Childhood Obesity & Parents’ Healthy Food Confusion
Cheryl Haining

Many parents struggle to know which foods are healthy for their children. When they are able to opt for healthy choices, about two-thirds struggle to get their children to eat healthily, a poll of nearly 800 parents found. Developing Patient Partnerships (DPP), which commissioned the survey, said that parents need more support to tackle the growing problem of childhood obesity. Childhood obesity has tripled in the past 20 years, official figures show.
Recent studies suggest that parents do not know what good nutrition is. Perhaps advertising of fast foods, and busy life styles has contributed to this. Nutritional meals can be prepared quickly and simply at home.

Of the parents of children aged 15 years and younger questioned by the DPP, 45% said they found it difficult to work out which foods were healthy for their children. When parents did select healthy foods, 65% said they struggled to motivate their children to eat it. Three-quarters of parents blamed advertising and marketing of unhealthy snacks and drinks for making this job so difficult. Another 87% believed that schools should play a big role in teaching children how to be healthy.

When more than a thousand children aged seven to 16 were questioned about their lifestyles, 70% said they would be more likely to eat healthily and get active if their parents were doing it. Only 16% said they ate the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. This suggests that parents are not making healthy food choices themselves. There are strong links between obesity and ill health. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare lists the following increased risks of cancers in obese people:-
MenWomen
Cancer% Increase RiskCancer%increase Risk
Prostate23Uterus178
Leukaemia43Kidney110
Bowel53Bowel35
Liver128Liver48
Gallbladder76Breast71

Statistics such as these are a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining a healthy weight level. Children must be given every opportunity to have a healthy body. In order to get their family on track to a healthy lifestyle parents need to learn how to feed themselves and their family good nutrition.
A simple way to improve nutrition is to add raw fruit and vegetables to family diets. These are foods that have no preservatives or added color. They provide plenty of vitamins, mineral, antioxidants, fiber, water and trace elements. (All necessary for good nutrition.) They look appetizing and have high water content. They have a firm texture which means we need to chew them well. This aids the digestive system. The body quickly and easily processes them. This means less work for the digestive system.
They are natural, that is, not processed and pre-packaged with extra chemicals. They are pure energy – living foods. Look for different colored vegetables and fruits when you shop. Experiment with ones you have never tasted. Visit a market for more variety and fresher foods. Eat at least one from each group every day.

Red/Purple Group includes tomatoes, watermelon, berries, cherries, and grapes
Orange/Yellow includes carrots, sweet potato, squash, mangoes, cantaloupe, apricots, oranges, mandarins pineapples and many stone fruits
Yellow/green among this group are avocado, spinach, beans, peppers, corn, beans, broccoli, green leafy vegetables,
White/green some in this group asparagus, celery, garlic, leeks, mushrooms, pears
For more information read, “What Color is Your Food” by Dr D Heber.

Experiment with adding these to your daily diet. Of course a balanced diet must also include daily servings of dairy, whole grains and protein. Start with the simple idea of adding more fresh fruit and vegetables to the family’s daily food intake. This simple step will have fantastic and long lasting impact on your health.

About the Author

Cheryl Haining is a skin care, body shape and nutrition coach. She has her own successful business. Her mission statement is to ensure everyone reaches his or her optimum body shape, size and condition. Contact Cheryl at www.uloseweight.net To learn how to create an income stream from home visit
www.keybusinesstips.info

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Brown bagging it the healthy way
Tony Robinson

When enjoying a healthy lifestyle, one of the biggest challenges
is making meals on the go. Brown bagging is even more difficult
when children are involved, but it is still possible to create
delicious, nutritious brown bag lunches that the whole family
will love.

The most important part of creating healthy, delicious brown bag
lunches is choosing the foods that will go into those brown
bags. It is important to choose foods that are easy to put
together, and to include foods that everyone in the family
likes. Including everyone’s favorite foods is a great way to
make sure the lunches will be eaten instead of traded for
Twinkies.

When creating healthy brown bag lunches for yourself and your
family, try to choose at least three choices from the following
list.

