Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

It's easy to forget that liquids have calories, too. Sodas, teas, and juices often are loaded with sugar - and offer little nutritious value for the amount of calories. Try substituting these drinks with non-caloric ones, such as water. Add a slice of lemon or lime to give it some pizzazz. Other options are unsweetened tea, or if you don't have objections to artificial sweeteners, diet soda or other calorie reduced drinks such as Crystal Light.

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The International Journal of Pediatric Obesity released a report today that predicts there will be a significant increase in the number of overweight children in the near future. If the prediction holds true, these children will become obese adults and suffer from heart disease and stroke. Learn more online.

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You have a hectic life. Work, driving the kids to school functions and sports practice, trying to keep things up at home. It's no wonder that you want to take shortcuts when it comes to meals. But shortcuts don't have to be unhealthy. These days, there are all sorts of healthy foods that are prepared or at least washed and cut up for you. Enjoy some of these:

• Make a fruit salad with ready to serve washed and pre-cut fruit. Add a carton of low-fat yogurt for a creamy topping
• Add a tray of cut up veggies and low-fat dip to dinner
• Top washed spinach and lettuce with prepared cooked slices of chicken or turkey for a salad that is a whole meal in itself
• Take home pre-marinated fish fillets to throw in the oven. Pair it with pre-washed and snipped green beans and a quick cooking brown rice

You pay a little more for these convenience items, but it's worth it for your family's health!

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One of the hardest situations we encounter when trying to eat healthy is a buffet. Whether it's the Christmas party at work, the potluck dinner at a school function, or a wedding - buffets offer such a variety of tempting foods that it's hard to resist.

One trick is to start with a big salad (with low fat dressing) and/or lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. Add a small amount of lean meat and other healthy foods, and return to your seat. Remember, you don't have to try everything! Try to avoid foods high in fat and sugar. Tell yourself that you can add more food to your plate later - if you're still hungry.

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Do you use food to deal with your emotions? If you're not sure, keep a food diary for a few days. Every time you eat something, record your emotions at the time. Are you happy or excited, sad, bored, angry, stressed or anxious, lonely - or neutral? If you see a pattern of eating when you have certain emotions, you may be an emotional eater.

What can you do about emotional eating? The first step is to recognize which emotions trigger you to reach for a brownie. Then, replace the food with another activity that will help to defuse the emotion. For example, turn on some loud music and dance to relieve stress or anger, take a walk in the woods to alleviate boredom, call a friend and make a date if you're lonely. Choose a funny movie if you're sad.

Learning how to substitute healthy activities for raiding the refrigerator will help you to stick to a healthy eating plan.

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Reading a food label is kind of like reading the table of contents in a book: it tells you what's in the food you're eating. It's important to begin early to teach your children how to select foods by reading the label. Things to point out include:

• Calories are units of energy a food contains. If you're trying to lose weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you expend in activity. Calories are listed per serving, and often broken into "total calories" and "calories from fat."
• Nutrients are essential elements that your body needs to function. Some of the nutrients listed on food labels are protein, carbohydrate, fats, minerals and vitamins. Nutrients are generally listed as the percentage of what is needed per day based upon a 2000-calorie diet.
• Serving Size is the portion that is considered a single serving, such as 10 pretzels or 1 cup. This is important when looking at calories. If you've eaten 20 pretzels and the serving size is listed as 10, then you need to double the amount of nutrients - and calories listed per serving.

When looking at labels, look for foods containing beneficial ingredients, such as calcium, iron and fiber. And avoid or limit those foods containing a large amount of ingredients associated with health problems, such as saturated or trans fat, cholesterol and sodium.

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Want to keep your child from junk food snacks? One way is to limit how much screen time he has. Researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford's School of Medicine recently found that the more time children spend in front of the screen, the more requests they made for food or drinks that were advertised.

