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Overweight Kids: What Parents Need To Do

Being a kid today is a lot different than it used to be. Instant messaging, play-stations and Ipod’s have replaced kick-the-can, tag and kickball as the activities of choice. The sedentary nature of these activities has created a plethora of overweight kids. If you spent a day in a high school or middle school, you would be shocked at the amount of overweight kids lumbering through the halls. If you witnessed what they ate—well, you'd see why. Even scarier: many overweight kids don’t seem to acknowledge that being overweight is a problem. This is because it is slowly becoming the norm, creating the illusion that it must therefore be ok. It’s not ok because the health and social ramifications are substantial. Nationally 22% of kids are considered overweight. In New York City alone, the statistic is an alarming 45%. So what can parents do?

The days of dad going to work and mom staying home are long gone. Today households rely on dual incomes with both parents often working long hours. Time is scarce for cooking family dinners. It is easier to pick something up from a take-out
place. After all, there’s one on every corner. Statistics show that meals eaten
outside of the home are larger in portion size and higher in saturated fat and calories. If you introduce your children to these kinds of foods now, it will reflect on how they eat later in life. Habits develop during childhood.

Here is what you need to do as a parent. If it is absolutely necessary to order take out food, it is imperative to order ones that are healthy and smaller in portion size. Instead of pizza or cheese-steaks, order the grilled chicken or sushi. Your child will learn and integrate these healthy eating habits. One of the problems with making these changes, however, is that as an adult you may have poor eating habits yourself, which is why the foods you bring in for the family are unhealthy. And when there is time to cook, you lack the initiative to do so because of the routine and convenience of ordering take-out. As parents, you have got to make sacrifices and lead by example. This means reshaping your own eating habits. It means being consistent with ordering healthy foods. It means “making” the time to cook more often.

Dinner meals are not the only thing parents can regulate, parents also have jurisdiction over what their child eats for lunch. Guess how? Send your child to school with no money. That’s right, no money. Bag their lunch at all times. This prevents them from purchasing the unhealthy foods and soft drinks that are prevalent in schools. Put a granola bar in your child’s bag instead of a twinkie. Give them a bottle of water instead of a sweetened juice drink or soda; they’ll get used to it. One can of soda contains 8-10 teaspoons of sugar and 140 calories, and some kids drink as many as 7 a day. Do the math.

As I mentioned earlier, the other factor that has helped “shape” this overweight epidemic is the countless hours kids spend in front of computers and video games; and this doesn’t include the 21 hours a week that the average kid spends watching television. In fact, a recent survey showed that kids prefer electronic entertainment over out-door entertainment. There are kids who come home from school, go straight to their room and hide behind the computer all night. No wonder why the playgrounds always seem empty. As a parent, you can do something about this. You need to take the computer, television and video games out of your child’s room—regardless of how much grief they give you. You need to encourage your child to go outside and play. If they claim there is nothing to do, tell them to go find something to do. You did when you were a kid. If he/she is already a video junkie, buy him/her the game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). DDR is a dance game in which kids stand on a pad that has arrows on it. When an arrow comes on the television screen, they step quickly in the direction of the it. There are different levels: beginner to advanced. The game is very popular and provides an excellent calorie-burning workout. Kids who play this game regularly, lose significant amounts of weight—unintentionally.
Yes, times have changed, but if we don’t do something about the overweight problem now, our kids are going to be in big trouble when they reach adulthood. In fact, 70 percent of today’s kids will be overweight adults, and the age expectancy has already gone down for the first time in history. If your kid is overweight, it's not to late to teach healthy weight loss skills. A little creativity and sacrifice is all it takes to get your child on a healthy track. Remember, you need to be a parent not a friend. That means removing computers, televisions and video games from your child’s bedroom whether they like it or not; they will thank you later on. It means working harder at providing them with nutritious meals, and most of all it means making personal sacrifices with your own eating.

Thomas J. Kersting, Ph.D