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Information for patients and parents: How can I help an overweight child?
Learn
healthy eating and physical activity habits that may last for a lifetime.
Healthy eating and physical activity habits are key to a child's well-being. Eating too much and exercising too little can lead to overweight and related health problems that can follow children into adult years. Take an active role in helping a child learn healthy eating and physical activity habits that may last for a lifetime.
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Is my child overweight?
Because
children grow at different rates at different times, it is not always
easy to tell if a child is overweight. If you think that your child is
overweight, talk to your health care provider. Your health care provider
can measure your child’s height and weight and tell you if your child
is in a healthy range.
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How
can I help my overweight child?
Do
not put your child on a weight-loss diet unless your health care provider
tells you to. If children do not eat enough, they may not grow and learn
as well as they should.
 Involve
the whole family in building healthy eating and physical activity habits.
It benefits everyone and does not single out the child who is overweight.
Try to:
-
Be supportive
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Encourage healthy eating habits
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Encourage daily physical activity
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Discourage inactive pastimes
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Be a positive role model.
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Be
supportive
-
Tell
your child that he or she is loved, is special, and is important.
Children’s feelings about themselves often are based on their
parents’ feelings about them.
-
Accept
your child at any weight. Children will be more likely to accept and
feel good about themselves when their parents accept them.
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Listen
to your child’s concerns about his or her weight. Overweight
children probably know better than anyone else that they have a weight
problem. For this reason, overweight children need support, acceptance,
and encouragement from parents.
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Buy
and serve more fruits and vegetables (fresh, frozen, or canned). Let
your child choose them at the store.
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Skip
buying soft drinks and high fat/high calorie snack foods like chips,
cookies, and candy. If children do not see these foods at home, they
will be less likely to ask for them and you will not have to say “no.”
Choose healthy snack foods.
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Eat
breakfast every day. Skipping breakfast can leave your child hungry,
tired, and looking for less healthy foods later in the day.
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Plan
healthy meals and eat together as a family. Planning the week’s
meals and grocery shopping can help save you time and money. Sitting
together at meal times helps children learn to enjoy a variety of
foods.
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Eat
fast food less often. When you visit a fast food restaurant, take
advantage of the healthful options offered.
Here are more tips to encourage healthy eating habits:
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Do
not get discouraged if your child will not eat a new food the first
time it is served. Some kids will need to have a new food served to
them 10 times or more before they will eat it.
-
Try
not to use food as a reward when encouraging kids to eat. Promising
dessert to a child for eating vegetables, for example, sends the message
that vegetables are less valuable than dessert. Kids learn to dislike
foods they think are less valuable.
-
Do
not try to control the amount of food your child eats. It is up to
you to provide your child with healthy meals and snacks, but your
child should be allowed to choose how much food he or she will eat.
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Healthy
snack foods for your child to try
-
 Fresh
fruit
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Fruit
canned in juice or light syrup, such as mandarin oranges, peaches,
or pineapples
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Small
amounts of dried fruits such as raisins, apple rings, or apricots
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Fresh
vegetables such as baby carrots, cucumber, zucchini, or tomatoes
cut and served with low-fat salad dressing for dipping
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Reduced
fat cheese served with whole-wheat crackers
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Low-fat
yogurt with fruit
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Bagel
spread with small amount of peanut butter
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Graham
crackers, animal crackers, or low-fat vanilla wafers
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Tortilla
spread with low-fat refried beans
Foods
that are small, round, sticky, or hard to chew, such as raisins, whole
grapes, hard vegetables, hard chunks of cheese, nuts, seeds, and popcorn
can cause choking. These foods are not good choices for preschool age
children.
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Fun
physical activities for your child to try:
Riding
a bike
Climbing
on a jungle-gym
Swinging
on a swing set
Jumping
rope
Playing
hopscotch
Bouncing
a ball
 Like
adults, kids need daily physical activity. Here are some ways to help
your child move every day:
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When
appropriate and safe, let your child walk places such as to school,
the store, or to friends’ houses.
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Encourage
your child to take physical education (PE) class at school, if available.
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Encourage
your child to join a sports team or class, such as soccer, dance,
basketball, or gymnastics.
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Be
active together as a family. Assign active chores such as making the
beds, washing the car, or vacuuming. Plan active outings such as a
trip to the zoo or a walk through a local park.
Because
his or her body is not ready yet, do not encourage your pre-adolescent
child to participate in adult-style physical activity such as long jogs,
using an exercise bike or treadmill, or lifting heavy weights. FUN physical
activities are best for kids.
Kids
need a total of about 60 minutes of physical activity a day, but this
does not have to be all at one time. Short 10- or even 5-minute bouts
of activity throughout the day are just as good.
