Weight Loss And Your Children

Thankfully I have not gone through the problems of having an over weight child, but child obesity is a major health problem of the modern age. It is not at all surprising if you think about it just a short while. Over recent decades, children have become much less active, and as we all know exercise is needed to burn off calories, and thus keep down weight within healthy limits. That, unfortunately, is a social trend which has been quite relentless in both its force and effect.

Coupled with about 3 generations of lazy children, is a social trend which has been just as powerful and influential. That is, an abundance of fast and processed food, stuffed with calories, high on fat and sugar, and short on nutritional balance. It is the result of a high speed society, where millions of people believe they do not have time to prepare and cook tasty and healthy food. They do have the time, of course, but have convinced themselves otherwise. They have then brought up their children in the slipstream of those beliefs, two generations of couch potatoes, and there are probably more generations on the way who will be prone to obesity from a quite young age.

That is a simplification of the obesity problems, of course, but I think we would all admit they are the main influences that have lead to the obesity problem. On top of that, there is the problem of children who are not obese, but are overweight; surely they are most likely to become obese in the future.

We now know that a child being overweight can lead to health problems later; sometimes sooner rather than later. It is obvious you care about your children, otherwise you would not be reading this. Those who care are actually in a good position to help their children lose weight, or help them to overcome it. However, you must be sure, from your doctor's advice, that the weight problem is one that you can do something about. There are medical conditions, of course, which can cause or aggravate weight problems. If you believe your child may have such a condition, you must seek professional medical advice before you take any action.

Generally speaking, though, the sources of the obesity problem are insufficient exercise and too much of the wrong food. Who are responsible for children and what they eat? The parents are; it's plain and simple.

Controlling children and their diet is no easy task. While I have not had a child with weight problems, my eldest son, now an adult in his mid 20's, did have severe food intolerance and allergy problems from the age of 2. That was in an era when almost all doctors dismissed such things as nonsense; so we were pretty much alone trying deal with the diet. My poor son ended up being able to eat and drink very little indeed. Lamb, rice, some green vegetables, water, goat's milk, carrots. At one time, that was about it.

So how do you really establish control over your child's diet? The answer is....with difficulty. If you think it will be really easy, you are probably going to be wrong. Even without all the weight problems and bad food habits of recent generations, where food and young children meet is a historic battleground. From first weaning to leaving home as a young adult, parents will always have a continuous flow of clashes over food in their attempts to give their offspring a balanced diet.

I now have an 18 month old daughter from my second marriage, so I am drawing heavily on my experience of my son's diet problems to help us through the coming years. Whatever the reason you want to exert firm control over a child's diet, whether it's allergies or obesity, the problems will be the same, or at least similar. As with many areas of raising children, it is about the child pushing the boundaries to see what they can get away with; and you ensuring that the boundaries are clear and, above all, justified. It is about you educating the child, to take them along with you on the basis of sound reason. To do that, you need to educate yourself.