Kids love fresh fruit!
We all know that if we eat more than we burn off, we get fat. We also know that if we don’t eat the right foods in the right quantities and feed our body it will go into starvation mode and start storing fat as a defense mechanism. Children are at the mercy of the adults in their lives as well as advertisers who target children to get life long customers on products that aren’t healthy.
“The prevalence of obesity among our nation’s youth has more than doubled in the past 20 years, with close to 5 million youths aged 6 to 17 seriously overweight or obese. The concerns caused by overweight are more than a cosmetic issue. Childhood obesity leads to a variety of health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.1 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that 60 percent of overweight 5- to 10-year-olds already have at least one risk factor for heart disease, such as raised blood pressure or insulin levels”.
One organization is fighting back with information for parents on foods that children are likely to eat and are much more nutritious. Now this organization happens to be promoting a vegetarian diet. Pam and I are not anti-meat and we think you really need to look into what meat is appropriate for your children. However, we all know that we should be eating mostly vegetables and fruit. More vegetables than fruit! And this organization offers up some good information recipes to try. The site is www.kidsgethealthy.org. You can download information and order a free copy of a brochure with recipes to try out. We are what we eat (only 30% of our body type and physical appearance is hereditary, the rest is because of your choices) so help develop children into carrots and not pop tarts. Be sure to get your children up and moving with fun activities that they don’t identify with exercising. You children should not be on a diet, but enjoying a healthy lifestyle! They will thank you when they are old enough to understand that you cared enough to feed them well and keep them healthy.
