Ways Parents Can Help Prevent Childhood Obesity

This is the last week of the National Childhood Obesity Awareness month. Have you taken the time to improve your physical activity this month? Did you start a new tradition on “Day of Play” when Nickelodeon went off the air to encourage physical activity?

Many parents want to help, but don’t know how. Here are some tips to help them help combat childhood obesity.

• Be a good role model!
• Volunteer to be a leader of one of the many after-school programs focused on physical activity.
• Begin making little changes. For example, when it is your turn to bring the snack to the soccer game make sure it is something healthy.
• Teach kids how to set and achieve goals.
• Remember you choose what your kids eat, and your kids choose how much of it they will eat.
• Let kids use their own hunger cues of knowing when they are full.
• Talk with your kids by focusing on health and not weight. Kids come in many different shapes and sizes, but everyone can improve their health.

Sweat is Sweet!

The sweet thing about working out so hard that you sweat is that you burn extra calories for 14 hours after you exercise!

A research study examined the caloric expenditure of 10 men as they lived inside a metabolic chamber for two days. The first day was a rest day so the participants did very little throughout the day. They did simple things such as eating, sleeping, washing their hands, etc. The second day they did the same thing except they included a 45-minute vigorous bike ride. During the bike ride, the participants burned an average of 519 calories. In addition to those calories, they also burned an average of an additional 190 calories over the next 14.2 hours.

To ensure that your workout rewards you with “extra-calories” burned, be sure to engage in vigorous exercise. If you are exercising at a moderate intensity, you may not see these same results. Vigorous exercise should feel hard, but not to the point of exhaustion. You should be sweating and your heart rate should be elevated.

Examples of vigorous exercise include: jogging, water jogging, clogging, in-line skating, and most competitive sports. Just be sure you don’t counter your sweaty work-out with something sweet like a piece of cake!

National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month

More than 23 million children and teenagers in the U.S. are overweight or obese (ACSM, 2011). To help raise awareness about this epidemic the U.S. congress and President Barack Obama, has declared September as the National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.

On September 24, 2011, Nickelodeon will go off the air for the 8th year in a row in support of the cause. People everywhere are asked to participate in a “Day of Play”. Some suggestions on what you can do include:

• Play a game of football, soccer or your favorite sport
• Host a family charity run/walk event
• Hold a jump-rope contest
• Tackle a ropes course
• Compete in a dance-off
• Roller skate at a local rink
• Organize a bike-a-thon
• Take a martial arts lesson
• Climb a rock climbing wall

To learn more about this visit, http://www.healthierkidsbrighterfutures.org/home/

Fun Family Fitness

As school begins, it is time for families to establish a new routine and schedule. This fall remember to add family fitness time into your schedule.

The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends that children get 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Adults are recommended to get 150 minutes of physical activity each week.

The suggestions listed below will help you to make sure your family reaches these recommendations and has FUN in the process!

• Experiment with the “where” you exercise by choosing a new location each week
• Try a new sport or activity each month like canoeing, indoor rock climbing, snow shoeing, or zumba
• If you are short on time, aim for 10 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night
• As you wait for the bus, play games like “Red Light, Green Light” or “Freeze Tag”
• Get creative! For example, if your family likes the Harry Potter series try your own Quiddich match
• Choose a family favorite or dream vacation destination. Track how many miles it would take to get there. Then chart the number of miles your family walks each day and see how long it takes your family to make it there.