13 Ways to Start Changing Your Child’s Future Health

By Kate Horney

Todays guest post is from Ink Young, owner of the HealthyGrowingKids. Ink is an expert in children’s nutrition and lifestyle design for busy families. She specializes in working with moms of overweight children to provide healthy fit future for their children. She is a wife and a mom of two boys.

Many busy moms are concerned of their children’s weight and future health. Currently 1 out of 3 children are overweight or obese and we are very familiar with that statistic. Many of the moms also struggle with their own weight and are just plain overwhelmed. Moms also deal with the feelings of guilt, worry and confusion of what to do to best help their child.

[box]Moms are in a key position to make a difference for their child’s future health.[/box]

Moms are the biggest influence in the health habits of their children and moms typically are the “gate-keepers” to what the family eats. Nothing is going to happen unless the mom takes the action and decides to change how stuff is being done. Once mom is ready to take the action, she can change her own and her children’s future. Moms are powerful in this world. (In case you did not notice – I think moms are pretty awesome 🙂 )

So, how can a mom get started in implementing healthier lifestyle for their child? Let’s cut through all the stuff that does not work and then talk about what works.

Just for the record: What does not work?

• Putting the kids on the diet does not work.
• Counting Calories does not work.
• Having kids in the Biggest Loser show running hours and being yelled at does not work!

Here are 13 ways to start changing your child’s future health:

1. Talk to your child about food and explain how food is information to the body.
2. Teach your child to pay attention to their hunger, energy and cravings.
3. Make sure your child drinks water
4. Feed the child REAL food, emphasizing “the single-ingredient foods” (i.e. apples, chicken, eggs, etc.)
5. Make sure your child eats protein at breakfast (i.e. eggs) and on all the rest of the meals too
6. Offer fruits and vegetables.
7. Offer food/meals before the child is hungry. Do not let the child get hungry, if the child is beyond hungry at the mealtime they are more likely to overeat.
8. Involve the child in preparing the food and picking items in the store
9. Have easy, healthy and fast options available. Try to shop and prep food once per week to save time.
10. Be open with your own struggles with weight and WHY it is important to your family to change your lifestyle.
11. Research with your child. When your child asks for juice and wants to know why they cannot have it; find answers with him/her.
12. Be patient and practice the new behaviors and then practice some more.
13. Just do your best! You are powerful!

P.S. This week Beyond Fit Physiques and HealthyGrowingKids are teaming up to deliver you the real info on fat loss for moms and kids. We see many moms making the same mistakes and we are here to help you NOT make those common mistakes too.

We hope you can join us for a FREE Webinar on Tuesday, February 5 at 7:00pm EST. on “7 Insights into living fit and never worrying about being overweight for moms and kids”.  The information will be awesome and will forever change the way you think about health and fitness for your family!