Helping Your Child Maintain a Healthy Weight

Health experts, nutritionists and parents are becoming more concerned about the increasing number of overweight and obese children.

It may surprise you to know that:

• two out of every three overweight children will become overweight adults
• by the age of eleven years a tendency to be overweight or obese has already been set for later life
• in many countries, type 2 diabetes is often starting to be seen in children, due to the high rates of childhood obesity (this has previously been an adult disease)

As with everything, prevention is better than cure, and parents can follow simple guidelines to help children keep a healthy weight and get healthy life-long habits.

Number one, encourage your child to eat a varied diet. While most young children don't want to try new foods, exposing them to new foods repeatedly helps them to gradually accept them into their diet. If children have a varied diet, they are more likely to be eating healthier foods more often.

Remembering that a serving is about the size of your child's palm or handful, each day they should eat:

• five or more servings of fruit and vegetables
• four to six servings of cereals (rice, bread, grains, noodles, pasta)
• two to three servings of dairy products (milk, yoghurt, cheese)
• one to two servings of meat or alternatives (meat, fish, chicken, nuts, pulses)

The list above covers the four main food groups. These are all important foods because each group is packed with a lot of essential nutrients - making them what nutritionists call "nutrient dense". This is the opposite of foods which contain a lot of energy but not many vitamins and minerals - which are often called "empty calories".

Foods with a high nutrient density give children energy plus a range of essential vitamins and minerals required for healthy growth and development. Foods with a low nutrient density shouldn't be eaten often and are better as treat foods. They are often fun and convenient to eat, but because they usually contain a lot of energy (usually from fat or sugar, without many essential vitamins or minerals) they don't provide much nutritionally. Eating too much of these low nutrient density foods, too frequently, has been largely blamed for obesity in children and adults.

If your child always seems to be hungry and fills up on snack foods between meals, it may make them less likely to eat a nutritious dinner. This means it is important to encourage them to eat nutrient dense foods with meals which help them to feel full for longer, and to limit snacks between meals. These foods include some protein, soluble fibre or fat.

Some examples of nutrient dense foods which help children to feel fuller for longer include:

• beans and pulses (e.g. baked beans, hummus)
• dairy products (milk, yoghurt, cheese)
• meat
• eggs
• wholegrain breads and cereals (start with lighter options and gradually introduce grainier foods over time)

When choosing snack foods for consumption, well before mealtimes, try to make these as nutritious as possible.

Some examples of nutrient-dense snacks include:

• a glass of milk
• yoghurt
• raw vegetable sticks with a low fat dip
• wholegrain cheese sandwiches
• fresh, canned or dried fruit
• popcorn made with minimal butter and salt
• nuts

Dairy foods have a unique role in managing weight. Dairy is an excellent source of calcium, which has been shown to reduce the storage of body fat, plus the protein these foods contain also helps people to feel full. This makes children less likely to fill up between meals on foods with a low nutrient density. Milk is also a nutrient-dense food, which makes it an ideal food for to support healthy growth.

Research has shown that when overweight people consume two to three servings of milk and milk products a day in conjunction with a reduced calorie diet, they are more likely to lose weight and keep it off. Recent findings from a US study, assessing the health of children from pre-school years to adolescence, showed that pre-school children who didn't have enough milk and milk products in their diet gained more body fat over time, than children consuming the recommended amount.

Activity counts too!

It's not just what children eat that counts. They put on weight because the energy from foods and drinks is more than the energy used up in daily activities. Young people with more active, sporty lives are more likely to use up the energy from foods and drinks and they may not have to watch what they eat as much as those who aren't so active.

As parents, the best that you can do for your children is lead by example. Try to incorporate everyday activity into your family routine, for example:

• walk instead of always taking the car to places nearby
• play with your children
• go on regular family outings to the local swimming pool, beach or park
• limit television and computer time and actively encourage your children to be more active when these options are not available to them.