Easy Way to Happiness

Take a quick look around and you’ll observe the costly obesity crisis that is slowly overtaking our nation. How bad has it become you may say? Consider the idea that we are now seeing individuals parking in handicap parking spots to avoid having to park just a few extra feet away from a building.

For some people, this is tied to genetics – there are several genetic triggers that, when we lived hand to mouth as a species, were survival traits. Being able to store fat in prosperous times was an insurance of survival in the winter. Also in that calculus lies the fact that we have, as a population, become more sedentary as technology has progressed.

This becomes even clearer when we witness the growing problem of children with obesity. Nutrition counselors agree that for every 3 to 5 pounds a child is over their normal weight level before they reach puberty, that child will become on average 15 to 30 pounds before they reach the age of thirty. To add to this, Type II diabetes is now become one of the fastest growing diseases among teens.

Preteens, tweens and teenagers are also prone to body image dysmorphia, driven by peer pressure, social imaging and just the changes their body is going through. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is; it’s even worse when you’re carrying 40 or 60 extra pounds of body weight and alarmingly, the fastest growing market segment for diet products like SlimFast and MediFast are teenaged and younger girls.

Fortunately, this can be prevented. And it can be prevented easily and early on, and the solution is surprisingly retro:

Remember when you were a kid? You know, before video games like the Nintendo Wii. You actually had friends who played outside with you. You had energy and used it.

When you were thirsty, mostly you grabbed milk, sometimes orange juice, not sodas. Cookies were a treat, not a staple of your diet. Snacks were things like apple wedges or an orange, maybe some peeled carrots.

Contrary to the popular belief, it is possible to training children to eat healthy foods. Caffeine laced drinks are a prime example. Researchers have uncovered an alarming link between drinking diet sodas and consuming high fat luncheon meets with cases of certain brain cancers. If you gain nothing else from this article, at least follow this one tip, please, do not allow your kids to drink soft drinks. Remember, water first before any juices or milks.

Another simple trick is to schedule snack times along with family style meals. As an example, rather than Johnny eating a snack whenever he is bored, you establish certain times during the day when he will have a snack and what his choices are. By doing this early, it minimizes the impulse eating and helps children make proper choices.

When it comes to leisure activities, encourage your kids to play sports – soccer, baseball, softball. Not all kids will have an aptitude for them, and some aren’t ready to socialize in large groups when the rest of their age cohort is. For those kids, make time out every week to go on a hike for a mile or two. If you get in the habit of walking for a mile as a family every day after dinner, everyone will be healthier, and you’ll be staving off the perils of the obesity epidemic.

The key to providing life long health for your kids is inculcating these habits early in life, so they become habits. Explain why you’re doing it when they ask, but don’t preach. Your kids will adopt the behaviors they see you doing – you’re their parent, their role model, and these are the habits they’ll stick with as they get older.

If your teen is obese, what options do you have? Author Dorthy Weatherbush has taken the guess work out of figuring out if your teen would benefit from a physician recommended meal replacement diet. Learn more about her recommendations at http://www.StephensonandCompany.com