At least one fruit or vegetable, either fresh, canned
or frozen. Some good choices include apples, bananas and
oranges. Fruit salad also makes a great choice for brown bag
lunches. A whole grain product like bread, a tortilla
shell, a bagel, pasta, rice or muffins. Milk or dairy
products like low fat or nonfat yogurt, skim milk, cheese or a
yogurt drink or shake. Meat, fish, poultry, eggs,
peanut butter, legumes or hummus A healthy vegetable or
fruit salad

It is a great idea to involve the whole family in the
preparation of these brown bag creations. Why not have a family
session where everyone creates their own healthy brown bag
lunches using the ingredients you provide? Lay out all the
healthy foods, selected from the above list, and let everyone
choose their favorites. Involving the kids in meal planning at
an early age is a great way to help them learn to make healthy
food choices throughout their lives.

Packing those brown bag lunches can be exciting and fun for the
whole family. For instance, why not let every member of the
family choose his or her own special lunch box or bag? Other
good ideas and tips for brown bag lunches include setting aside
one shelf in the fridge for lunch fixings and finished lunches,
and setting aside a drawer in the cupboard for all the packaging
required, such as plastic bags, plastic cutlery, napkins, and
straws.

Of course, keeping the variety in brown bag lunches is very
important, both for the adults and the kids. There are some
great suggestions for keeping everyone from getting bored,
including:

Use a variety of different breads in your sandwiches.
Use a combination of wheat bread, rye bread and pumpernickel, in
addition to interesting bread alternatives such as tortilla
wraps, bread sticks and whole wheat crackers. Pack bite
size vegetables, such as baby carrots, broccoli florets and
pepper slices, along with a low fat dipping sauce. Add
bit size fruit like grapes, blueberries, orange wedges and
strawberries. Use only 100% fruit juice in brown bag
lunches. Avoid fruit drinks and blends, which often contain less
than 10% real fruit. Pick up a variety of single
serving cereal and let everyone choose their favorites. 
Buy a good selection of flavors of nonfat or low fat yogurt
every week, and let everyone choose their favorite flavor every
day. Pack a variety of dried fruit in your family’s
brown bag lunches.

Of course the kids are not the only ones who can enjoy healthy
brown bag lunches. Mom and dad can also join in the fun. After
all, brown bag lunches are a lower cost, and healthier
alternative to lunches out.

Some of the most popular choices for brown bag lunches, both for
children and their parents, include leftovers from the night
before (pasta, rice and potato dishes are great choices), cheese
and crackers, leftover veggie pizza, or a quick sandwich rollup
using a soft tortilla shell or pita bread.

One great way to enjoy a variety of healthy new foods is to form
a lunch partnership with four or five other coworkers. Everyone
takes turns bringing lunch for everyone. This can be a great way
to enjoy healthy new foods and gather some great new recipes.

About the author:

Tony Robinson is a Company CEO, webmaster husband and dad. In
his busy lifestyle he has placed importance on health and
fitness. Visit http://www.eat-healthily.com for good eating tips
and techniques to assist you maintain a healthy lifestyle.

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Advice on choosing health food and healthy foods and reading nutrition labels
Chris Robertson

Health food doesn’t need a definition, does it? We all know what
health food is it’s yogurt and granola, whole-grain cereal and
organically grown vegetables and fruit. It’s 100% natural, no
preservatives or dyes, unadulterated, pure. When you put all
that together, you should have healthy food, yet all too often,
what’s marketed as health food these days barely classifies as
food, let alone health food.

Take a look at one of our favorite health food choices – yogurt.
It hit supermarket shelves in the early seventies, though it had
been available before that in health food stores and
restaurants. Real yogurt has two ingredients: milk (whole, skim
or low fat) and live yogurt cultures. That’s health food –
calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, protein. Next time you’re at the
supermarket, take a look at the dairy case. You’ll find row
after row of hyper-sweetened brightly colored rainbow swirled
and candy-sprinkled yogurt packaged in ways that appeal to our
littlest consumers – children. Millions of parents buy the
enticing packages, secure that because it’s yogurt, they’re
buying food that’s healthy for their children.

