Reasons Behind Teenage Weight Gain
Teenage obesity and teenage weight gain is harder to control than childhood obesity. This is because children are more receptive to advice and suggestions than teens.
Also, you cannot chide a teenager in the same way as a pre-teen as we all know 
As we grow into adolescence, we grow physically as well as mentally. We become much more sensitive and stubborn than before. As teenagers, I am sure you remember, we think of ourselves as more intelligent than our parents. I am definitely one to admit that handling a teenage kid is a real pain in the butt.
Now, Today, Why Teenage Weight Gain?
Teenage Weight Gain
We see a lot of stories and news articles that tell us about childhood obesity and in going to a mall or driving by a bunch of kids at a local 7-11 you can definitely vouch for the fact that kids today are a bit chubbier than they were a few years ago, at least that is what I tend to see.
So shy is this? We know that there are diet changes, lack of personal responsibility, and freedom, but lets really look at the symptoms, the reason that this is happening more now.
1) Teens hardly know the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods since they were taught about it during their childhood. If they were eating junk and fatty foods as little kids, the same unhealthy eating habit follows them into their adolescence and they start eating them in larger quantities.
Parents often ask their kids to buy junk foods from outside instead of taking the time or trouble to cook healthy snacks at home, this itself can lead to teenage weight gain. If your child never tastes healthy and organic foods, he or she would naturally not be interested in them in the latter years of his life.
Plus, if your child has a school cafeteria, things could get only worse. These days, schools prefer to buy junk foods from outside since it is the cheaper option to cooking meals in-house. School budgets are stretched tight and those cuts can definitely show up in a cafeteria.
There is just no way your teen kid can have a choice to eat healthy foods. The easiest way I think is to make sure that meal planning is a central part of family eating so that decisions on dinners are made well ahead of time.
Also having lots of fruits and veggies in the fridge so that the kids will have less reason to look for chips and crackers in the pantry has helped me, as well as my kids.
2) Teens are much more tempted to try out restaurant foods than their pre-teen counterparts. You see, almost all teenagers today have a bit more freedom and some money to go out with friends. There are usually two sources of this cash: either their parents offer them pocket money or they make money by dong part time jobs.
So, when teens have money to spend, they usually spend it on junk foods because they are tasty and yummy. This will lead to teenage weight gain with all the extra calories. My son is the worst for this. He thinks that everyday he should be able to have a Cherry Pepsi and some candy. At 147 pounds and with a growing body it is far more important for him to make better snacking decisions than I make probably.
A lot of their food habits are also influenced by their peers at school. I still remember how every time my friend had a Super Big Gulp, I would inevitably buy one for myself, even though I had no intention of buying it when I left the house. Actually this peer pressure can be even worse, I remember how proud I was to have 2 Super Big Gulps in a day which now as an adult I find very very terrible.
3) Some, although not all Teens hardly exercise. Again, we as parents have got a big role to play here. If a kid is not taught the benefits of exercises, or if parents allow them to play video games for hours instead of encouraging them to participate in outdoor sports, there is a good chance our kids will be less healthy, the situation could only get worse as they grow into adolescence.
There are indeed very few schools which make outdoors sports and other such activities a mandatory part of their curriculum. As such, our present school system can also be blamed for teens health and weight gain.
Can We Really Blame Schools For Teenage Weight Gain?
It would have been good if the present American lifestyle and education system could be completely revolutionized; however, I don’t see it happening within the next few years.
Hence, as a parent, it is high time that we all start taking control of our kid’s health.
As to what you should do to keep your teenage kid healthy, I think that what I said above is more than enough to help our kids eat and exercise a lot healthier and avoid teenage weight gain by just having them, and us live healthier, more active lives.
The post Reasons Behind Teenage Weight Gain appeared first on Fitness Tips for Life.
http://ift.tt/2rN9TIyReasons Behind Teenage Weight Gain
Teenage obesity and teenage weight gain is harder to control than childhood obesity. This is because children are more receptive to advice and suggestions than teens.
