Thursday, April 10, 2008

Help Teens Stay Slim

Help Teens Stay Slim

Experts have long suspected that the empty calories from sugary drinks like soda are playing a key role in the growing childhood obesity epidemic. So what can a parent do to fight back? Try stocking the fridge with low-calorie drink options instead, say researchers from Children's Hospital in Boston.

In a study, they found that simply replacing high-calorie drinks like soda and sugary fruit-flavored drinks with low-calorie options like diet soda, low-cal lemonade, iced tea, and water led to an 82 percent reduction in the amount of sugar teens consumed. Plus, the more overweight teens who participated in the study dropped an average of half a pound a week simply by switching to low-cal beverages! Talk about effortless weight loss!

Next time you head for the market, bring your teens along and have them help choose which low-calorie drinks they'd like to try. Experts say involving your kids, and making healthier foods their choice, is key to making this easy change stick.

I know I'm an adult as all of my readers are but we really do need to take care of our childrens health as well. For so long I made for sure they got in their veggies but honestly ... that's about as far as I got with them. I didn't make them drink water ... I didn't monitor their soda ... snacks .... or even exercise. My punishment is I now have a son with weight problems. We are getting on the straight and narrow together though. I let both kids pick out their 100 calorie pack any other snack they have to read the nutrition lable to see what 1 serving is. It's working ... their eating less .... drinking more water (with flavoring but I'm ok with that) ... and they have been doing walk videos with me on days where they don't get a lot of outdoor play.

As for my diet ... I'm not doing to bad on the food part of things but for some reason I'm having a rough time fitting in a long span of cardio time. MIL is still living with us & it looks like she is here for the long haul. Thankfully everything is going wonderful. I'm hoping for a good weigh in tomorrow since my food has been in check. It might not be much but as long as it isn't a gain I'll be happy.

3 comments:

  1. My daughters Sam & Lucy both eat pretty good (most of the time) and they go to the gym.  Lately my son has been putting on a few lbs.  He drinks too much Brisk, and he gets that crap from his Dad.  Too much sugar and his dad is gonna stop buying it.  He also joined a gym about 3 weeks ago.  I am lucky that non of them are going through the hell that I am going through!!!
    Christina

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  2. that is something I wished as a parent I had never done give them soda or a happy meal live and learn you are doing great
    hugs
    Sherry

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