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Discourage
inactive pastimes
-
 Set
limits on the amount of time your family spends watching TV and videos,
and playing video games.
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Help
your child find FUN things to do besides watching TV. Your child may
find that creative play is more interesting than television.
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Read
together instead of watching TV. Read at home or volunteer to read
to others. Read to adults and children at your local hospital or sign
up to help people learn to read.
-
Encourage
your child to get up and move during commercials and discourage snacking
when the TV is on.
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Fun
things for you and your child to do besides watching TV
-
Take
turns acting out favorite books or stories, or singing along
to favorite songs. Use old clothes for costumes.
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Make
instruments out of kitchen items and dance to the music you
make. Shake a jar filled with macaroni and beat on a plastic bowl
with wooden spoons.
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Play
schoolyard games at home. Make a hopscotch on the floor with
masking tape, play follow-the-leader or “Simon says,”
and toss balls into a basket.
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Do
a family art project. Trace cookie cutters on paper, make masks
out of paper bags, design a paper airplane, or cut and glue pictures
to a piece of paper.
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Go
camping at home. Make a tent by putting a sheet over a table
or use a big box as a tent, make a sleeping bag from a blanket,
and sing “campfire” songs.
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Be
a positive role model
Children
are good learners and they learn what they see. Choose healthy foods and
active pastimes for yourself. Your children will see that they can follow
healthy habits that last for the rest of their lives.
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Find
more help
Your
health care provider
Ask
your health care provider for brochures, booklets, or other informational
materials about healthy eating, physical activity, and weight control.
Your health care provider may be able to refer you to other health care
professionals who work with overweight children, such as registered dietitians,
psychologists, and exercise physiologists.
 Your
local library
Ask
a librarian to help you locate books about weight control for children.
Books should be written by a health professional and should encourage
the whole family to build healthy eating and physical activity habits.
Avoid books that promise quick results or encourage fad diets.
Many
libraries sponsor talks about a variety of topics, including health. Ask
a librarian if any talks about healthy eating, physical activity, or weight
control for children are scheduled.
The
Internet
Look
for websites about healthy eating, physical activity, and weight control
for children. When searching the Internet, avoid websites that promise
quick results, encourage fad diets, or ask you to buy something such as
pills, food, or exercise equipment.
Here
are some resources that you can look at on the Internet:
County
extension office
Locate
the cooperative extension office for your county by looking in the government
section of your phone book under the name of your county. Your extension
office may offer free or low-cost materials or classes in cooking and
nutrition.
Your local recreation center or community center
Sign
up for physical activity classes or programs for families or children.
Weight-control program
You
may want to think about a treatment program if:
To
locate a weight-control program for your child, you may wish to contact
your local hospital, university, or college.
The
overall goal of a treatment program should be to help your whole family
adopt healthy eating and physical activity habits that you can keep up
for the rest of your lives. Here are some other things a weight-control
program should do:
-
Include
a variety of health care professionals on staff: doctors, RDs, psychiatrists
or psychologists, and/or exercise physiologists.
-
Evaluate
your child’s weight, growth, and health before enrolling in the
program and watch these factors while enrolled.
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Adapt
to the specific age and abilities of your child. Programs for 4-year-olds
should be different from those for 12-year-olds.
-
Help
your family keep up healthy eating and physical activity behaviors
after the program ends.
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Weight-control Information Network
1
Win Way
Bethesda, MD 20892-3665
Tel: (202) 828-1025 or 1-877-946-4627
Fax: (202) 828-1028
E-mail: win@info.niddk.nih.gov
The
Weight-control Information Network (WIN) is a national service of the
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of
the National Institutes of Health, which is the Federal Government’s
lead agency responsible for biomedical research on nutrition and obesity.
Authorized by Congress (Public Law 103-43), WIN provides the general
public, health professionals, the media, and Congress with up-to-date,
science-based health information on weight control, obesity, physical
activity, and related nutritional issues.
WIN
answers inquiries, develops and distributes publications, and works
closely with professional and patient organizations and Government agencies
to coordinate resources about weight control and related issues.
Publications
produced by WIN are reviewed by both NIDDK scientists and outside experts.
This fact sheet was also reviewed by Leonard Epstein, Ph.D., Professor
of Pediatrics, Social and Preventive Medicine, and Psychology, University
of Buffalo School and Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Gladys Gary
Vaughn, Ph.D., National Program Leader, Cooperative State Research,
Education, and Extension Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
This
e-text is not copyrighted. WIN encourages users of this e-pub to duplicate
and distribute as many copies as desired.
© RAmEx Ars Medica, Inc.
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Published - 14:00 UTC 08:00 EST 6-Jan-2004 