Also, you cannot chide a teenager in the same way as a pre-teen as we all know
As we grow into adolescence, we grow physically as well as mentally. We become much more sensitive and stubborn than before. As teenagers, I am sure you remember, we think of ourselves as more intelligent than our parents. I am definitely one to admit that handling a teenage kid is a real pain in the butt.
Now, Today, Why Teenage Weight Gain?
Teenage Weight Gain
We see a lot of stories and news articles that tell us about childhood obesity and in going to a mall or driving by a bunch of kids at a local 7-11 you can definitely vouch for the fact that kids today are a bit chubbier than they were a few years ago, at least that is what I tend to see.
So shy is this? We know that there are diet changes, lack of personal responsibility, and freedom, but lets really look at the symptoms, the reason that this is happening more now.
1) Teens hardly know the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods since they were taught about it during their childhood. If they were eating junk and fatty foods as little kids, the same unhealthy eating habit follows them into their adolescence and they start eating them in larger quantities.
Parents often ask their kids to buy junk foods from outside instead of taking the time or trouble to cook healthy snacks at home, this itself can lead to teenage weight gain. If your child never tastes healthy and organic foods, he or she would naturally not be interested in them in the latter years of his life.
Plus, if your child has a school cafeteria, things could get only worse. These days, schools prefer to buy junk foods from outside since it is the cheaper option to cooking meals in-house. School budgets are stretched tight and those cuts can definitely show up in a cafeteria.
There is just no way your teen kid can have a choice to eat healthy foods. The easiest way I think is to make sure that meal planning is a central part of family eating so that decisions on dinners are made well ahead of time.
Also having lots of fruits and veggies in the fridge so that the kids will have less reason to look for chips and crackers in the pantry has helped me, as well as my kids.
2) Teens are much more tempted to try out restaurant foods than their pre-teen counterparts. You see, almost all teenagers today have a bit more freedom and some money to go out with friends. There are usually two sources of this cash: either their parents offer them pocket money or they make money by dong part time jobs.
So, when teens have money to spend, they usually spend it on junk foods because they are tasty and yummy. This will lead to teenage weight gain with all the extra calories. My son is the worst for this. He thinks that everyday he should be able to have a Cherry Pepsi and some candy. At 147 pounds and with a growing body it is far more important for him to make better snacking decisions than I make probably.
A lot of their food habits are also influenced by their peers at school. I still remember how every time my friend had a Super Big Gulp, I would inevitably buy one for myself, even though I had no intention of buying it when I left the house. Actually this peer pressure can be even worse, I remember how proud I was to have 2 Super Big Gulps in a day which now as an adult I find very very terrible.
3) Some, although not all Teens hardly exercise. Again, we as parents have got a big role to play here. If a kid is not taught the benefits of exercises, or if parents allow them to play video games for hours instead of encouraging them to participate in outdoor sports, there is a good chance our kids will be less healthy, the situation could only get worse as they grow into adolescence.
There are indeed very few schools which make outdoors sports and other such activities a mandatory part of their curriculum. As such, our present school system can also be blamed for teens health and weight gain.
Can We Really Blame Schools For Teenage Weight Gain?
It would have been good if the present American lifestyle and education system could be completely revolutionized; however, I don’t see it happening within the next few years.
Hence, as a parent, it is high time that we all start taking control of our kid’s health.
As to what you should do to keep your teenage kid healthy, I think that what I said above is more than enough to help our kids eat and exercise a lot healthier and avoid teenage weight gain by just having them, and us live healthier, more active lives.
The post Reasons Behind Teenage Weight Gain appeared first on Fitness Tips for Life.
http://ift.tt/2D88j6hAre Pop Tarts good for you?
I have bugged my wife for a long time that my kids have never had a pop tart. As you could imagine morning TV is full of commercials for food and sugary food at that, so what about these Pop Tarts?
Yesterday we got a box of pop tarts for the kids as they finally won over my wife. Growing up I never had pop tarts myself but I am sure it is only because my parents cared about me. in my 20s I had a few so I of course know what they are.
