Parents and caregivers have a huge responsibility of helping their kids to maintain healthy weight. Getting more active, eating healthy foods and beverages are very essential for the total wellbeing of your child. You need play active role towards ensuring that your kids and the rest of the family members cultivate habits that is beneficial for your health.
How to Know if Your Child is Overweight
It is not always easy to tell if your child is overweight. Kids have variable growth spurts and the rate at which they grow vary at different times. Again, the amount of a child’s body fat is altered with age and varies between girls and boys.
You can know if your child is overweight by calculating his or her body mass index (BMI). BMI is the estimation of your child’s weight in relation to his height.
The BMI calculator makes use of a formula that creates a score frequently utilized to tell if an individual is underweight, a normal weight or overweight. The BMI of children is age and sex dependent and is referred to as the “BMI-for-age.
BMI-for-age makes use of uses growth charts produced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors make use of these charts to ascertain how a child is growing.
The charts make use of a number referred to as a percentile to demonstrate the comparism between your child’s BMI and the BMI of other kids. The key BMI categories for children and teenagers are:
- healthy weight: Fifth to eighty-forth percentile
- overweight: eighty-fifth to ninety-fourth percentile
- obese: Ninety-fifth percentile and above.
If your child is overweight, you may want to help your child gain a healthy weight. Most often, weight loss plan that works for adult is not a perfect weight lose for kids. The nutritional needs of children are different from that of adults according to Tamara Melton, a dietitian and instructor at Georgia State University.
The best way to assist your child to lose weight is to speak with his or her pediatrician to ensure that the methods you employ is healthy for your child. You may as well want to consider trying the following things that helps you, your child and the entire family to live a healthy lifestyle and maintain healthy weight.
Determine a Suitable Weight Goal
A number of younger kids don’t have any need to pursue weight loss for kids because they are still growing and may be required to maintain their weight or gain weight at a slower rate. Older teenagers may lose up to 2 pounds every week. Seek the advice of your child’s doctor to know the best goal to pursue for him or her.
You Must Never Put a Child Under Diet And The Use of Supplements
You may be tempted to put your child on a diet. You should never go to such extreme unless it was the recommendation of the child’s pediatrician. By all means avoid any form of calorie-cut for your kid.
You may be depriving him or her of the amount of calories and nutrients they need to grow. It may as well make your child to develop negative attitude towards food later in life. You must also not vie for weight loss drugs or supplements except if they are prescribed by a medical practitioner. There is insufficient scientific data on the effects of these pills on kids.
Get the Whole Family into the Weight Loss Plan
Rather than shame a child about his or her weight, try to get the whole family involved. Discuss with all the members of the family about how you want to make some healthy changes to the feeding plans and exercise plans for yourself and the entire family.
The best way to teach a child is to learn from example. It will be easier for your child to imbibe the new habit if you first of all lead by example.
A particular study showed that kids are more likely to engage in weight loss for kids if their parents lead by example.
Another study, published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders, found that parents who make comments about their child being overweight affect them negatively later in life. This is especially so for female kids.
A parent’s comments on a daughter’s weight can have serious negative consequences for many years to come. This may make the girl to be chronically dissatisfied with her body in the future even when she is of normal weight.
Although, as a parent whose child is overweight, you need to be concerned, you must find a suitable way to communicate that to your child to avoid damaging his or self image.