There are many things you can do to prevent childhood obesity and make sure your child will lead a healthy life.

The first thing you can do is to monitor everything your child eats. You can do that by writing down all the meals and snacks your child eats every day. Keep the journal for a week or two weeks to have a thorough understanding of every intake. This will help you understand the amount of food your child eats, the habits the child has developed and also it will help you change things. This means that when it is time to educate your child on healthy eating, you can take examples from the journal. For instance, tell the child that instead of picking up a bag of potato chips for snack, he could have made a fruit salad or some dried fruit instead. These alternatives are tasty and very healthy. Your child might not like snacks so much, but eat them because he doesn’t know the alternatives.

Another thing you can do is not to buy junk food. Junk food has many drawbacks. It is expensive and unhealthy and it will teach your child to seek ready made food and develop a liking for it more than cooked food. This will cause you a big problem in the future if you allow it to happen. So if you are one of those parents that likes to give junk food to children, you should reconsider. Another thing you should know is that many juices that are available in the market are not that healthy either. They are concentrated, contain a very limited amount of fruit pulp if any and they are full of sugar. Added sugar can be hidden everywhere, even in salty foods. If you don’t have enough time to prepare fresh juices, you can buy a juice machine. They are very easy to use and some models don’t require any action from you. You just add the fruit without even peeling it and you get fresh juice.

If your child has an increased appetite, you shouldn’t make the child feel bad. You can do simple tricks that will help this phase. Serve the meals and allow enough time for the child to eat. Always eat in the dining table or in your kitchen and never in the living room in front of the television. You should also not serve colas and sodas with the meal. If your child is still hungry after consuming the proper serving you have given, allow a second serving from vegetables. For example, if you have cooked steaks with vegetables, allow the child to have more vegetables until he is full. Make sure you have enough and always use two or three vegetables to make the dish tastier and full of colors. For example you can serve corn with carrots.

Lastly, you should keep a stable program and plan ahead for meals. Eating healthy food at a regular time can play a more important role than you think in keeping your child healthy.

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