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The number of overweight children and adults is increasing. About one quarter of children in Australia are now overweight. Encouraging children to eat healthy food and be physically active can be a challenge. It requires patience, practice and time.
Childhood is an important time to develop healthy patterns for life and prevent weight problems. Research shows that overweight children are more likely to become overweight adults.
Seek advice if you’re not sure
Sometimes it is hard to tell if a child is overweight. This is because children have different shapes at different ages. When there are more overweight children around, our view of what is ‘normal’ may also change. Your family doctor, school nurse or an experienced health professional will be able to check your child’s growth.
Why children become overweight
A diet high in energy and fat combined with little physical activity or exercise will lead to someone becoming overweight.
Your family’s eating habits and activity patterns will affect body weight. You also inherit body type and shape from your parents.
Possible problems for overweight children
Overweight children can have difficulties in several ways. Most often they may feel different from other children, which can affect their confidence.
They can also be subjected to bullying from other children. This may make parents feel worried about children taking part in everyday activity such as school sports. Unfortunately, this can make weight control more difficult.
Although health problems are less common in childhood, children who continue to be overweight into adulthood can develop:
- High blood fats with the risk of heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Stroke
- Joint problems
- Breathing problems
- Some forms of cancer.
Overweight caused by medical conditions is rare, but always check with your doctor if you are concerned.
How to help your overweight child
If your child is overweight, the advice of a health professional is important.
Young children should not be on restrictive diets that severely limit food intake. You need to make permanent changes to your family’s lifestyle and eating habits. Everyone at home should be involved in any changes, regardless of body weight, so that no child feels singled out. Making the right changes will protect your children from developing eating and dieting problems later in life.
It may take a number of attempts before children are happy to change their food choices or become more active. This may be frustrating for parents. But don’t give up. Remember to stay positive. Children who are overweight need to know that they are loved and important, regardless of their weight.
How to make healthy food choices
A healthy diet is not only what your child eats, but how much. All children should eat regularly, including healthy snacks.
Good nutrition starts early in life. Wherever possible try to:
- Breastfeed and introduce solids at around six months.
- Encourage a wide variety of nutritious foods. No particular food should be forced or overly restricted.
- Consider using reduced fat dairy products after two years of age.
- Offer mostly cereals, grains and breads, vegetables and fruits, with moderate amounts of meat products and dairy foods.
- Limit added fats such as oil, margarine and butter.
- Offer fresh vegetables and fruit instead of processed snack foods.
- Include treats such as cakes, chips or takeaway foods occasionally (once or twice per week). Enjoy them as a family.
- Offer children water when they are thirsty. Sweet drinks including juices, cordial and fizzy drinks are not necessary and can contribute to tooth decay.
Ways to encourage healthy changes to your child’s eating
Suggestions include:
- Buy, prepare and offer the foods you would like your child to eat. Allow them to choose what and how much of these foods they will eat.
- Keep offering healthy foods even if they refuse them at first.
- Include your child’s food choices in the family menu sometimes.
- Involve children in simple food preparation, for example, making a salad.
- Let your child decide if they have had enough, even if food is left on their plate. This encourages children to better understand feelings of hunger and fullness. These habits may help to control appetite and prevent overeating as they grow.
- Encourage slow eating if yours is a family of fast eaters. Put your knife and fork down between mouthfuls. Offer crunchy foods that need chewing.
- Help your child recognise if he or she eats when bored, sad or lonely. Try to suggest another activity to help distract them.
- Try not to punish, reward or cheer your child up with food. It can be tempting to use food this way at times but it establishes an unhealthy relationship with food.
Fun family activity
An active lifestyle is important for the whole family, regardless of their age or weight. Physical activity helps to build skills, makes you feel better and helps to protect you from many lifestyle diseases.
Activity should be fun, without focusing only on competition or skills. To keep children active as they get older, they may need help from their parents to include physical activity in the family routine.
Tips to increase everyday activity at home
Suggestions include:
- Be active together. Let your child see you being active too.
- Encourage lots of free playtime outside.
- Try to use the car less. Walk or cycle to school, the shops or to a friends house.
- Help your child find a balance between organised sport, fun activities and individual sports like swimming and dancing.
- Find an activity that your child enjoys and that is fun, readily available, affordable and matches your child’s age and skill level. Ask your child’s physical education teacher, childcare worker, community centre or other parents about options.
- Be supportive and encouraging. Some children feel embarrassed and uncomfortable about their physical skills or appearance.
- Motivate your children to be active – even though it’s not always easy. Remember, if your child gets hot, puffed and sweaty when active, this is generally a good sign that they are working their bodies and getting some benefit from the exercise.
Television and screen viewing
Watching too much television is linked closely with overweight in children. When children watch TV, they are not being active and are more likely to see food advertisements that encourage them to eat whether they are hungry or not.
Suggestions include:
- Limit sedentary activity like TV watching, watching videos, playing personal screen games and using computers to no more than two hours a day.
- Avoid eating while the TV is on. This may be a distraction from family time together.
Getting started
Start slowly. It is best to manage one or two small changes before moving on to the next change. It doesn’t matter how long this takes. Find out what works for your family. Small setbacks may happen, but try to be patient and reward your child’s effort and progress with treats like books, stickers or special outings.
Where to get help
Things to remember
- Involve the whole family in healthy eating and activity.
- Encourage active play and sport.
- Limit sedentary activities such as TV, screen games and computers to no more than two hours a day.
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