In spite of increasing parental concerns about high-calorie, nutritionally poor foods being pedaled to kids on television, movies and video games - marketers continue to use this advertising tool - because they know it works; parents get worn down with constant pleas for special foods and drinks and often give in.

You can make your life easier by helping your child to tune out - before this happens.

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While it's good to be cautious about any product that says you can eat more and weigh less, this may be true about one food: beans. Findings based upon data from a recent National Nutrition and Health Examination Survey showed that teens who eat beans regularly (3 cups per week) weigh less - about 7.3 pounds - than their peers who don't eat beans, yet they eat as much as 335 more calories each day.

Study authors contend that this is because beans, in addition to being a nutritious and low fat protein option, are high in fiber. And high fiber diets are thought to help reduce weight.

Try these tips for adding beans to your diet:

• Try a breakfast burrito: scrambled eggs, black beans, low fat cheese and salsa wrapped in a tortilla shell
• Sprinkle kidney beans on your salad or in your soup for lunch
• Make a quick dinner out of baked tortilla chips spread with low fat refried beans, low fat cheese and salsa

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Your teenaged daughter has just announced that she wants to become a vegetarian. You're full of doubts about whether she can maintain a healthy diet without eating any meat.

Not only can a vegetarian diet be healthy for people of all ages, a recent report in Nutrition Reviews states that vegetarianism is ideal for combating obesity. In fact, vegetarians have, on average, a body weight as much as 20 percent lower than those who eat meat!

The important consideration with a vegetarian diet - as for all diets - is to eat a variety of foods. Vegetarian diets should include plenty of fruits and vegetables (especially leafy greens), whole grain products, seeds, nuts and legumes. Ideally dairy products and eggs should be eaten. Special attention should be paid to good sources of protein, such as peanut butter, tofu, soymilk, and low fat cheese and milk products. There is no need to plan special combinations of foods to get complete proteins as long as a good amount of varying types of plant proteins are eaten throughout the day.

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Recent research conducted at Cornell University found that if tempting foods were easily visible and in close proximity - they're more likely to be eaten. Researchers examined the behavior of 40 university staff and faculty when chocolate candy was placed in clear containers versus opaque containers, and when the candy was placed directly in front of the study participant versus 6 feet away.

Findings consistently showed that people ate more of the candy when it was both visible and within easy reach.

The message for parents? If you don't want your children to eat calorie and fat laden food -don't buy it. Instead, put out a dish of fruit!

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What behavioral and environmental factors are strongly associated with healthy weight in adolescents? Researchers at the University of Rochester reviewed data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a health data branch of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to find the answers. Those factors associated with healthy weight in adolescents are:

• Eating breakfast every day or some days
• Having at least one parent with a healthy body mass index
• Family income above poverty level
• Participation in exercise programs
• Little time spent watching television

This provides further incentive for parents to encourage children to eat breakfast, turn off the television and get moving. It should also make parents think about their own weight and health habits - and how these may affect children.

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What does urban planning have to do with overweight? In preliminary studies, those areas that have a mixture of residential and commercial use are more conducive to healthy weight. In other words, if there is a corner store within walking distance, for example, those living nearby are more likely to walk - instead of drive there. The same goes for public transportation; if there are bus stops within easy walking distance, people are more likely to forgo a personal automobile and get more walking in during the course of a day.

Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and several other groups funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences are studying the issue of how the urban environment can contribute to obesity in an effort to come up with ideas that may impact the nations obesity epidemic in the future.

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You made a resolution to help your kids get more exercise by taking a daily family walk. But instead of being excited, your children whine and balk. How can you increase their enthusiasm

The first thing to do is to make a walking goal attainable. If the pace is too fast or the distance too far - it can result in a less than positive experience, especially if your children aren't used to walking.

