Simran was taken aback when her doctor told her that her daughter Ananya who is just 4 years old is overweight. The pediatrician showed her the growth chart height where he had plotted her height and weight to keep track of her growth. And yes, he was right! Her daughter Ananya was 3 kg overweight. Simran thought that its ok and didn’t see a big problem in it. But then the pediatrician explained why it is important for the child to be in the weight range and why it is important to keep a check of her diet. He explained that weight problems can be very hard to fix in later years and may result in problems like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, so it’s important to prevent the problem as early as possible.
Another indicator is BMI, which shows whether the height and weight of a child is proportional or not. The BMI is a better indicator of whether your child is carrying too much body fat than a weight measurement alone.
If the pediatrician suggests that your child is overweight, don’t worry chances are that your child is simply taking in more calories than she’s using up. There are two simple steps you can take to help your toddler reach a healthy weight:
- encourage her to be more active
- offer her a healthy, balanced diet
In addition, here are some tips to keep in mind too –
- Provide a healthy diet to kid which should include grains, fruits, milk and nuts. Make her drink lots of water. Better set a alarm in your mobile after every half n hour as a drink alarm for her. Let her take few sips in every half n hour.
- Don’t give any sugar-sweetened beverages, such as fruit juice, fruit drink, regular-calorie soft drink, sports drink, energy drink, sweetened or flavored milk, or sweetened iced tea.
- Avoid showing TV, Mobile at the time of meals. Make her chew her food slowly and relish the food.
- Eliminate or limit fast foods such as KFC, McDonald which are typically very high in calories, saturated fat, and trans fat.
- Encourage your child to be active. Enroll her to any yoga or dance class where she can channelized her energy.
- Don’t give them dessert as a reward. If you are doing this then you are teaching your child to value sweets more than other healthy foods.
- Include plenty of foods high in fibre in their diet. Foods which are rich in fibre like wholegrain bread, brown rice and pasta, oats, peas, lentils, grain, beans, fruit, vegetables and seeds.
Its important to start as early as possible. Healthy habits will not only help your child’s weight, it will teach her how to live well for a lifetime. It’s important to show them how to choose healthy foods. At toddler’s age, “teaching that ‘this is how we eat’ and ‘this is how we play’ will establish a foundation as they become older and have to make their own choices. So the overall aim is managing weight is to be healthy. This means having a healthy lifestyle which includes exercise and focus on quality of food.