Childhood obesity happens when there is a sustained period where the child’s energy intake exceeds his or her energy expenditure. Controlling your child’s diet and energy intake may be difficult as it requires the whole family to adopt a healthy lifestyle and diet rather than just the child. If parents and family members were to follow an unhealthy diet that for instance, consists of fried foods, processed foods and insufficient portions of fruits and vegetables, the child is likely to follow the same diet as well.

Furthermore, it is harder to control the energy intake of your child nowadays as they are more inclined towards eating fast food or unhealthy foods as compared to the past due to the aggressive marketing of fast food companies and food manufacturers targeted at children. Some children may also become picky eaters, shun away from unfamiliar foods and prefer better tasting ones. Hence, this may result in an unhealthy diet and a higher risk of childhood obesity in children today.

Obese children are likely to stay obese into adulthood and more likely to develop diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases at a younger age. Hence, the prevention and management of childhood obesity is important to safeguard the health of your child.

How to Prevent and Manage Childhood Obesity: Reducing Energy Intake

Lifestyle changes

Parents are an important supporting role in their child’s development and preventing or managing childhood obesity. They can encourage mental, physical and social activities to discourage the thoughts of food. Furthermore, it is essential for your child to have communication through speech and play for his or her development.

Parents can ask their child to do simple things like role play, puzzle or light chores, or play a board game or ball game with their siblings or family members. With their minds occupied with the games and playing, they will think less about food. Parents can even cultivate new hobbies for their little ones.

Parents are also likely to prepare most meals and control the family shopping basket, which will likely go into the diet of their children. Hence, it is important to think twice before buying junk food into the house even if it is not meant for your child.

It is also common for parents to offer edible treats to children as rewards. Hence, they can instead suggest non-edible items or activities as an alternative to some of the edible treats. For example, you can bring your child out to the beach, park or swimming pool as a treat rather than treating him or her to sweets or junk food.

Sleep

Some studies have also suggested that children who sleep less haven an above average risk of obesity. Short sleep duration leads to lower levels of circulating leptin and higher levels of ghrelin. Since leptin suppresses appetite and stimulate energy expenditure while ghrelin is elevated during hunger, appetite will increase if your child has insufficient sleep.

Thus, parents should set their child’s bedtime and also avoid bringing your child out late past their bedtime.

Manage food refusal

A balanced and healthy diet for your child is essential to prevent obesity. However, some children may shun away from healthy foods which may not taste as nice and prefer better tasting sweet or fried foods. This is when you must manage their refusal properly and exercise discipline for their diet.

An environment in which the family eats the meal provided and expects no alternative is highly desirable. Eating along with the family may encourage your younger child to eat foods that are usually refused as they sometimes learn to like these foods when they see others eating them. Parents should educate their children that foods that are cooked and on their plates are expected to be consumed and that there are no alternatives. However, the tactic of giving them no choice but to eat what is on their plate may fail if one of the parents refuses the same item.

If you want your child to enjoy eating vegetables, start by enjoying them yourselves. It will be even better if you allow them to be in the preparation process of perhaps washing or separating vegetables, or in the juicing process of vegetables. With that, they will definitely be inclined and proud to eat what they have prepared themselves.

If the food is not eaten after gentle encouragement, you should avoid complaining or forcing your child to eat. This is will reinforce food refusal in your child. No comment or an expression of slight disappointment is likely the best. A preferred food should not then be offered as an alternative. Foods refused without a good reason should also be offered on future occasions. This is because it is proven that infants and toddlers may take 10 to 20 tastings before they find some foods acceptable. If you were to give up easily, your child may consume diets that are very restricted in variety and often energy dense, causing your child’s energy intake to exceed his or her energy expenditure.

Modify food energy density

Parents can use the below three ways to cut down energy intake and introduce a balanced diet:

1. Use cooking methods that add less energy to foods
2. Change to low energy versions of foods
3. Change the balance of foods on the plate: One half of the plate is fruit or vegetables, one quarter meat/fish/eggs or other protein source and one quarter staple of rice, potatoes, pasta or bread.

Parents should use low energy substitutes of products which are taken regularly. For example, leaner cuts of meat or meat with the fat cut off can be used. Low energy wholemeal bread can also be used instead of white bread. Parents can also change the way the foods are prepared. For instance, potatoes can be boiled or baked instead of fried. You can also offer foods in forms which may be more satiating, such as wholemeal breads and whole fruits which are high in fibre as opposed to fruit juices and will fill your child up more. Parents can also cook at home as much as possible so as to control the composition of the meals.

Manage fluid intakes

Fresh or boxed fruit juices should not be used to quench thirst, but rather as a midday snack or during breakfast.

Also, canned or bottled drinks should be poured out into cups and offered in small quantity.

Eating foods with low glycaemic index

Glycaemic Index (GI) is a measurement carried out on carbohydrate-containing foods and their impact on our blood sugar compared to that of pure glucose. Low-GI diets have been associated with decreased risk of child obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

As blood sugar levels rise, your child’s pancreas secretes more insulin to maintain the blood sugar level. Foods with high GI and high sugar content encourage overeating because more insulin is secreted and the dramatic rebound fall in blood glucose induces hunger and a need to eat. Foods which produce lower glycaemic responses may be more satiating since the gradual insulin response is less likely to be followed by the dramatic reactive fall in glucose which may induce hunger and the need to eat.

Food of low GI includes those with high fibre content rather than those with refined carbohydrate. For the convenience of parents, rather than monitoring the GI value of foods, as a general guideline, parents can aim to include as many foods that are ‘whole foods’ or high fibre foods with relatively low energy content into their child’s diet. These are foods with relatively low GI. Whole foods and high fibre cereals may also seem more filling because of the fibre content. Furthermore, the fibre content makes them less energy dense.

A whole food diet – As natural as possible

A whole food diet involves eating from natural sources and unprocessed foods. Whole foods mainly include plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits and nuts, and animal foods such as eggs, meat, fish and poultry. For example, instead of giving your child instant oatmeal or boxed cereals for breakfast, giving your child omelette made with eggs, spinach and mushrooms. For snacks throughout the day, avoid giving your child granola bars, potato chips or sugary chocolate drinks as they are mostly devoid of nutrients and can make your child feel hungry. Instead, allow them to snack on nuts, fruits or hard boiled eggs.

Organize meals and snacks

While it is impossible to have a specific timetable for meals and snacks, it is advisable for snack times to be placed closer to the meal that is past rather than the meal that is to come. This is because after snacking, your child may feel full or lack the appetite for the proper main meal. This is especially likely for young children who have relatively small stomachs and can easily feel sated with drinks or snacks like bread and cakes. As a result, they are likely to eat too little for the main meal, which will lead to hunger later and thus more snacking after that. These snacks are less desirable because they are often more energy dense and not as balanced as compared to a main meal.