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How much longer until parents wake up? Children are in danger!
By Christina | January 19, 2009
Last night as I watched the television I saw a headline, “1 out of 3 kids are now considered overweight or obese.” How can this continue to happen? Sure it’s easy to go through the drive-thru, yes its easier to say yes to cookies, cake and french fries instead of stand up and tell your child those are reserved for parties, not staples of the home diet, and yes Johnny down the street eats all the junk he wants and is still well below the weight percentage for his age. SO WHAT?
It isn’t just diet either. Many of our children are spending less time exercising and more time in front of the TV, computer, or video-game console. Many people just don’t have the time to prepare healthy meals - WAIT.. I disagree. As a trainer I always hear the reason people cannot workout is lack of time well BUPKUS. If you want yurfamily to eat healthy but you do not get home from work til 8pm, prepare the meals on Sunday afternoon and freeze them for easy thawing on the day you choose. Have the kids help you and make it an exercise in nutrition and quality time - there you go, I just saved you time and helped you with two parenting problems.
Fast food and electronics do not govern how you parent they only facilitate it. Now that I “hopefully” have your attention, how do you know if your child is overweight?
Here is a way to measure BMI but it may be easier to just ask your doctor:
Body mass index (BMI) uses height and weight measurements to estimate how much body fat a person has. To calculate BMI, divide weight in kg by height in meters squared, or wt/ht2. For pounds and inches, divide weight by height squared and multiply the result by the conversion factor 703.
Kids fall into one of four categories:
- underweight: BMI below the 5th percentile
- normal weight: BMI at the 5th and less than the 85th percentile
- overweight: BMI at the 85th and below 95th percentiles
- obese: BMI at or above 95th percentile
BMI is a good indicator of obesity but it is not the end all be all of your child’s ranking. It can be misleading if your child is going through a growth spurt or has a larger percentage of muscle mass than another child. Be safe, ask your doctor’s advice. As a parent if you allowed your child to fall into the trap of overeaing, making poor choices and playong hours of video games, you just may justify your child has bigger bones than the kid next door and not implement a healthy lifestyle.
Topics: Fitness Tips, Nutrition |
