Child Weight Loss:

You Can Help Your Child Achieve Weight Loss

by Anne Berline

I was a chubby kid. My mother, out of love and fear, tried everything to help me lose weight -- bribes, threats, punishments, diets, commiseration, even hypnotism and diet pills.

I usually lost weight, only to put it back on shortly after she stopped doing whatever her latest idea was. Her biggest worry was I'd be unhappy -- that I'd be picked on and unpopular, and no one would like me because I was a fatso.

Now that I'm a mother myself, I can completely sympathize with her motives, but these days my concerns about my children's weight are far more serious than teasing and name-calling.

While the name-calling can be devastating, what's seriously frightening these days is the growing evidence that obesity leads to serious health complications, even in young children.

Doctors are diagnosing children as young as ten or eleven years with conditions that were once the province of middle-aged people. Diabetes, heart conditions, and arthritis -- all of these conditions can be connected with obesity, and more and more often, they are being seen BEFORE children reach adulthood.

It's enough to scare a mother into the methods that my mother used to try to take the pounds off of me, but there are healthier ways to help your child lose weight.

If your child is obese, your best bet is to serve up a healthy daily diet and encourage daily exercise to help rev up his or her internal motors. Beyond that, here are tips for helping your child lose weight -- while letting them retain a positive self-image.

• Put EVERYONE on a diet. No kidding. Since the best way for your child to lose weight is to eat a healthy, balanced diet in normal proportions, doesn't it make sense that your whole family will benefit from eating the same way? Your dieting child will feel less deprived if everyone is eating the same foods.
  
  
• Serve an after-school snack. It may be tempting to cut out the after-school snacks, but the truth is you'll be doing more harm than good. The human body was never designed for the "three square meals a day" regimen that has been the norm for decades. A healthy snack in the midafternoon will provide energy for afternoon play and stave off the "I'm STARVING" feeling that leads to overeating at supper.
  
  
• Shop smart and healthy. Leave the cookies and chips on the shelf, and instead grab the low-fat yogurt, fresh fruit, applesauce, and other natural treats. If you make healthy snacks available and unhealthy ones tough to find, you'll keep temptation out of the way.
  
  
• Exercise with the child regularly. Instead of just shooing them out to play -- or taking away the Gameboy, go out WITH them. Put together a neighborhood game, or take a walk around the block as a family. If you can get a family membership to a health club with a pool, make a family swim a weekly event. It's more than just setting an example -- it's having fun with your kids.
  
  
• Cook JUST enough. Instead of trying to limit portions on the plate, limit them BEFORE you cook. Only prepare one single portion per family member. That heads off requests for seconds before kids even start asking. No, you can't have the last piece of chicken -- because there is no more.

Follow those five suggestions, and chances are no one in your family will even realize that someone is on a diet. And everyone will be healthier and happier in the long run.