It's become almost an epidemic in our culture. What can parents do to prevent
child obesity? We'll talk about that and I'll give you 5 specific things that
you can do. The rates of obesity worldwide are increasing especially in
North America for children. Preschool age children. Some of the studies are
estimating that 10% of preschool age children have an obesity problem. By the
time they get into school, those numbers double. Double.
One in 5. And it's trending in a negative direction. So, we have to be
careful about this thing. It's becoming a health crisis that is only going to get
worse if we don't intervene. The simple equation is calories in and calories out.
Whatever is greater is going to determine the direction of the weight
gain or the weight loss. Now, that's the simple equation, okay? There's a lot of
complicating factors. But basically, its calories in versus calories out. What
does that mean for our kids? What they eat matters and what kind of activity
they engage in matters. We've also learned that restrictive diets are not
particularly helpful for children. And they're not healthy. They need certain
kinds of nutrition in order to develop and for their body to grow properly. So,
I'm not advocating any restrictive diets for children unless your healthcare
professional has directed you to do something specific along those lines.
We're not going to go that direction. Let's talk about 5 specific tips that
will help you as a parent to help your child. Tip number 1, model good behavior.
And let's focus on health and fitness rather than weight. It's important to
educate our kids. And they have no idea what nutrition is all about until we
teach them. So, as a parent, it's so important to model that for your
children and to show them what it means to eat in a healthy way and to make
better choices with snacks or meals. I know. This puts some pressure back on you
as a parent because you need to model that for them. It doesn't matter what you
tell them if you're showing them something very different.
So, let's own that as parents, shall we? The second tip that I have for you is to
focus on the family. Not a particularly individual. If there is one of your
children for example who is obese or having a problem with their weight, we
don't want to focus on them. This tends to promote guilt and shame and they feel
like they're a little weird or there's something wrong with them. Let's take the
focus off of any individual and put it back on the family. So, we talk about
these things as things that our family is doing to make better choices. Mom is
doing it, dad is doing it. All the kids are doing it to increase the health of the
family. That helps the kids who are struggling more than if you were to
single them out. Tip number 3, let's make better snack and meal choices. This
is about the fuel, okay? The intake of the calories. And let's do that at very
specific times. Some of the research is very supportive of having specific meal
times and also snack times. So, it's not just openly available. And along these
lines, don't combine sedentary activity with eating. In other words, let's stay
away from turning on the television (for example) and sitting down with a bag of
chips. This might be something that you enjoy doing or that is part of your
family culture. It's pretty obvious that if we combine eating with sedentary
activities, we have a higher tendency to get into some unhealthy patterns. And
sometimes that sedentary activity takes the mind off of focusing on the body and
what the body is telling us about nutritional needs are being full or
other cues that we want our kids to really tune into. So, here's a powerful
part of this tip. Instead of the sedentary activities, we combine our
eating with social connection and family relationships. We're talking about
dinnertime for example or enjoying a snack together. While we chat about
what's going on, how the day is going, what's happening in your life. Those
kinds of things are going to really cement the pattern for your child. That
leads me right into the fourth tip which is to limit the sedentary activity to
start with. I keep using this word sedentary. It basically means that you're
sitting around doing very little. And usually for our kids, sedentary activity
involves some kind of screen. Think about that for a minute. A tablet, a television,
a screen where they're watching something passively or engaging in a
game that requires very little physical activity. Those are sedentary activities
and we got a limit them. Most of the smart phones nowadays and maybe even the
tablets have a feature that allows you to monitor and track screen time. Do this
for yourself and you might be surprised at just how much of that there actually
is. Some of the studies that I reviewed in preparing for this particular video
suggested that kids are spending upwards of 24 or more hours a week on screen
time. That's crazy. And some have even more than that. We need to put limits and
parameters around that because kids are easily sucked into it. And as their body
sits there without moving around or being active, the calories that they're
in taking are having a different effect on their metabolism in their physiology.
Let's limit the sedentary activity. That's
number 4. I'm not going to leave you hanging. If we're taking away that
sedentary activity, what are we going to replace it with? Tip number 5, engage
in physical activity with your children. I emphasize with them because I want to
build your relationship. This will have other positive effects. And it's good for
you too. So, instead of watching the program on the screen, go out and take a
walk. Go for a hike. Visit the park. Go to a museum. Visit some historical site in
your town or your neighborhood. There's obvious cultural advantages to this too.
But the physical advantages are huge because now we're up and moving. And
we're pairing physical activity with a positive experience that they get to
have with you --their parent. Engage in physical activities together. Powerful
way to wrap up these 5 tips. You've got this. I know parenting can be a
challenging thing but you don't have to do this alone. We have a whole team that
Live On Purpose ready to assist you including myself and Vicki jump on a
discovery call. You can get there through DrPaulJenkins.com/
breakthroughcall. Just remember the breakthroughcall. DrPaulJenkins.com/
breakthroughcall. We're on your team and we're ready to help.