5 Keys to Helping Kids Avoid Obesity

There is nothing I enjoy more than raising my four children, but I have found it to be a challenge to raise healthy-weight children in today’s society. With the tripling of the child obesity rate in our country, there are record numbers of children experiencing health problems that a generation ago were primarily observed in adults.

As a physician’s assistant in family medicine, my job is not only to treat patients for their various health problems, but also to educate patients on ways to prevent diseases.

Lifestyle changes can be challenging, but when I took a successful child obesity intervention and prevention program that I had implemented in my community, the “Family Fitness Challenge,” and brought it to my church, I found that by combining current medical research about behaviors associated with obesity along with Bible verses to meditate on, it further inspired parents to make changes in their household that had a huge impact on the health of their entire family.

While there are multiple contributors to the child obesity epidemic, here are five areas that parents need to pay the most attention to:

1. Sleep. Research shows that people who regularly sleep too little and at the wrong time suffer long-lasting consequences: an increase in obesity and risk of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. American children are the most sleep-deprived in the world. Children should get 10 to 12 hours of sleep at night, teenagers eight to nine, and adults eight.

“Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience” (Heb. 4:11, NIV).