So here is the scoop. Are Pop Tarts good for you? Are Pop Tarts part of a balanced breakfast?
No
Nutritional Analysis of Pop Tarts
- Calories: 200
- Fat: 5 grams
- Carbohydrates: 35 grams
- Fiber: 1 gram
- Protein: 3 grams
So what are we looking for here? Well the numbers look fine although in a vacuum it looks like a decent number of calories and there is a bit of protein.
But looking deeper look at what a Pop Tart gets it’s calories from – sugar- these things are made of sugar and fried pastry (don’t know how the fat is even that low) and the pastry is just one of those refined carbs that we always try to avoid.
The real problem though is that the kids get a big pop to their blood sugar and then a sugar crash and the calories are completely empty. Breakfast is an important meal for kids to get lots of nutrients and there are not going to be any, I know the box says there is some iron and folate but really no vitamins A or C at all.
So I will have to give a pass on Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts are not good for you even if they do taste great.
The post Are Pop Tarts good for you? appeared first on .
http://ift.tt/1RVXXHX
Exercise will boost kids self image
Exercise may fight off depression and improve self-esteem in over children, researchers here said.
But according to one key measure, white children seemed to benefit more from exercise than black youngsters, a difference the scientists found intriguing but not easily accounted for.
In a randomized trial, heavy kids who exercised for 40 minutes a day saw decreases in depressive symptoms and improvements in self-esteem compared with those who remained sedentary, Karen Petty, M.D., of the Medical College of Georgia, and colleagues reported online in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.
Effects of childhood obesity
So the researchers conducted a study of 207 over and sedentary children ages seven to 11 years.
They noted that the youngsters in the sample were not clinically depressed, with only 4% scoring above the cutoff for depression.
How much exercise do kids need?
The children were randomized to either 20 or 40 minutes of daily exercise, or told to continue their sedentary lifestyle. The exercises periods, which lasted for 13 weeks, included running, jump rope, basketball, and soccer.
The researchers found that the 40-minute exercise group sustained the greatest psychological benefit, with evidence of a dose-response relationship.
For depression, the 40-minute group had significantly lower scores than the control group. The 20-minute group also had lower depression scores than the control group, but the finding was not statistically significant.
The 40-minute group also had significantly better self-esteem scores than the control group. Once again, the 20-min group scored better than the controls, but not enough for statistical significance.
“The 40 min daily dose of aerobic exercise was clearly superior to the control condition for reducing depressive symptoms, increasing physical appearance self-worth,” the authors concluded.
Although the results suggest that 20 minutes of exercise might also help, further study is needed, the report said.
Race, Kids and self esteem
A multivariate analysis revealed that self-perception scores improved only for white children. Although exercise did not impact the general self-esteem of black children, it did improve their depressive symptom scores, the researchers said.
“The unexpected finding that exercise led to increased global self-worth only in whites calls for further study on the influence of race on psychosocial consequences of obesity and exercise,” they said.
Change kids now for their future
“However,” they said, “the effects of exercise on depressive symptoms may be important for prevention of clinical depression in later childhood and adolescence.”
The researchers said their findings may be limited by notions of self-worth that vary by culture. Also, because the 20-minute exercise period did not produce statistically significant results, they suggested further study to see if there’s an effective dose of exercise below 40 minutes.
Still, they concluded that the findings point to the need for exercise programs for all children in order to “reduce depressive symptoms and increase aspects of self-worth.”
The post Exercise will boost kids self image appeared first on Fitness Tips for Life.
http://ift.tt/1SLhNV0Can Kids be Heavier and Healthy?
There is a new study out from the University of Alberta that shows that kids can be heavier but still be metabolically healthy.
When we look at health in kids there are many different measurements that we can do to grade their health.
In the study done by the University of Alberta the reasearchers actually found that of the 181 kids between 8 and 17 that according to the scale where obese that one third of them were actually metabolically healthy, that is they were not imminently at risk of developing insulin resistance.
When someone is at risk of developing insulin resistance they are therefore at risk of getting diabetes.
