26 Apr 2010 New kids health initiative

This could be the first generation of children who may not live as long as their parents.  One in three children are overweight or obese. Eighty percent of obese teens will remain obese as adults. A majority of overweight or obese children already have other chronic health conditions.

How we can best take on this initiative will no doubt include a wide range of opinions.  We can blame many entities such as the lack of recreational parks, the fast food industry, schools, video games and so many others. I believe that it starts at home. But we have to carefully choose our words and, more than anything, as parents we need to model good, healthy behaviors and provide a healthy food environment at home.

Try to refrain from making the subject of food such an issue. Kids need to feel secure about food, not confused. If you have to tell your child that a food is bad, then don’t bring it into the house. That saves you from turning that food into something negative or having to say no to a food. The more you try to limit a so-called bad food, the more important and desirable that food becomes.

The same goes for portions. Yes, food portions are very important, however keep in mind that if a child feels that they will be limited, then the food sneaking and hoarding begins.  If you offer healthy meals, then there is often less need to police portions.

We also seem to overuse the word “healthy.” It’s good that most of us have enough sense to not use words such as fat, skinny, etc. If we are concerned about our child’s increasing waistline, we tell them that we only want them to be “healthy.”

Kids are no fools. Soon they attribute the word healthy to mean thin. Or if we call a vegetable healthy, soon kids attribute that to mean yucky. I like to use words such as energy, stamina, brain-power, disease fighter and grow-foods when I want to indicate that a certain food is healthy. It’s not always easy but I do try not to say too much about the so-called junk foods. The more you go on about how bad junk food can be, the more appealing it will be to your kids.

It may be a foreign concept, but it just seems easier to try not to make food into such a big issue. One thing we do know for sure is that our kids are not moving enough and they are watching too much TV. Rather than focusing on the food, you might make better progress by focusing on physical activity and limiting sedentary activities. The likelihood of being overweight or obese is much greater if a child has a TV in their bedroom or if they watch more than two hours of TV per day.

Get moving with your kids. Don’t tell them to play outside while you watch TV. The more you model the healthy behaviors you want them to do, the more they will willingly do it.