What is Obesity, Really?
Obesity is usually defined as having a Body Mass Index of over 30 kg/m^2.
BMI (Body Mass Index) is an estimate of a person's fat content based on their height and weight. There are a number of calculators for this online that are easy to use!
As a person gets into the 30+ BMI range, the number of health problems begins to increase enormously, especially for kids!
Every year, more and more kids become obese.
They can only eat what we give them, and so many of the easier solutions, the cheaper foods, the foods they like more, are so often unhealthy. We're just adding to the problem.
And there's so many advertisments out there that try to convince kids to want super sugary or fatty fast foods. Things like kids meals, toys, and more to get kids to want that food and nag their parents for it.
Kids, like everyone, like sweet things and things that are generally unhealthy, but they eat what they're given. They can only eat what parents give them. So the burden falls onto the parents to get them the appropriate food.
Instead of incentivizing bad habits and foods, we can teach kids how to be healthy on their own.
Fun Activities
- Make it a family activity, see who's the most fit with measurable things like how many push ups or sit ups they can do, how long they can run, or how long they can jump the highest
- Set an example for them, being healthy yourself gives them a reason to do so as well
- Challenge them, saying that you can do more than them, more push ups, more sit ups, or more jumping jacks
- Set goals, can you get to doing a certain number of exercises by a certain date
- Reward them for meeting goals with healthy snacks they like
Active Punishment
Turn your punishments into exercises! Instead of making them sit around, you can be the drill sergeant and get them to work and be active! And by taking away their technology, get them outside or active to play and get their hearts pumping!
Just be sure to use different exercises than the fun ones!
Exercises!
Whether it's for fun, a challenge, or a punishment, there are a number of ways kids can exercise!
- Push ups
- Jumping for an amount of time
- Jumping Jacks
- How high can they jump
- How fast can they run?
Eating Healthy
One of the major components of being unhealthy is the intake of calories, how much food are they eating and how healthy it is. The problem is that healthier foods tend t be more expensive, and that cost adds up really quickly! But there are a number of tricks to making healthier food that kids will still like to eat!
- Dry out strawberries in the oven. They end up tasting like candies!
- Ants on a log. A strip of celery, some peanut butter, and then raisins or nuts on top!
- Vegetable chips: Slice up some vegetables and put them into the oven. Times and temperatures vary, but most vegetables can be turned into homemade healthy chips!
- Banana Split: Slice a banana down the middle, put some yogurt inside, and then add strawberries, grapes, or blueberries! A literal split banana for the kids!
- And in general, if you make something fancy or fun to look at, kids will be a lot more likely to eat it. Even if it's 'healthy'
Credits:
Created with images by lwpkommunikacio - "Bizarr testek" • Gaulsstin - "Teen and childhood obesity" • juhansonin - "Nice rump" • USAG-Humphreys - "Pint-size Zumba offered" • Captain Ted - "Time Out"