Parents, guardians, and teachers can help children maintain a healthy weight by helping them develop healthy eating habits and limiting calorie-rich temptations. You also want to help children be physically active, have reduced screen time, and get adequate sleep.
The goal for children who are overweight is to reduce the rate of weight gain while allowing normal growth and development. Children should NOT be placed on a weight reduction diet without the consultation of a health care provider.
Remember small changes everyday can lead to success!
There are 5 areas to concentrate on:
1. Develop Healthy Eating Habits
- Provide plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole-grain products.
- Include low-fat or non-fat milk or dairy products, including cheese and yogurt.
- Choose lean meats, poultry, fish, lentils, and beans for protein.
- Encourage your family to drink lots of water.
- Limit sugary drinks.
- Limit consumption of sugar and saturated fat.
2. Limit Calorie-Rich Temptations
- Reducing the availability of high-fat and high-sugar or salty snacks can help your children develop healthy eating habits.
3. Help Children Stay Active
- Reducing the availability of high-fat and high-sugar or salty snacks can help your children develop healthy eating habits.
- Remember that children imitate adults. Start adding physical activity to your own routine and encourage your child to join you.
4. Reduce Sedentary Time
- Although quiet time for reading and homework is fine, limit the time children watch television, play video games, or surf the web to no more than 2 hours per day.
- Instead, encourage children to find fun activities to do with family members or on their own that simply involve more activity.
5. Ensure Adequate Sleep
- Too little sleep is associated with obesity, partly because inadequate sleep makes us eat more and be less physically active. Children need more sleep than adults, and the amount varies by age. See recommended amounts of sleep: https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/getting-enough-sleep.html