Some risks are associated with helping your child lose weight. If you focus too much on weight and looks, this could lead to your child developing an unhealthy body image. Despite the risks, helping your child lose weight can mean the difference between a happy and fulfilled life and one spent fighting weight disorders. Avoid negative associations with weight loss, but keep track of your kids’ weight loss in fun ways.
Choose the right approach
You should never guess what amount of weight should be lost. Take your child to a pediatrician and ask a doctor to ensure that your child really needs to lose weight, and to accurately assess the amount of weight they need to lose in order to regain health. Moreover, instead of talking with your child only about weight problems, try to turn the conversation to making healthy lifestyle choices in order to feel better and live a long life. Your child needs to know that you love them and accept them, but you want them to be able to grow up into a strong and healthy person.
Encourage exercises and make them fun
Don’t leave the choice of a personal trainer to chance. Find a personal trainer who understands children and loves working with them since this significantly increases the chances of success when your child’s weight loss is concerned. If you think that having a personal trainer is a bit too much, you can always do some fun activities with your kid. Go to the trampoline centers and jump together, or take your child and their friends there for an enjoyable day full of physical activity. Furthermore, getting your kid interested in riding a bicycle or roller skates, doing yoga or playing with a jumping ball or giving them a hula hoop or a jumping rope can definitely make them fit and full of energy. It’s important to try to join them in these activities, and even create some competitions, in order to motivate the child to move.
Make an appointment with a dietician
Find a dietitian who specializes in dietetics and working with children. The dietician should measure the metabolic rate of your child. Thanks to the results of this test and necessary experience and expertise, a dietician can accurately estimate the daily calorie intake of your overweight child, as well as the necessary natural supplements that will make the weight-loss process healthy. The dietician should be able to help you with creating a specific food program as well. You cannot ask your child to only eat salads all week because your kid needs to understand that eating healthy can be fun and enjoyable. There are also many diet food cookbooks designed especially for children.
Goals and rewards that lead to the finish line
Set weekly and monthly goals for your child, and reward them every time they reach one of the goals. These objectives should be based not only on weight loss, but also on things like choosing healthy foods, being physically active outdoors, learning new things on human health or even just staying in a good mood. Your child needs to know that once they reach the specific goals you set together, there will be a big party with all family members. Tell them that once they reach the finish line, they will be able to choose a balanced and sustainable food mode. Your child needs to realize that they should continue to stay active and make healthy food choices, but that it will get easier to do so in the future.
Set an example to follow
You cannot tell your child to lose weight, exercise and eat healthy if you do not apply these guidelines to yourself. Make sure to keep your weight within the recommended range, eat healthy nutritious food, and show your child that you strongly believe in what you teach them, also participating in the exercises your kid needs to do.
Just like adults, children need to keep their weight in a healthy range. Showing your overweight child healthy ways to lose weight and stabilizing the weight lost can provide good tools for living a long and healthy life.
