It all starts at home!
|
Once again I feel compelled to write about the problem of obesity and a generally poor diet in kids.
I want to focus this time on how parents must set a good example. If the parents don’t 1) eat healthy nutritious foods themselves, in front of their kids and don’t 2) prepare healthy nutritious meals for their children – what do you expect?
Cutting out the junk food in schools alone won’t solve the problem – kids might just end up skipping school meals entirely or bring junk food on their own to school.
While reducing or eliminating the amount of junk food commercials that appear during children’s TV shows would also help a lot – again, without parents setting a good example its not enough.
I don’t have any kids now, but we are starting the process to adopt and I want to make sure my child will see good eating habits coming from her parents. I’ll admit, I sometimes cheat and eat a little more junk than I should – but I’ll have to stop that once we are parents.
For those who are parents already – do you have any tips to share on how to make sure you do the right thing and eat healthy foods around your kids and how to get them to eat right too?
________________________________________
If you like this post please share or vote for it below:
Stumble: Kirtsy: delicious: reddit: Digg:
________________________________________
If you like my blog please subscribe to read updates in a
feed reader (what does this mean?)
or by email!
Thanks! I really appreciate all your support!
________________________________________
Related Posts:
- Kids need all the nutrition help they can get!
- Do we really want to be healthy?
- 12 Things You Can Do To Set a Healthy Example for Your Kids
January 13, 2006
Kids need all the nutrition help they can get!
|
Kids today are eating more and moving around less – and now they are starting to have serious health problems related to obesity!
Minorities and kids living in poverty are being hurt even more by this trend. For example: almost 1 of 4 Latino children in the US is overweight!
In many schools across the US there are even vending machines selling junk food – potato chips, soda and more! No wonder kids are gaining too much weight – the schools teach them one thing in the classroom and then don’t set the right example.
Many schools are now trying to figure out how to tackle the problem. Some have resorted to recording all the students heights, weights and BMI’s and storing all this information in a database.
On the positive side, some schools are now trying to ban the sale of soda and other junk food in schools.
But this problem isn’t restricted to just the US either! In Vietnam there is a problem with ‘Kids eating too much, exercising too little’. The problem has spread to Britain, Ireland, Australia and many other places around the world.
Even in China where 2/3 of the people in rural areas are malnourished, 580 million people are deficient in vitamin A and 3% of the urban population are anemic – 7.1 percent of adults are obese! But China is planning a public nutrition improvement program into its 11th Five-Year Plan to help with its problem ‘especially concerning children’.
So what can parents do? Or is the problem so big that parents are powerless
When your kids are young and at home you can exert some level of control over what they eat. But its hard to control what your kids eat when in school, especially if the school sells junk food to them.
And what about all those sugar coated cereals and other junk food commercials targeted to kids – during the shows kids watch the most? Even if you don’t let your kids see those commercials – what happens when your child spends time with other people and they are all eating candy and potato chips? Or they feed them french fries from a fast food place? Once they’ve had a taste of the high salt, fat and sugar in those foods it will be hard to keep them from wanting more.
How do you instill good nutrition habits in your child when the society around them keeps teaching them just the opposite? Or is it even possible?
– Please share the strategies you have used or some that you think might work!
________________________________________
If you like this post please share or vote for it below:
Stumble: Kirtsy: delicious: reddit: Digg:
________________________________________
If you like my blog please subscribe to read updates in a
feed reader (what does this mean?)
or by email!
Thanks! I really appreciate all your support!
________________________________________
Related Posts:
November 17, 2005
Hyperactive kids – a disease?
|
A bill was passed by the U.S. House this week to prevent schools from forcing kids who have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to take medication to be able to go to school.
The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., has stated that ‘Sometimes officials even attempt to force parents into choosing between medicating their child and allowing that child to remain in the classroom. This is unconscionable’.
Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports magazine) reported in September that medications for ADHD are over prescribed to kids that don’t really need it.
According to the CDC, 4.4 million children – aged 3 to 17 – have been diagnosed with ADHD and that close to 65% of those take stimulant medication to treat it. It is suspected that many of these kids do not really have ADHD.
Side effects of stimulants used to treat these children include sleeplessness, appetite loss, stomach pain, headaches and possibly even psychotic episodes and suicidal thoughts!
I’m glad this bill was passed! I wouldn’t have a child of mine taking a drug like this unless it was a really extreme circumstance!
What is your opinion? Do you think kids are falsely being diagnosed with having ADHD? Are we getting to the point where doctors are diagnosing and medicating personality differences?
________________________________________
If you like this post please share or vote for it below:
Stumble: Kirtsy: delicious: reddit: Digg:
________________________________________
If you like my blog please subscribe to read updates in a
feed reader (what does this mean?)
or by email!
Thanks! I really appreciate all your support!
________________________________________
Related Posts:
- What do you think of only-children? Freak diseases or high achievers?
- Taking Children to the Doc – Certainly Not Child’s Play
- Allergies – increasing all around the world
November 16, 2005
Are your kids getting enough sleep?
|
A new study shows that kids who don’t get enough sleep don’t do as well in school. This research was done by Dr. Gahan Fallone from the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri and published in the journal ‘Sleep’.
The study involved 74 kids from 6 – 12 years old and showed that when kids stayed up late and didn’t get enough sleep they did not do as well in school.
One weeks the kids in the study got a normal amount of sleep (8 – 10 hours)and the next week they only got 6.5 to 8 hours. Their teachers rated how well they did in school without knowing which kids were getting enough sleep and which weren’t.
Sleep is very important for health – not just for kids but for adults too! Many people act like they think getting an adequate amount of sleep is just a luxury or being lazy and that they are somehow ‘tougher’ because they don’t get enough sleep. That kind of attitude bugs me to death! What about you?
________________________________________
If you like this post please share or vote for it below:
Stumble: Kirtsy: delicious: reddit: Digg:
________________________________________
If you like my blog please subscribe to read updates in a
feed reader (what does this mean?)
or by email!
Thanks! I really appreciate all your support!
________________________________________
Related Posts:
- 12 Things You Can Do To Set a Healthy Example for Your Kids
- American schools – no learning allowed!
- Pregnancy and newborn health part 2
« Previous Page