Lose Weight Tips
Posted by: Janet Matthews on 
Sep 3rd, 2008 | 
Filed under: lose weight
Lose Weight
The fact is, many people in the world over are being told by their doctors to lose weight. The fact that obesity has become a world wide epidemic has been confirmed by the World Health Organization. Obesity is one of the fastest developing health concerns particularly as it can lead to type 11 diabetes and heart disease. The need to lose weight is no longer to do with the way we look but more importantly to do with the potential for serious health problems. Do you know what those health problems are? Have you gone to your doctor lately to get a medical?
Something that is particularly true to those who have been overweight most of their lives and so understandably our governments are showing real concern for the health and well being of our overweight and obese young people. Of course the skeptics would say they are viewing them as a potential future expense for the health service and they may well be right. However the need to take the need to lose weight seriously has never been more important.
So what can we do to help our young people to lose weight? This can be viewed as a difficult if not impossible question, as the main responsibility for the fact that many young people are over weight has to be with their parents. Dietary habits and food preferences start at a very early age at a time when only the parents have control on what their children eat. The next responsibility is with the play groups and nurseries that young children attend.
My experience of the food served at nurseries is that it is high in carbohydrates and very low on protein, probably to make it cost effective, but for some children this can be the start of a carbohydrate rich diet that can cause weight problems in the future. I have also been aware of play groups and nurseries giving children snacks of biscuits and cake on occasions rewards of sweets and chocolates. Although many young children will cope with these foods without gaining weight their will be other children who will develop a liking for sweet foods and will subsequently develop weight related problems. All of these habits are not helping our young people to lose weight as we are simply encouraging dietary habits that will be difficult to break in the future.
I am sure if you have ever had children or been around them for any period of time, you know kids love sweets. The simple fact, there is a widespread misconception amongst many parents and other adults that children need or deserve sweets or sweet treats. Children will only desire these things once they have been given a taste for them. They don’t need sugar in their diets and would be far healthier and better off without them. I have observed children in school eating nothing but cakes and biscuits and sugar laden yoghurts for their lunch, followed by something sweet and fizzy to drink. Those children who subsequently need to lose weight will not have the benefit of a healthy dietary habit to fall back on and so they will find it very difficult to lose weight
All children should be encouraged to have a well balanced healthy diet with the correct balance of protein, fat and carbohydrate. Even if they have the occasional sweet treat the healthy diet will more than compensate and the chances are they will never be in a position where they need to lose weight. I know it can be tempting, but this is for the benefit of our childrens health.
You can find many excellent programs on the television showing how families completely eradicate all the unhealthy foods from their diets and even go so far as to put them all in a bin liner and throw them away. They then replace those foods with healthy foods and start to learn the art of home cooking. The children created fuss to begin with but eventually they were able to appreciate that these healthy foods were not only going to help them avoid the need to lose weight but also help to improve their behavior, their performance at school and their general overall health.
Does your child need to lose weight? Do something about it now and be assured that one day they will thank you for it.
Janet Matthews
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