One look at the label, though, and it’s clear that these kiddy
yogurts (as well as most of the yogurt that’s marketed to
adults) are a far cry from heath food. Some of the most popular
yogurts for children contain anywhere from 3 to 10 added
teaspoons of sugar. Considering how many teaspoons of yogurt are
in a single serving, you might as well hand your child the sugar
bowl. In addition, most yogurts include “natural” ingredients
that have little to do with health food. Ingredients like pectin
(to thicken yogurt), carrageenan (a seafood extract that gives
some yogurts their body, and annatto (for color) add little
nutritionally to yogurt. They’re in the mix to serve one main
purpose: to help yogurt survive its trip from the factory to
your table.

You’ll find the same situation with other foods that originally
made their debut as health foods in the seventies. Granola has
become granola bars with chocolate chips and gooey caramel.
Whole wheat flour is bleached and denuded of its flavorful
kernels. Sunflower seeds are roasted in oil and salted. Even
brown rice comes in the instant variety.

Healthy food not health food

The secret to feeding your family (and yourself) a healthful
diet of healthy food is to read the labels. The United States
Food & Drug Administration has laid out strict guidelines for
nutritional labeling of all food products. The nutrition label
will tell you all you need to know to choose real health foods.
Some things to keep in mind when reading nutrition labels for
health foods:

* In the ingredient’s portion of the nutrition label,
ingredients are listed in order by amount. The ingredient that’s
listed first is the main ingredient, followed by the next
largest amount, etc.

* The nutrition facts label must list each of the required
nutrients even if the food provides 0% of the recommended daily
value.

* The nutrition facts label must list what portion of the food’s
calories is derived from fat, from sugar, from protein and from
carbohydrates. It will also break down the fat into saturated
and unsaturated fat.

Reading labels on everything you feed your family is the best
way to tell whether a food is really a health food – or just
masquerading as one.

About the author:

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon
International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on
the web. Visit this Food Website
and Majon’s Food
directory.

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Here are some ways to lose weight fast.

1 – Take everything one step at a time. Begin simply by paying more attention to what you are eating, slowly cutting back on the bad foods and implementing more healthy foods into your diet. Once you have this under control, the next step is to add exercise to your plan. If you do not like exercising, take this one step at a time as well by implementing only 15 to 30 minutes at a time, at first.

2 – Choose foods and activities that you enjoy. If you do activities that you get enjoyment out of, you will find them to be much more successful than trying to exercise in ways that you do not enjoy. The same goes for foods that you implement in your diet: Choosing foods that you enjoy will help you enjoy your diet rather than craving bad foods.

3 – Build muscle. You lose calories based on your weight. Muscles, surprisingly enough, burn calories more quickly than fat does, pound for pound. Work out with weights to build muscle and lose weight, and then allow your extra lean muscle mass to burn more calories for you on a long term basis.

4 – Reduce your carbohydrates. Do not cut your carbohydrates out completely, because your body needs carbohydrates for energy. Cut out some of the white breads and pastas from your diet, though, to cut down on the carbohydrates that you consume. What carbs you do need to eat, you can replace with whole wheat and brown carbs for better health.

5 – Set realistic, measurable and attainable goals. Put deadlines on your goals, making them measurable. Make them realistic by choosing goals that you know you can attain. Set long term and short term goals and you will more readily achieve your expectations regarding quick and healthy weight loss.

6 – Give up the bad stuff. It may surprise you how unhealthy it is to eat candy, cookies, cakes and other sweets, and to drink soda and sugar laden drinks. Cut these bad goodies out either completely, or at least 80% of the time and the pounds will shrink away without you having to do much else to make the weight loss happen.

7 – Have a suitable breakfast. Most of your calories should be consumed early on in the day, and breakfast is no exception. Eat a nice breakfast to give your metabolism a good foundation to run from for the remainder of the day.

8 – Control portions by leaving something behind. Make sure your portions are correct based on the actual serving size of your food, and then make sure not to clear your plate completely. Exercising portion control will give you better control over what you put into your body for easy and achievable weight loss.

Implement these tips one by one and in no time at all you will begin to see a significant difference in your weight.

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