EXCESSIVE FOOD CONSUMPTION + LACK OF EXERCISE = OBESITY
OBESITY + BAD EATING HABITS = ORGAN, GLAND AND MUSCLE STRESS
STRESS + TIME = ILLNESS
ILLNESS = DEATH
Coronary Heart Disease is the deadliest disease currently in the world threatening human life. Each year it is estimated to kill 17 million people, that’s 17 million loved ones lost and millions if not billions more lives impacted as a result, leaving people as fond lasting memories for others to look back on. Similarly there are an estimated 13 different types of cancer linked to obesity. That means that how you choose to fuel your body and how you choose to not exercise your body properly has become such a strain on your organs, glands and bodily systems that illness has now fallen upon you….
What if the heartache and troubled times among family was preventable?
What if it was possible to reprogram your body tomorrow with better habits?
What if you could not only lead by example for yourself but your kids as well?
Prevention is better than Cure, and the best way to accomplish this is to step in early. They say it takes a minimum of 21 days to break a habit and around 66 days to form a new one. This leads to the question “In the current child obesity crisis are eating habits a learned and unconscious behaviour ?” and the answer is YES. It is not easy to become obese, it is not easy to consistently over eat, it’s not easy to not give your body the physical needs it is required to nourish itself. It’s against your body’s natural instincts, but on day 67 of this type of behaviour you ignore what your body is telling you and this kind of damage becomes automatic. But where does it all start? Data from the Health Survey for England (HSE) conducted in 2014 and examining patterns of overweight and obesity among children aged 2–15, showed that 17% of children were obese and an additional 14% of children were overweight. That is worth reading again. My basic maths tells me that 31% (nearly a third) of all children are seriously overweight. That was in 2014. Will the figures have gone down since then? I very much doubt it. As a Dad to 3 boys, admittedly now 21, 20 and 14, these statistics come as a shock.
Overeating stems from addictive chemicals plastered into nearly every food we consume. But how do we know what to eat that isn’t damaging for our kids? “If I feel blank now how am I going to consistently implement change?” Try this………………
Top 5 Healthy snacks to get your kids interested:
Homemade Fruit Lollipops:
http://www.nourishingmeals.com/2012/07/watermelon-whole-fruit-popsicles.html
Which kids don’t like brightly coloured foods? Lollipops? Or a showing dad what they made today?
Chocolate Hummus:
https://www.superhealthykids.com/recipes/healthy-chocolate-hummus/
Chocolate? And Hummus? Great to try on crackers or fruit, but more importantly it controls sugar cravings due to a special ingredient which is known for controlling blood sugar.
Butterfly Snack Packs:
http://menumusings.blogspot.com/2014/08/butterfly-snack-bags.html
Are you busy? Want something that only requires throwing snacks in a bag with a wooden washing peg? Check this out.
Alpine light Jaffa cake bar:
Zesty orange taste to slowly manage those sugar cravings, oats and wholegrain to fill you up, and it wouldn’t be appealing to the kids without a little bit of chocolate.
Fridge Raiders Southern Style Chicken bites:
Not all snacks have to be stereotypically healthy on this list. This will certainly help those needs to overeat by reducing normal chicken to bite size pieces, leaving you satisfied
These last two are more conveniently available to pick up in Sainsbury’s. This is to allow you to develop an understanding relationship with food. Do we need to eat to survive? Yes, but we also have to take responsibility to not just dump so called food into our childrens’ body that does more harm than good.
A treat isn’t a treat if you have it all the time. There’s no point implementing these snacks to control cravings if you end up having 200 in a sitting! Some ways to control how many snacks your kids have could be:
Using a Chocolate/ Snack box: Having a designated place for treats or snacks where you can easily see what your kids are eating when they’re at home.
Or, if your kids are a bit older you could invest in a kSafe (kitchen safe) a timed lock snack box so they can’t sneak any when you’re not looking (or they’re tall enough to get to the chocolate box)
These kinds of things are great to implement while your kids are a bit younger as they can be used to gradually reduce snacking and “bad” food intake – these short-term adjustments take only 66 days to change the way your kids view snacking and overeating. As day 67 comes around the behaviour pattern has changed their thinking for the next 30+ years!
The overall aim of this is to get you to think about who’s living under your roof and how you want them to approach their feelings towards food over the course of the next 5,10,20 years because of the habits you started to put in place in their childhood. Remember, becoming obese is not an easy task it takes years of hard work and dedication, but all for the outcome of an unhappy and disease-ridden body- and sadly many of us know the ending to this story far too well.