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32 years
Hi..my daughteris 7years old.her wdight is40kg.how can she loose weight safty??
Aug 28, 2014

Dr. Zakia Dimassi Pediatrics
Putting your child on a diet is generally not the best way to encourage your child to lose weight, according to expert opinion.
To help an overweight child, you need to take baby steps: you can begin with small changes to your family's diet and lifestyle to make it healthier for everyone.
For younger children and children who are still actively growing up, rather than targeting weight loss, aim at maintaining your child's weight.
Help the whole family embrace a healthier lifestyle. Keeping a fun, enjoyable, and positive environment around your child during meal times is invaluable. It doesn’t have to be a sort of a punishment to eat healthy!
Eat at the table. Eating in front of the TV, or different family members eating at different times is not a good idea. A study showed that kids who ate most of their meals with their family were less likely to be overweight. You are therefore encouraged to allot time to eat together at the table at least five or six times per week.
Vegetables and fruits should be the stars of the plate. Keep a diary of how many servings of veggies and fruits your child eats. You should target eating five or more servings a day. Let your child choose them at the store. Use a new fruit to make smoothies. Buy fewer high-calorie foods like sugary drinks, chips, cookies, fries, and candy. Here are examples of one serving of vegetables or fruits:
Vegetable Group
• 1/2 cup of chopped raw or cooked vegetables
• 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables
Fruit Group
• 1 piece of fruit or melon wedge
• 3/4 cup of juice
• 1/2 cup of canned fruit
• 1/4 cup of dried fruit
An easy way to encourage your child to eat vegetables and fruits is to make them more visible and more available or within reach, like by putting apples and oranges in a bowl on the table. Also, you could try presenting them in attractive ways, like a smiley face, or animals etc.
Eliminate sugared beverages such as soda and sweetened fruit juices: start every meal with a glass of water. You can start by decreasing the amount of sugary drinks to three a day for a week. Then cut back to two drinks a day the next week, and so on.
Limit 100% fruit juice. Fruit juice, although rich in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients than sugary sodas or fruit juice drinks, but they still contain a lot of sugar and often just as many calories as sodas, and you end up consuming way more calories than you realize. Limit 100% juice to no more than a single serving per day – 240 mL for adults and older kids, and only 180 mL for young kids.
Make sure breakfast is a daily habit: if you’re shirt on time, choose items to eat on the run, such as cheese with slices of veggies (cut and readied the night before) on toast.
Minimize TV: gradually to less than 2 hours per day, and focus on replacing it with physical activity , especially during the weekends. Gradually build up to the goal of having your child be physically active for at least one hour a day. Examples include doing squats or knee raises while brushing her teeth or doing jumping jacks during commercials while watching a morning cartoon.
Prepare more meals at home and avoid eating out, and when you do, you and your family should make healthy choices: skip the bread before the meal and start off with a salad or vegetables appetizer. Choose foods in their most natural states, such as grilled chicken instead of chicken nuggets. And share the dessert serving instead of each person eating their own dessert.

Foods that should be limited include:
 fats that are solid at room temperature (like butter and lard)
 foods that are high in calories, sugar, and salt like sugary drinks, chips, cookies, fries, and candy
 refined grains (white flour, rice, and pasta)
Instead, choose the following healthy items:
 fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and whole grains like brown rice
 fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products or substitutes, like soy beverages that have added calcium and vitamin D
 lean meats, poultry, seafood, beans and peas, soy products, and eggs
To help your child develop a healthy attitude toward food, try these ideas:
 Don't use food as a reward when encouraging kids to eat. Promising dessert to a child for eating vegetables, for example, sends the message that vegetables are less important than dessert.
 Explain the reasons for eating whatever it is you are serving. Don't make your child clean his or her plate.
 Limit eating to specific meal and snack times. At other times, the kitchen is "closed."
 Avoid large portions. Start with small servings and let your child ask for more if he or she is still hungry.
Below are two links that are very useful and made especially for kids:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/downloads/TenTips/DGTipsheet1ChooseMyPlate.pdf
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/mar10/obesity0310.pdf
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