make milk for baby. Call it “famine insurance” if you will. If you don’t breastfeed, guess what? That 9 pounds stays.

Several studies show that nursing Moms return to their pre-pregnancy weight more quickly. Nursing also helps your uterus contract back to its pre-pregnancy size faster. Plus you’ll have a nicer décolletage to boot!

3) Talk a walk every day
Walking is probably the perfect exercise for new Moms. It’s not stressful on your joints (which are still loosey-goosey from the pregnancy hormones for a while after you give birth). It’s free and doesn’t require a babysitter or any special equipment. It gets you out in the sun, which helps regulates your sleep/wake cycle, causing you and baby to sleep better at night and possibly helping prevent postpartum depression. And you can do it with a friend. If you’re sleep deprived and can’t bear the thoughts of exercise, call up a buddy and make a date with her to walk several mornings a week. Then you can treat yourselves to Starbucks and gossip afterwards.

4) “Wear” your baby
In addition to the many other benefits, using a baby sling or other soft cloth carrier and wearing your baby will burn lots of calories during the day as you do your household chores or care for other children. It also makes it easier for you to be active. You’ll be less tempted to sit around. Throwing on a sling and sitting baby inside it is much easier than lugging out and setting up a heavy stroller.

5) Curb those cravings
Postpartum Moms have cravings for several reasons. One is because serotonin levels are dropping, leading to cravings for sugar. Substitute snacking with another, health producing activity, like getting together with your buddy and going for a walk.

Another cause of cravings may be low blood sugar due to inadequate nutrition (eating too infrequently or eating too much refined sugar). Keep your blood sugar in control by eating frequent small meals that are balanced in nutrients. Keep snacks handy that you can grab quickly before you feed the baby. You need fats, protein and complex carbohydrates. Things like dried fruit and nuts, granola, full fat yogurt (buy the plain kind and mix in all-fruit jelly. Most yogurt has way too much sugar otherwise), kefir, vegetables sliced ahead of time and served with dips, hummus, whole grain pita bread, fruit smoothies, etc will keep your blood sugar constant and provide good nutrition. And keep taking your prenatal multivitamin to help prevent deficiencies that may cause cravings.

6) Avoid excessive caffeine

Drinking too much caffeine leads to insulin surges which cause your blood sugar to drop. When this happens most people head straight for the refined carbs to quicky bring their blood sugar back up. That’s no good.

7) Get enough rest

Easier said than done for a new Mom, to be sure! But if at all possible, nap with your baby. When you are terribly sleep deprived, you tend to gain weight. Consider bringing baby to bed with you if you are nursing. You will sleep better, baby will sleep better, and Daddy will sleep better (making it more likely that he will take baby for a walk and let you nap some afternoons!). Women all over the world have been doing it for thousands of years. As long as you are not morbidly obese, using sleeping pills or inebriated, cosleeping is safe.

Focus on good nutrition

This is also a challenge for a new, stressed out Mom. Check out books like “The One Armed Cook” for ideas on how to prepare healthy meals with a baby in arms. Visit a La Leche League meeting and ask other Moms how they manage to eat well with kids in the kitchen. Some Moms who were former junk food junkies have done well with the following technique. Before feeding themselves a particular food, they ask: “Would I feed this to my baby?” If the answer is no, they don’t eat it.

9) And lastly, give it time

Be realistic- don’t expect yourself to be back into your favorite jeans within a few weeks of delivery. In the meantime, appreciate your new, womanly curves (especially the cleavage that breastfeeding gives you!). I noticed that my clothing style changes somewhat after I have a baby. My normal tailored, classic look gives way to a soft, feminine style that flatters my postpartum body more.

Rejoice in your body that can do such awesome things as give birth and nourish a new life! Likely, your partner is much more forgiving of your changing body than you are. Just the other day as I was feeling embarrassed about my still stretched-out postpartum belly, my husband commented on how sexy my belly was, “because that’s where my babies grew”.

Enjoy your new baby!

Author: Carrie Lauth
For more articles for Moms who want to take care of their health naturally, visit http://www.NaturalMomsHealth.com/. For free whole food recipes each month, sign up for the newsletter at http://www.NaturalMomsRecipes.com

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Author: Peg Baron
When the weather is nice, the kids (and Mom) are itching to get outside and play. I personally like the playing to learn approach. Did you know there’s an outdoor world of math and reading fun that awaits you and all you need is sidewalk chalk, dice, and your imagination? Anything we can do inside on paper can be done outside on the driveway or sidewalk, as long as we don’t care if it eventually gets “erased” by rain or sprinklers. Not only do the kids and I get to exercise our brains but we also get to exercise our bodies. I get to stretch my hamstrings and quads as I bend over to draw game boards or numbers, and the kids get to hop, skip, and jump around. Here are a few favorite sidewalk games I’d like to share. You can adapt any of them to the abilities of your children, and multiple ages can play
together.

