Get a Healthy Weight for Your Child: A Parent's Guide to Better Eating and Exercise

Brian McCrindle, MD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and Section Head of Clinical Epidemiology, Division of Cardiology, at the world famous Hospital for Sick Children. He appears regularly on television and radio health programs as an expert in obesity-related diseases among children and adolescents. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

James G. Wengle, BSc, MSC, is a Certified Can-Fit-Pro personal trainer. He has first-hand experience in overcoming childhood obesity and is now committed to education and prevention of obesity in young people. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Get a Healthy Weight for Your Child

This book will help you to:

• Recognize if your child is overweight
• Realize the medical and emotional consequences of being overweight
• Understand the social, behavioral, biological, and genetic causes of being overweight
• Improve your child's and your family's eating habits and physical fitness

This book features:

• Practical guidelines for treatment and prevention
• Hands-on worksheets and exercises
• Food charts, menu suggestions, and exercise routines
• Charts for calculating overweight and healthy weight
• Guided nutrition tours of the fresh and processed food sections of grocery stores
• Menu plans and food preparation advice
• Strength and flexibility exercise routines
• Helpful food and fitness tips for parents
• Nutrition and activity 3-day diaries and scorecards
• Guidelines for setting weekly nutrition and activity goals

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The Healthy Weight Program Summary

Program Aims

The Healthy Weight Program will help your children make the necessary changes to their nutrition and lifestyle so they become healthy and fit. The program will benefit your children if they are not at a healthy weight, if they are at risk of becoming overweight, or if they just eat poorly and are physically unfit, regardless of their weight.

Program Philosophy

A healthy weight is the weight your child's body achieves with healthy nutrition and healthy activity habits. The program is not a weight-loss diet. It will be different for each child, and there is no one specific number that your child needs to reach. So long as young people adopt a healthy lifestyle, their body will find its own healthy weight.

• Health cannot be measured on a scale: The most important message you can send to your child is that the goal is not weight loss. The goal of this program is good nutrition and developing an active lifestyle. As young people move closer to the eating habits and physical activity outlined in the program, their body will naturally develop a healthy weight over a healthy amount of time.
• Healthy lifestyle can be measured: A healthy lifestyle is one where nutritious food is eaten on a regular basis and a meaningful amount of physical activity is performed each day. The program provides the means to measure and record if children are eating nutritiously and if they are getting a meaningful amount of physical activity.

Program Principles

The program is based on the principle of balancing food energy intake and physical activity energy expenditure to achieve a healthy weight.

• Healthy Energy Rule: When the amount of energy from the food we eat is balanced exactly with the amount of energy the body needs to stay alive and carry out activity, our body will maintain the same amount of stored body fat. This is the state of healthy weight.
• Positive Energy Rule: When the amount of energy from the food we eat is more than the amount of energy the body needs to stay alive and carry out activity, our body will store the extra energy as fat. This is the state of increasing body fat.
• Negative Energy Rule: When the amount of energy our body needs to stay alive and carry out activity is more than the amount of energy we get from the food we eat, our body simply uses up stored fat as its energy source. This is the state of decreasing body fat.

Program Stages

Your child will take small manageable steps toward healthy nutrition and healthy activity habits by choosing weekly nutrition and activity goals. By taking these steps, your child will start adopting a healthy lifestyle and will become physically fit and achieve a healthy weight.

The healthy weight program follows four stages of development. Parent and child have specific knowledge and activity goals to complete in each stage.

• Family Nutrition and Activity Habits Worksheet
• Child's Nutrition and Activity Habits Worksheet
• 3-Day Nutrition Diary: Log and Scorecard
• 3-Day Activity Diary: Log and Scorecard
• Height, Weight, and Target Weight Chart

STAGE 2: Setting Goals and Rewards (Week 2)

• Goal of the Week Worksheet
• Goal of the Week Evaluation Questionnaire
• 3-Day Nutrition Diary: Log and Scorecard
• 3-Day Activity Diary: Log and Scorecard

STAGE 3:Building Up Goals and Rewards (Week 3-4)

• Goal of the Week Worksheet
• Goal of the Week Evaluation Questionnaire
• 3-Day Nutrition Diary: Log and Scorecard
• 3-Day Activity Diary: Log and Scorecard
• Height, Weight, and Target Weight Chart

STAGE 4: Maintaining Progress (Beyond Week 4)

• Goal of the Week Worksheet
• Goal of the Week Evaluation Questionnaire

• 3-Day Nutrition Diary: Log and Scorecard
• 3-Day Activity Diary: Log and Scorecard
• Family Nutrition and Activity Habits Worksheet
• Child's Nutrition and Activity Habits Worksheet

• Height, Weight, and Target Weight Chart

Introduction

• James' Story
• The Healthy Weight Program

1. How Serious is the Overweight Problem?

• A Growing Problem
• Medical Consequences
• Emotional Well-Being
• Causes of Obesity
• What Can Be Done?
• The Healthy Weight Program

2. How Do I Know if My Child Is Overweight?

• Defining Overweight and Healthy Weight
• Measuring Overweight and Healthy Weight
• Measuring Central Obesity
• Other Ways of Measuring Body Fat
• Determining 'At Risk'
• Should We Seek Professional Advice?
• The Healthy Weight Program

3. Food, Weight, and Health

Part 1: Energy Balance and Building Blocks
• Food as and Energy Source
• Food as Building Blocks
• Storing Energy as Fat

4. Food, Weight, and Health

Part 2: Systems Support and Energy Density
• Food To Support Body Systems
• Food as Fiber
• The Healthy Weight Program

5. Healthy Weight Food Choices

Part 1: Fresh Whole Foods
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Legumes, Nuts and Seeds
• Grains and Tubers
• Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs, and Deli
• Dairy: Milk, Yogurt, and Cheeses

6. Healthy Weight Food Choices

Part 2: Processed and Preserved Foods
• Food Nutrition Labels
• Cooking Oils
• Salad Dressings
• Condiments, Sauces, Spreads, and Dips
• Frozen Foods
• Soups
• Breakfast Foods and Cereals
• Baked Goods
• Chips, Chocolates, and Candy
• Fruit Juices, Fruit Drinks, and Soda/Pop
• Menu Plans
• The Healthy Weight Program

7. Physical Activity, Weight, and Health

• The Value of Physical Activity
• Types of Physical Activity
• Energy and Activity
• Energy Balance
• Measuring METs
• Full-Body Strength-Training and Stretching Programs
• Choosing Enjoyable and Appropriate Activities
• The Healthy Weight Program

8. The Healthy Weight Program

• Starting the Program
• Stage 1: Assessing Nutrition and Activity Levels (Week 1)
• Stage 2: Setting Goals and Rewards (Week 2)
• Stage 3: Building Up Goals and Rewards (Week 3-4)
• Stage 4: Maintaining Progress (Beyond Week 4)

Healthy Weight Resources
References
Index