How to Help your Child

from PediatricObesity.com

The quickest way for parents to fail is to make their kids eat what they don't want to eat.

Ways to protect your children from obesity with food:

• Be a good role model. Your young child looks to you, the most important role model. Show your child through your example how to choose healthy, life-promoting foods.
• Don't count calories for them. Where the calories are from is just as important as how many.
• Read labels. the less saturated and hydrogenated fat, the better.
• Eat more vegetables. Keep offering them (without cheese sauce, butter and cream). Grill mushrooms, corn, onions, peppers (along with lean meats, fish, and poultry).
• Avoid the dessert struggle. Set the table with a single portion of dessert when you have a high calorie dessert, and let your kid eat it when he/she wants. No seconds.
• Don't pressure kids. It doesn't work and makes helping them even more difficult in the long run.
• Be cautious when dining out. Make good choices if you go to fast food restaurants.
• Choose good beverages. Drink water or skim milk instead of soda, pop, or juice drinks.
• Make healthy snacks handy. Cherry tomatoes instead of candy, a bowl of unshelled nuts and a nut cracker, fresh fruit out on the table or counter.
• Consider joining a CSA. Community supported agriculture brings you fresh picked, organically grown produce from local farms. Fresh, organic food tastes better and ensures that there is a ready supply of produce on hand for meals and healthy snacks.
• Involve your child in cooking. Young children love helping in the kitchen. Involve your child in healthy cooking. Even a two year old can help by measuring brown rice or tossing veggies into the food processor.

Make it easy for your kids to eat healthfully!

How?

Do:

• Make it a family affair -- everyone eats this way, walks this way, copes this way.
• Encourage and reinforce positively, just as soon as something good happens.
• Tell kids they're great as they are. Being a better weight will just make them healthier, stronger, faster, more fit, less tired-for them, not for others.
• Model the behavior you want them to have.

Don't:

• Be negative or dogmatic or critical, ever.
• Single out overweight kids in front of the other kids as having to be on a diet, and not normal -- they're all normal.
• Fuss or expect perfection. An occasional high calorie food isn't going to hurt them.
• Think it's too late to start. Kids learn quickly.