Numbered Ladder Game
Draw a long, long ladder with at least 25 rungs, each rung big enough for a kid to stand in. Number each rung starting with 1 and going to 25. You also need a dice.

Rules - Grown-up throws the dice and the child hops up that many spaces on the ladder. If they land on an even number, they have to go back 1 space. Continue on until you have a winner.

Multiplication Ladder

Use the same ladder as above.
Rules - The child rolls 2 dice and multiplies the 2 numbers together.
He/she then totally covers in the answer square with chalk (their choice of color.) They continue until they’ve covered every square they possibly can, and then discuss why there are squares that won’t ever be covered.

Division Ladder

Again, use the same ladder as above.
Rules - Hand the chalk to your child and ask them to put a yellow triangle around any numbers that can be divided by 2. Next have them put a blue circle around any numbers that can be divided by 5, a pink square around any numbers that can be divided by 10, etc.

Numbers Bingo

Draw out as many bingo boards as there are kids and put a number
in each square. The kids can collect a pile of rocks or something for markers. Rules - Depending on the skill level, yell out an addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problem for them to solve. They then cover the answer with a rock. The one who gets bingo is the winner. You can change the mathematic function with each game.

“Over the years, the hours that children spend playing outside can pay off when it comes to physical, intellectual and social development. Yet, such valuable interaction is fleeting these days. From 1997 to 2003, there was a 50% drop in kids who participated in outdoor activities such as hiking, walking and fishing, according to a University of Maryland study.” Mother Nature; Raising Healthier Kids - Usaweekend.com

The Reading Trail

Draw a trail of boxes and arrows down the sidewalk. Draw a box, then arrows directing them to the next box, about 10 feet away, and so on. At the end could be a beautiful drawing, if you’re artistically inclined, or a small prize, or a hug from you. In each box, depending on your child’s reading level, write a single word or a sentence. Rules - Your child starts at the beginning and moved on when he/she reads the word or sentence.

Reading Obstacle Course

Set up an obstacle course with a sentence or word chalked between each obstacle. For example; sentence, zig zag around cones, sentence, jump through the hula hoop, sentence, balance walk on a length of string, sentence, jump over the blue “river” chalked on the ground. If you want, all your obstacles can be drawn on the sidewalk instead of using real items.
Rules - Read the sentence and go through the obstacle!

Color Me

Are you currently working on body parts, the circulatory system, or the heart? Let the kids chalk it out while narrating what they know. Themes like communities, animal lifecycles, wildlife, nature, your family tree, etc. are fun to draw out. Younger kids can work on color recognition.

The Alphabet Board

Make a giant game board with 25 squares. Put a letter of the alphabet on each square in random order, excluding the letter “x”.

Rules - Each kid has to start at the beginning and take each square one at a time. They have to come up with 5 words that start with that letter/sound before they can move on. To make it harder for the older ones, ask them to also come up with a word or two that end with that letter.

As you can see, it’s fun to learn with a stick of sidewalk chalk in your hand. I hope these games get you outside and get your imagination working as you tweak them to fit your needs. Have a great time and may the rain stay far away from your creations!

“After tens of thousands of years of children playing and working primarily outdoors, the last few generations have seen such interaction with nature vanish almost entirely. The implications — for children’s physical and mental health, and for the future of environmentalism — are immense.” Grist.org

Buy: Double Color Sidewalk Chalk Bucket

About the author:
Peggy Baron plays with her kids in Colorado, and runs
http://cookinkids.com/, a website devoted to helping parents and kids have fun together in the kitchen. Peggy is the editor of the popular Cookin’ Kids Newsletter, a bi-monthly newsletter with fun facts, recipes, jokes, games, cooking safety, and cooking terms wrapped around different themes.

Author: Kim Hiatt, Ph.D.
Do you find yourself stuck when trying to help your children lose weight? Or worse, do you feel helpless as they gain weight? Are you doing all the “right” things, but your child is still gaining weight? Does it seem like whatever you say or do doesn’t work - they just don’t listen to you? Do you feel like you keep trying to get your family to change their behaviors but nothing has lasting results?

