Healthy Weight Loss Blog

Today, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, over 17% of young children are overweight, which is a huge chunk of our population. Diet and exercise are two keys to maintaining a healthy weight. The less active a child’s lifestyle is, the more likely they are to be overweight. Perhaps understanding why so many children are not active will help you see how a summer weight loss camp camp may be just what the doctor ordered for your child.

Some common reasons that children are inactive:

* Among the top reasons children and teens are not active like they should be is the fact that they have access to so much technology. In fact, it is that technology that is contributing to the obesity trends we are seeing today in young children and teens. Today, kids will sit around for hours and chat with their friends online. In the past, the same kids might have spent those hours playing a game of tag, riding their bikes around, or some other activity that involves physical movement.

* Some children, despite intervention, have a preference for indoor activities like reading or coloring.

* Some children label activities that involve moving their body as boring because they fear they aren’t good at those activities or will be laughed at. For example, you might encourage your child to play soccer , but they might label it as boring and refuse to do it.

* Some children love to play video games and watch their favorite shows on television for hours and hours without even thinking of stepping foot outside because, after all, what could possibly be more entertaining than Hannah Montana?

* Some children spend hours at a time “studying” on the computer for homework or school related projects. This “studying” keeps them from finding other activities to do to keep them from being bored.

* If your child is doing poorly in school, you punish him by not letting him go outside.

* You put a TV, computer, and video game console in your child’s bedroom to ensure no one fights in the house about use of the living room so you can have peace and quiet.

* You allow your child’s friends to come over and stay cooped up in the house all day for entertainment verses encouraging them to go outside for a while and enjoy the weather.

* You don’t spend time showing your kid fun activities and sports to promote lifelong fitness.

You likely see some similarities between you and your child and the points mentioned above. You also understand that your child’s inactivity is largely responsible for them being overweight. Perhaps you’ve considered placing your child on a diet, forcing them to increase their activity level, or sending them to a summer weight loss camp.

While you know your own intentions are well when it comes to helping your kid lose weight, you may find it difficult to solve all these problems on your own. In fact, you would have to be SUPER MOM or SUPER DAD in order to solve all these problems. These barriers to weight loss for your child can be easily resolved by simply choosing a good fitness camp for your child or teen to get involved in.

It is possible for your child to have fun losing weight in a structured environment of summer fun! Think about it - your child will constantly receive the structure he or she needs to be active and will receive great social support because all the other kids will be having fun too!

So when making the final decision on whether or not to invest in one of the good summer weight loss camps for your child, remember you are not alone and the staff at your child’s camp are by your side. Your child may be overweight now, but they don’t have to be that way forever!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 9:08 am and is filed under Weight Loss Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.