How To Prevent Your Kids From Becoming Obese

By Peter Liu
[Weight Loss]
What is the best way to reduce the chances of obesity in the home?  Peter Liu teaches you how to teach your kids.
Throughout the whole of the obesity epidemic, there has always been a clear boundary:  the unhealthy food that comes from outside the home and the healthful quality of food that exists or can exist inside the home.  The threat of obesity in each family is always seemingly fought on the outside, where coming home is a way of finding shelter from all that can clog arteries and cause health issues.  But the real foundations are built from home, starting from scratch, and new research is proving that healthy habits are learned from birth.  Even a slew of unhealthy food manufacturers won’t be able to affect your children if their healthy habits can provide them the good sense they need to sustain themselves without falling to the temptations of salt, fat, sugar and fried foods.

The Good Habits Study

To be published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics, an American study has effectively proven that healthy habits that start in the home can be a great help in reducing the onset of obesity in children.  Researchers have discovered a cumulative effect that can minimize the likelihood of obesity by up to 40 per cent when families help their children practice the habits of getting enough sleep, eating dinner together with the family and watching less television.  They found that families who practiced the most healthy routines had the thinnest children and that the frequency of obesity was increased the less often these routines were practiced in the home.  The children who were least likely to be obese ate dinner with the family six to seven times a week, slept 10 and a half hours per night and watched less than two hours of television each day.  Even after taking into account things like family income and the chance that the parents could be obese, children whose families regularly followed all three healthy routines had a 14.3 per cent prevalence of obesity, versus a 24.5 per cent chance in children whose families didn’t follow any of the routines.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Center for Educational Statistics, with study data taken from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort, a government sponsored study of a cross-section of children born in 2005.  A group of 8,550 children were enrolled into the program at birth and at the intervals of nine months, two years and four years of age parents were asked questions about their children’s eating habits, amount of screen time and what time the children went to sleep and woke up.

Solid Foundations

Because the study was focused on pre-school aged children, it lets us know that the best time to start teaching children about healthy habits is as soon as they’re able to start learning.  If babies can learn to walk, then pre-schoolers can learn that food comes in healthy and unhealthy forms, and the sooner that information is disseminated, the better.  The ‘how’ part of teaching children boundaries about how much television to watch, what time to go to bed and wake up or that food is only eaten at the dinner table is up to you to decide as parents.

But if these routines are new to you as a family and your children are used to other things, then it’s possible or likely to encounter resistance, for instance when telling children to just eat at the dinner table if they’re used to eating in front of the television.  Don’t be afraid to be more forceful, because these habits are going to stay with them and your children will understand why you did what you did when they’re older.
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