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Teenagers are more prone to weight problems than children.
Style is important regardless of the domain we use it (or not), including out talks and speeches. The same happens when you try to talk to your kids about marks at school or body weight problems. It is not what you tell them, but how you tell them that makes the difference.
Pediatricians advise that, here too, the best rule that applies is to talk about the improvements without drawing attention on the negative aspects. In other words, trying to get your kids to understand and focus on a healthy lifestyle rather than to tell them that they are overweight or overtly talk about their body weight problems.
Specialists thought that new guidelines were necessary because of the many cases of teenagers trying to lose weight through means that were not recommended by the doctor. When trying to lose weight, teenagers may not keep in mind other medical condition they have, and, instead of doing good for themselves, they might actually end up by harming their organism even more.
There are also other cases when teenagers get obsessed about their body image and their weight problems, so they turn into anorexic patients.
Doctors advise that families should not talk about weight problems, thus making the children unhappy about their appearance. On the other hand, what families can do is having healthy meals together. Diet is not the answer, but a healthy lifestyle and regularly eating healthy food together can improve the health of all members of the family. If diet becomes someone’s lifestyle, it is not even a diet anymore.
Regular exercises should also be a part of children and teenagers’ daily program, but not for the sake of losing weight. Parents have to make them see the importance of physical activities because they are beneficial for their health, in general, preventing them from a series of other diseases, not only obesity.
Raising a child with a healthy lifestyle will make a teenager with the same habits, and an adult that raises children in the same way. Statistics show that, for the time being, the rate for weight problems with kids has dropped, but for teenagers, is the same. However, doctors hope for a healthier, more self-aware generation of adolescents.
The new guidelines were published in Pediatrics, on August 21.
Image courtesy of: Wikipedia
