Studies undertaken show that nearly 70% of young teenage girls have attempted to lose weight before their 18th birthday. Is it necessary for these young girls to be dieting, and are they doing it in a way that is not detrimental to their health?
It is crucial to teach your teenage daughter how to develop a healthy lifestyle which is more than merely encouraging her to eat healthy meals. A healthy lifestyle means to develop habits that she can practice for the rest of her life.
This article addresses the issues of healthy weight loss habits, weight management and body image.
Promote Gradual Weight Loss
As a parent it is not always easy to get your child to eat healthy balanced meals, and there are circumstances where your child may need to lose a little weight. It is then your role as a responsible parent to promote safe, gradual weight loss.
Many teenage girls will put themselves onto strict crash diets. The problem with crash diets is that not only are they potentially damaging to your daughter's health, but gaining the weight back again is inevitable and unfortunately the gain is often beyond that of her original weight.
A loss of 1-2 pounds per week is recommended to achieve permanent weight loss results.
Get The Whole Family Involved
To get your teenage daughter to adopt healthy eating habits, the whole family needs to be involved. Rather than filling your kitchen with unhealthy snacks or "forbidden foods", stock your kitchen with foods that are good for you.
Offer snacks that are nourishing, satisfying, and tasty. Always prepare nutritious, well balanced meals and replace those sugary snacks and potato crisps with fresh fruit and nuts.
Teenagers who get the support from their families will achieve better weight loss results and are more likely yo maintain their weight loss, than those who don't. Additionally, children who grow up educated in healthy eating habits at home will adopt those habits for the rest of their lives.
Start The Day With A Nutritious Breakfast
There are a number of reasons why teenage girls will often skip breakfast such as; not feeling hungry, they're running late, or they believe that skipping breakfast will help them to lose weight.Missing breakfast wil in factl slow down her weight loss efforts. Eating a nutritious breakfast fuels the brain and the body, and kick-starts the metabolism to burn off additional calories right throughout the day.
Drink Plenty Of Water
One of the biggest weight gain perpetrators is high sugar drinks, energy drinks and fruit juices. Instead, try to promote water as an alternative to these high calorie beverages. Not only is water calorie free, but it flushes out harmful toxins and rejuvenates the body.
Discuss Body Issues
Many teenage girls struggle with body image issues and it is vital to discuss openly with your daughter any of the concerns that she may have with her weight and body image. Encourage her to discuss her worries, about her body image and why she thinks she needs to lose weight. For the health and safety of your daughter these issues should never be brushed aside. Your support and assistance will allow your daughter to continue to grow in happiness and good health.
I don't know about you but I am like most people and I find the weight I lost over the summer and fall during the holiday season from November through Christmas. It is difficult to stay on a half way decent healthy diet when all the sweet stuff is calling your name! Still, it is possible to enjoy the holidays and still taste some of the forbidden fruit while eating healthy and avoiding the holiday weight gain that most experience.
Traditional holiday foods can be prepared to be low fat in most cases. For example, the turkey that just about everyone has for thanksgiving or Christmas dinner is extremely lean if you remove the skin and you can make a lean gravy to go over it as well. Potatoes are very good for you, until you load them up with butter and sour cream. Even pumpkin pie can be made to be healthy and nutritious if you forego the mound of whipped cream.
One of the other reasons that people gain a lot of weight over the holidays is because they decide to skip out on exercise. Half the battle of keeping the pounds off during the holidays is regular exercise, and maybe even a little extra to get rid of those extra calories you are taking in. It is a good habit to get into taking a walk after every meal and do some extra walking when you go shopping, park way out instead of looking for the closest spot. Not only will this help you to reduce your weight but it will reduce stress as well.
When it comes to the food itself, fill up on things like fresh vegetables, fruits and lean meat. That way you won't have the room to even feel like eating all the fattening desserts and you will choose a tiny sliver of pie instead of choosing a quarter of the whole pie.
Alcohol is another big culprit for excess calories and in addition to the empty calories it takes away your will to diet and also will make you eat more. Make sure that you choose water instead which will keep you from adding all the extra calories as well as help you to feel more full. Try to totally avoid eggnog which is loaded with belly building calories and fat.
You don't have to be super strict to the point of not enjoying the holidays, just remember to eat in moderation and limit the fatty foods to not much more than a taste, balancing that with some additional exercise and you will avoid the holiday bulge.
Both Kelly Yuile & Gregg Hall are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Kelly Yuile has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, web development and Ideas for Scrapbooking. Kelly Yuile writes about the issues of being overweight, dieting and weight loss. Her website is dedicated to healthy, safe and effective. Kelly Yuile's top article generates over 6600 views. to your Favourites.
Gregg Hall has sinced written about articles on various topics from Lingerie, Desserts and Mortgage. Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about holiday cooking and online at. Gregg Hall's top article generates over 3350000 views. to your Favourites.