Childhood obesity is an increasingly significant issue in today's society where junk food is cheaper and easier to get hold of than ever before. As many obese children are identified as remaining overweight through to adulthood, it is absolutely crucial that changes are made early on in life to avoid children suffering from severe health complications as they get older.
Childrens Health - Combating Obesity, Heaton-Harris (2004) identifies ways to help overweight or obese children to lose weight which include:
- motivating with rewards
- finding enjoyable activities
- removing junk food from the home
Rewards Help Motivate Obese Children to Lose Weight
This approach is commonly used within pre-school and primary school settings to encourage children to meet their goals, whether it be a daily sticker chart for good behaviour or a weekly reward for participation. Setting goals which are achievable is important in terms of providing the necessary motivation and determination required to make long-lasting, effective changes to one's lifestyle. It is a good idea to work together with the child in order to plan some short-term, medium-term and long-term goals as well as various rewards for achievement.
Rewards don't need to be expensive in order to be effective and may include things like having a sleep-over, renting a movie, a trip to the beach, kite-flying or choosing a new CD. The key is to work together at finding which things one's child is most interested in as these will provide the greatest source of motivation.
Lose Weight Through Getting Active
Recent research undertaken by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) have alarmingly identified that the average child is less active each day than the average pensioner! Thus, getting more active has to be a major component in any sensible weight loss plan. While some children seem to thrive on team sports, others tend to prefer sports which can be done alone. However, it is crucial to keep persevering until one finds a form of activity that one's child finds enjoyable, whether it be mountain biking, trampolining, karate, swimming, skating, tennis or abseiling. Any form of enjoyable activity that involves children to get physically active on a regular basis will play a significant role in helping to bring weight down to a healthy BMI.
Some leisure centres will have regular open day events or trial/taster sessions for a whole range of different activities, so it is well worth getting the whole family involved as a means of further encouraging the child to try new types of sport.
Reduce Temptation by Removing Junk Food
A third means of helping children to lose weight is to make a decision to remove all forms of junk food from the home and buy healthy snacks and plenty of fruit and vegetables instead. It sounds very simple but often this is one of the best ways to re-educate children on foods which give them healthy sources of energy (such as a banana) compared to foods which will provide a very quick-fix such as chocolate and cake. When junk food is readily available in the home, it is all too easy for a child to just grab a handful of biscuits and packet of crisps after school or munch on some chocolate whilst watching television. Eventually children will get used to healthier snacks and hopefully enjoy how much healthier they feel in comparison to before.
It is useful to have a bowl of fruit on the dining table and think about purchasing a blender or juicer to enable children to have fun creating their own unique smoothies. The goal here is to gradually introduce children to more healthy options and to show that healthy snacks can taste great, provide longer sources of energy and help with concentration.
As highlighted above, helping overweight or obese children to lose weight may involve using a reward scheme, goal setting together, removing junk food from the home and finding enjoyable activities. As obesity can lead to severe health complications such as heart problems and common irritations such as skin chafing it is vital to re-educate children from an early age.
Source:
Heaton-Harris, N. (2004) Childrens Health - Combating Obesity Brighton: Emerald Publishing
Kate Le Page - Kate Henning-Le Page writes about eating disorders, body image and recovery issues. She specializes in anorexia recovery.
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