Here are some ideas for increasing the fun during your walks:

• If there is another parent or caregiver at home, take only one child each time you walk. Make this your special time to share thoughts and feelings. Kids love one on one attention!
• If you've been considering a dog or you have a dog, he may need exercise as much as you. Take him on a leash and let kids take turns.
• Make it a nature walk. Pick up colored leaves, identify mushrooms, birds, flowers and trees, and look for animal tracks in the snow.
• Play "Simon Says" as you go along; Simon Says flap your arms, march, run, touch your head, and so on.
• Play "I spy" while walking.

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There are women-only gyms and men-only gyms, so why not kids-only gyms?

At first the idea seems a little preposterous, but if you think about it, one of the reasons that kids don't go out and play as much these days is because neighborhoods and streets are not as safe as in years past. Increased traffic, child predators, and drug pushers make it seem more desirable in some locations to create a safe environment where kids can go to get the exercise they need.

Kids-only gyms are springing up across the country for tots to teens. Classes and programs are designed for different age groups, from movement exploration with a parent alongside for the tiniest ones to non-competitive gymnastics for older kids.

How to choose a gym? Visit before you sign up. Look for these things:

• Non-competitive fun atmosphere
• Smallest children are accompanied by parents
• No children left unattended
• Equipment is in good repair
• Staff have adequate training in exercise science and child development

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Sugar is sugar is sugar, right? Well, not exactly. While all sources of sugar, such as white, brown, powdered, honey or maple syrup sweeten food, one type of sweetener - high fructose corn syrup - is thought to act differently within the body than other types of sugars. This difference may cause more weight gain than other sugars.

High fructose corn syrup is made from corn. It has slightly more fructose than sugar, and helps to keep foods from drying out, so it gives them a long shelf life. It also imparts a lovely golden color to baked goods. Best of all, from a manufacturer's perspective, is that high fructose corn syrup costs much less than sugar. So it's the ideal sweetener for everything from soft drinks and fruit drinks to boxed cookies and muffins, snack crackers, applesauce, energy bars, and condiments such as ketchup and barbeque sauce.

The problem with high fructose corn syrup is that the body metabolizes it more like fat than like sugar. While other sugars cause the release of insulin, which breaks down the sugar for energy and also decreases the appetite, high fructose corn syrup does not cause the release of insulin. Instead, it's metabolized by the liver, which in response, releases fat-storing enzymes. This decreases fat burning and contributes to weight gain.

So next time you're grocery shopping, look at the label. You'll be surprised how many foods contain high fructose corn syrup.

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Researchers report that there aren't child car seats big enough for overweight children. Because of the growing trend of childhood obesity, parents struggle with finding safety seats for their kids. The study came about when technicians at the Children's Safety Center found that obese kids exceed the weight limit of most car seats, which are required by law. If parents do find larger seats available, the bigger seats are very, very expensive and many obese kids are part of low-income families. The report says that car seat manufactures are already working towards creating a solution to the problem of keeping overweight children safe in the car. Read more from Forbes.com.

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Researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and The Miriam Hospital found that in a group of obese adolescents, those who were treated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and adventure and peer-building activities lost more weight - and kept it off longer - than those treated with CBT and an aerobic exercise group. The research, reported in a recent issue of the International Journal of Obesity lends credibility to the belief that peer support is a very important aspect of an adolescent's success in losing weight.

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Cutting the fat in food choices calls for creativity - especially when it comes to children's diets. Here's some ideas for tasty, lower fat options that kids love:

• Baked sweet potato wedges brushed lightly with olive oil
• Tuna salad with grape slices - use plain low fat yogurt instead of mayo
• Whole-wheat pizza with lots of veggies and sauce and just a sprinkle of low fat chees
• Baked potato with lean meat chili or salsa rather than butter and sour cream

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Teens are notoriously unmotivated when it comes to exercise - especially girls. But a recent small study led by a graduate student from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that the single most important exercise motivator is personal fulfillment.

More than 200 middle school students completed several questionnaires about their fitness level and what factors led them to exercise, including desire for weight loss, parental encouragement and peer influences. Of all factors, "personal fulfillment" received the most votes - in other words, the exercise was fun.

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