The amount of overweight children in the United States has grown at a shocking rate. Too many kids today are spending less time playing outside and too much time watching TV, on the computer, playing a video-game, or on the cell phone. Families have less time to prepare nutritious, home-cooked meals. Fast food is fast and easy, we need fast and easy in our lives. We also need happy, healthy children that grow up to be adults without the many problems that go along with being overweight.



Kids learn much of their lifestyle from peers and parents. There is a big debate going on among the trick cyclists (physiologists), about who has more influence. Maybe peers do have more influence than parents. You do not need to be a PhD to understand if you have a kitchen full of soft drinks, potato chips, ice cream, and ding dongs it is not going to help your child control their weight. When our children see us doing the habits that lead to being overweight, they more often than not pick up those habits. Help your kids by being an example; don't ask them to do something you are not already doing. Some children will eat and eat just to be eating. Help them out by cleaning out your kitchen. I am not saying you need to mop your kitchen floor, I am sure it is spotless, just like mine. I am saying you need to throw out the sweets and fattening food like ice cream that make it hard it develop healthy food habits. Your kitchen can be your child's friend or their worst foe.

Make it easier on your child by cleaning out your kitchen. Take a look at the ingredients of your food; is it good for your children? If not, you need to throw it away and buy food that is good. Throw out the white bread, white sugar, sweeteners, soft drinks, junk foods, processed foods, margarine, and soft drinks. Tell your children that if they want that kind of food then they can mow the lawn and you will give them 10 dollars, so they can buy it themselves. Mowing the lawn will burn some calories and they may get tired of spending their hard earned money on junk. At least this way if the food is not right at hand they have to mow the lawn, go to the store and buy the stuff. This is much more trouble than going to the kitchen and opening a drawer.

High fiber fruits and vegetables go straight through and take a little fat on the way. Complex carbohydrates like whole wheat or brown rice digest slow and keep the body fueled. When your child grabs a snack from the vending machine, the sugar will give them a rush for about an hour and then they crash like they are walking around with a pair of lead shoes.

Make healthier snacks like lightly salted nut, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and fruits. There are even chips made out of vegetables in most grocery stores. Find out what kind of healthy snacks they like. Veggies go better with blue cheese or ranch dressings to make them taste better. Make sure your ranch dressing does not have monosodium glutamate added.

Everyone likes fruit smoothies. There are a million recipes on the web for fruit smoothies that do not have added sugars. Read the fruit juice labels, pure fruit juice does not have corn syrup added. Fruit drinks have corn syrup, sugar, food coloring and all kinds of other thing added. Fruit drinks are not an improvement on nature.

Gaining weight doesn't just happen; it takes bad habits over time. The same thing with losing weight, it takes effort and it takes the added effort of having to make good habits. Breaking habits can be the hardest part. When you create new habits for your kids the weight loss happens automatically. If you help them now, the skills your child learns when creating new habits will stick with them for a lifetime. Getting your kids to exercise can be a challenge. Look at it like art and you will enjoy the process more. Failure is a big part of art, artists are willing to try new things and fail and enjoy the process. Frustration is part of the process, frustration just means you are about to make a breakthrough. Just keep trying new things and don't push too hard. Give them gentle pushes. Punishment is not the answer, encouragement is the answer. Kids love to play, exercise has to be play. Think like a kid, kids do not like to be pushed around; they do like attention as long as you are not making them wrong for being overweight and not wanting to exercise.

Family exercise is a good idea; it is something to do away from the TV. Kickball, volleyball or touch football in the backyard or go for a walk or bike ride. Anything that is fun that the family can do together that burns calories and gets the heart rate up.

Family exercise doesn't have to be a competition or rigorous. It needs to be fun, if you kid throws a ball it does not matter that they do it right. What matters is they had fun doing it and they know they are not being judged. They can learn to throw the ball the right way after you make sure they are enjoying throwing the ball. Kids who are overweight sometimes get a hard time in sports by their peers and their parents. Sports are fun, but not when people are telling you are doing it wrong.

In many schools gym class is required. Gym class five days a week can slim down the waistline in no time. Just make sure there is not a kitchen full of fattening snacks to come home to.