Kids: Why not teach them to live healthy?

In my last post we discussed weight loss and how looking at it as living healthy rather than losing weight makes it easier to get started. It also makes it easier to stick with it, which is even more important. One thing that I have been thinking about since that article is the obesity epidemic among our nation’s children.

Nearly 1 in 3 kids is obese or overweight. This is tragic! It’s bad enough that adults are so inactive, but now kids are living similar lifestyles. Put fast food and 21st century portion sizes on top of that and it is no wonder kids are following in the footsteps of American adults.

As we discussed weight loss vs. healthy living, the kids came to mind. I have heard parents say, “They don’t need to worry about what they eat”, or “They don’t need the exercise, look how skinny they are”. This is exactly the mentality that has gotten
us into trouble. We think of nutrition and exercise only as ways to lose weight.

We forget about all the other benefits. What’s worse, is that many kids never learn the benefits of living healthy and they go down the same path as their parents. Once they decide that “they need to lose weight” they try to change a lifelong set of habits and often struggle.

What we need to do is show our kids the benefits of living healthy and start them on that path right away. If we do that we won’t need to worry about weight loss. Kids will not gain the weight they are gaining now and there won’t be a need for a drastic change in lifestyle when they are older.

Imagine all of the diseases we will be preventing if this shift takes place! We are already reaching a point where kids are dealing with what were previously adult diseases. Diabetes is one example, but there are many more out there that we could simply eliminate. Forget about managing or living with them, we can simply get rid of the disease.