Diet for Childhood Obesity
Childhood obesity has immediate and long-term impacts on physical, social, and emotional health.
Obese children are at higher risk for health conditions that impact physical health, like asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, type 2 diabetes, and risk factors for heart disease. They are bullied and teased and are more likely to suffer from social isolation, depression, and lower self-esteem.
Parents have to play a very crucial role in helping children lose fat and feel loved. There is no easy way or quick solution of it and it’s difficult for both parents and children.
There are few things to understand before starting your child’s fat loss journey:
- It’s different: Children have specific nutritional needs for growth and development. Many children may not lose weight or gain at a slower rate for the body’s demand for growth and development. All you need to do is to start practising for long-term modifications in lifestyle and forget about the word “diet”.
- Teamwork: Don’t impose anything on your child. If members of the family are not eating healthy food, it will be very difficult to make your child do so. Involve the family and remind your child why are you doing it. You can explain to your child how healthy food can keep the family/him/her healthy, grow strong, make intelligent, keeps skin glowing, hair shining etc.
- Go slow: Don’t implement everything together. Take help from a registered dietitian to prioritize things. Your child can have too many things to enjoy (like parathas, smoothies, shallow fried cutlets etc).
- Unhealthy Food: Stop buying unhealthy food like soda, juice, chips, fries, cake, cookies, chocolates, etc.
- Activity/Exercise: Every child loves to play something or the other. Figure out what’s going to work best. Reduce sedentary time with TV, video games and internet.
- Communication: It’s not easy to talk to your child about weight. Find out the right time to talk about it and don’t forget to compliment your child about something which he/she is good at. Don’t compare, praise efforts and teach to respect his/her own body. Avoid negative talks.
- Take help: Your child might be under tremendous stress. Take help of a paediatrician, child psychologist and registered dietitian whenever required.
Childhood obesity has immediate and long-term impacts on physical, social, and emotional health.