How can I help my child maintain a healthy weight?
Learn more from Dr. Michael Rakotz on behalf of NorthShore University about the ways to help maintain a healthy weight for your child.
Transcript
Parents really have to take responsibility for what they feed their children, and how they feed their children,
and how much they feed their children.
The school lunches may be out of your hands. I mean, you can have some influence there. I always recommend packing a lunch for people who can because you'll have control of it.
But the biggest problems I see with parents trying to feed their kids a healthy diet is that they don't feed them breakfast.
That is a big mistake. A lot of kids don't want to eat in the morning. But it's essential that they get a good, healthy breakfast. It doesn't have to be anything large.
It can be oatmeal. It can be a healthy cereal with a low-fat milk. I like to see people try and eat whole grains
and with fruit for breakfast. So try to incorporate some fruits in there. Even vegetables if you can come up with a breakfast wrap for your kids,
I think that's a great idea. But that's an essential way to start the day for kids. Kids that eat breakfast do better in school. And studies actually show that kids that eat breakfast
have an easier time maintaining their weight. Again, if you pack a lunch for them, it's even better. Teach them about healthy snacks send
them to school with healthy snacks because you don't want them buying their snacks from a vending machine. There have been some improvements there. But in general, most of the food that you
can buy in a vending machine is still not great for you. And then, have a plan for after school. Even if you work, even as a parent
if you're not going to be home when your kids are home after school, if you can plan ahead and not just have bags of Doritos and chips laying around, if you can have something that you've either
prepared or just healthy food options for kids. Vegetables cut up that they can use instead of chips to use in dips, much healthier way to go.
If you have whole-wheat pita bread, small pita, not the huge, gigantic wraps that they sell. But just a small, kid-sized portion
of a piece of pita or a whole-wheat tortilla, offering the kids turkey to roll it up in or even peanut butter.
Those are healthier snacks than allowing somebody to eat even those 100-calorie packs are completely processed.
Even though they have limited calories, I see kids eating three or four of them at a time. Really doesn't serve any purpose there. They maybe convenient for traveling but not
a great option. So think ahead. If you can prepare a healthy snack for your child for after school, that's great. And then, you have control again hopefully at dinner.
If you can sit down and have a family meal, that really helps. And if you can concentrate on teaching your kids to learn how
to like vegetables, and learn how to cook vegetables, I think that's probably the most important thing you can do for developing your child's palate is
get them to learn to appreciate vegetables. That's one of the healthiest things you can do for them for their entire life.
child development
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