If you can identify with these feelings you are probably wondering what you can do to make things better. One of the most important first steps you can take is to examine what you are saying and doing that could be adding to your child’s weight struggles. In our experience working with families coping with weight issues, we have found that it is common for parents to send well-intentioned but wrong-headed messages to their offspring. You may be sending the wrong message if you do the following:

Mistake #1: Put your child on a diet:
It seems logical to encourage an overweight child to diet, but did you know that research shows that for the majority of children and adolescents, diets cause them to gain weight? It’s true. Dieting can lead children to binge eating, emotional eating and weight gain. There are on-diet approaches to weight loss that will work much better over the long run.

Mistake #2: Impose a lot of rules:
Have you ever found yourself saying, “You can have sweets but only on special occasions?” Or “you must eat your vegetables at dinner” or “if you put it on your plate, you have to eat it.” Households in which there are a lot of food rules tend to be households with overweight kids who constantly think about eating and look for the opportunity to “break the rules” when they are at school or out with their friends. In addition, the more you attempt to enforce these food rules the less likely your child is to listen to his or her own internal cues - cues that tell a person when to stop eating because they are full.

The road to healthy nutrition starts in the kitchen. Actually it starts in the grocery store. Your children will eat what you buy. If you don’t buy it, they can’t eat it (you can’t either).

The road to healthy nutrition starts in the kitchen. Actually it starts in the grocery store. Your children will eat what you buy. If you don’t buy it, they can’t eat it (you can’t either). Avoid all processed snack foods, packaged foods, sugary foods and salty foods. If you don’t have chips in the cupboard, your kids may whine and moan but they will not be eating Doritos. Your decisions in the grocery store and your personal example mean more than anything.

Mistake #3 Nag:
If you are constantly bugging your child to eat less or watch what he or she eats, you aren’t doing your child any favors. The same holds true if you frequently talk about your own weight issues. Listen closely to your own conversation. Are you pointing out other overweight people that you see in a negative way? Do you chide yourself out loud for your own physical imperfections? Kids are sharp listeners and they will pick up on what you are saying in ways you probably did not intend them to. Instead of nagging, try inspiring your child. For example, if your child wants to be a baseball player when he grows up, buy him a bat, some balls and a baseball glove. Take him outside a few times a week and practice baseball skills with him. The exercise you get together will help inspire him to reach his goals and see the role losing weight might play in achieving them. This works far better than nagging ever will.

Mistake #4 -Interrogate:
Take a hard look at the questions you ask your child. Avoid the temptation to put him or her on the spot by asking, “Do you really need to eat that, honey?” Consider asking a different set of questions that focus instead on really getting to know your child and making it clear to him or her that your love is not dependent on the numbers on the family scale. Your child wants to connect with you and be heard. The very act of listening to your son or daughter and acknowledging that child’s dreams, hopes and desires decreases stress, increases self-esteem and boosts overall happiness levels. If you recognized some of your behaviors in this story, don’t feel guilty. We all make mistakes that we can learn from. When you find yourself resorting to old bad habits, simply resolve to let them go. Your child will be grateful.

Marna Goldstein and Kim Hiatt regularly speak about issues relating to childhood obesity and secrets thin families know about weight control. Both women have successfully overcome their own weight-loss difficulties. Goldstein and Hiatt are co-owners of ThinFromWithinKids.com. Goldstein is the author of Naturally Thin Secrets. Hiatt is an adjunct professor of psychology at Southwestern College who recently earned her Ph.D. Her doctorate dissertation was on childhood obesity.

Buy the Book: No More Fat Kids

Sheryl’s comment:
It helps to do things right from the beginning. That means proper (strict) nutrition during pregnancy. Lay off the Kit-Kat bars and ice cream while pregnant. That sort of nonsense eating is terrible for you and your baby. You only need 300 extra calories a day so use them wisely, not on crap. Take a food based prenatal and get tons of Omega 3.

After your baby is born, continue your wonderful organic, fruit and vegetable eating habits and breastfeed exclusively for at least six months. Formula fed babies are being trained to eat junky processed food from birth and their weight reflects that. Formula should be left for true emergencies. Plenty of full time working moms manage to pump milk and breastfeed exclusively.

Once your baby starts eating solid foods, serve him as fresh, raw foods as possible. Avocado and banana are time tested standbys for starter foods. There is no need to purchase bottles of very non-natural colored jarred food. You can steam broccoli or sweet potatoes in less than ten minutes and mash them with a fork or stick them in the blender. You don’t even have to be that creative. Just lay off the boxes, bags and jars and stick to the produce section for a truly healthy start for your baby.

About the author:
Visit http://www.Thinfromwithinkids.com to sign up for a free newsletter and immediately receive three free audio CDs. You can also learn more about their “Naturally Thin Families Reveal Their Secrets” teleseminar.

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