Statements from University of Alberta Obesity Study
“It’s not all about fat, even for kids who meet the definition of obesity,” stated Geoff Ball, senior author and professor of pediatrics in the U of A’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, and clinical director of Stollery Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Centre for Weight and Health, and the author of the study.
“Lifestyle behaviors — how physically active they are and what they eat — those things have an effect on their health, independent of fatness.”
Ball said the findings should help physicians and other health professionals understand the complexity of obesity for treating patients and prioritizing referral to specialized -management care.
Roughly two million young, obese Canadians meet eligibility criteria for such treatment—far more than the two dozen or so clinics across the country can accommodate, he added
Lets not look at this as a way of accepting obesity in our kids but instead look at the fact that sometimes otherwise healthy kids can be over. It is better to look at a range of habits and inclinations of our kids.
How much exercise a week? What kind of breakfast and snacks do the kids eat? How much screen time, and is it affecting the opportunity for exercise?
I know that I fight with these issues all the time. As a dad of two kids I like to make sure the kids get lots of exercise but also my wife and I try to watch their eating.
My 15 year old daughter is no problem but my son wants candy and popcorn all the time, to the point that he is willing to eat popcorn without butter or salt (which is good for him anyway).
The post Can Kids be Heavier and Healthy? appeared first on Fitness Tips for Life.
http://ift.tt/1ez4Lc8Cure for Childhood Obesity: Let Your Child Snack
It is no secret that childhood obesity is on the rise. Truth to be told, obesity has been around for sometime now, but childhood obesity is more of a recent phenomenon.
Now let me tell you the root cause behind obesity. Almost everyone would say that you become obese because of following unhealthy eating habits, but WHY do your kids follow unhealthy food habits?
Is it just to satiate their tastebuds?
If that would have been the case, then they would be eating those “bad” foods only once in a while and not daily at breakfast, lunch and dinner; also eating moderate amount of fast foods doesn’t make anyone obese.
The Cause of High Calorie and Fattening Diets
The root cause behind the increasing consumption of junk food is fast lifestyle. As years pass, we become busier than ever. We are so busy that we don’t even have time to cook our own meals.
Under such circumstances, we feel that buying that cool white bread, cake or burger from the local store is far more convenient than trying to cook stuff at home.
In other words, we are more or less living a “buy, eat and go” type of lifestyle.
Most parents don’t stuff children’s lunch boxes with home-cooked meals (as used to be the norm at the time of our parents); instead they are asked to buy this or that food from the store and as you might have guessed, almost always these foods turn out to be calorie-rich junk foods.
Children learn only from adults; no wonder then that they too have become ‘busy’ as well. They have their school projects to finish, dozens of books to read, video games to watch, etc.
So where is time for them either to take a walk outside or even to play sports just for fun?
How To Control How Much The Kids Snack
That said, there are still ways to control your kids’ lifestyle provided that you are willing to implement them. Here I offer you a simple tip you can use to keep them from adding tonnes of extra pounds to their bodies.
Children are habitually accustomed to eating in small quantities. They prefer spending more time on grazing and sucking foods than eating them, and usually favor snacks over large meals.
Snacks are one of the best foods for your kids. This doesn’t however mean that you should hand over a huge can of soda or a big box of cookies to them; rather you should take the time to cook healthy snacks which are low on sugar and calories.
Remember that these snacks, unlike burgers and French fries, would not only keep your kids full but also help them maintain their normal weight.
Unlimited Low Cal Snacks?
Speaking of low-calorie snacks, many people wrongly assume that since they’re low on calorie, it is okay to eat as many of them as you like.
That is not true at all.
Let me show you a simple example: let’s say that your kid used to have one snack of 100 calories daily. Now you offer him 100 low-calorie snacks in its place, each of which contains an average of 1 calorie. What is the difference?
Even if it is low in calories, it is still important to snack in small quantities. Since kids are habitual grazers, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to get the kids started with this eating habit right from their childhood.
The post Cure for Childhood Obesity: Let Your Child Snack appeared first on Fitness Tips for Life.
http://ift.tt/1LZ2BTt