Obesity is at an all-time high in the United States and statistics show that even young children are now at risk for Type II Diabetes. This is an epidemic and a shame. Our children’s health is being ruined and shortening their life span. For the first time in the last 100 years, children today do not have a longer life span than their parents. It is imperative that we help our overweight children to lose weight. One of the best ways of doing this is to teach them to eat healthy.

The first step in getting your child to eat healthy is to cut out the fast food, junk food snacks, and soft drinks. The best way to do this is for you, as the parent, to set a good example. It doesn’t do any good and is certainly not fair for you to tell your child they can’t have junk food and soft drinks and then consume those things yourself. If you want your child to develop healthy eating habits, let them see you following your own rules. Here are some more tips to follow:

• Make sure you prepare well-balanced meals. Every meal should have a small portion of meat for protein (about the size of a deck of cards) and two to three vegetables.

• Have a variety of vegetables at each meal. The easiest way to decide what vegetables to serve is to remember to have different colors. Spinach, broccoli, green beans, asparagus for greens – corn, squash, carrots, sweet potatoes for the yellow family, and potatoes, turnips, cauliflower for whites. This will always give you a variety with all of the vitamins covered.

• Serve fruit for dessert – no cakes, brownies, or snack cakes.

• Keep junk food out of the house. This is the best way to resist temptation – by not having it there in the first place. When they are not at home, unfortunately, they will have plenty of opportunities to have junk food. Eliminating one of their ways to get it is a start in the right direction.

As you can see, the tips above are all for eating meals at home. One of the reasons American adults and children are struggling obesity today is because so many families eat out all the time. Your children need to grow up with eating at home being the norm. They need to learn how to shop for and prepare healthy meals. If you truly want to make sure your children eat healthy, limit the number of times you eat out. Cut out or completely eliminate eating at fast food restaurants. When you do have to eat out, set an example by choosing a healthy salad with a low-fat, low-calorie dressing on the side.

These are just a few suggestions to help your overweight child, but it is a good start. Remember to explain to your children why you are making these changes with the emphasis being on improving their health, not making them feel bad for being overweight. The parent of every overweight child has to share in the responsibility of their child’s weight problem. You have to make rules and set goals for improving your child’s eating habits and stick to them for the sake of your child.

Jason Ladock

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