When a child is diagnosed as being overweight or obese, the first thing parents often think is that they have to help their kid lose weight. But, surprisingly, many experts say that the first goal is simply to not gain anymore weight.

"If you remember that your child is going to keep getting taller as he approaches and goes through puberty, it makes it easy to understand why simply not gaining weight can be helpful. Even if your overweight child isn't losing weight, as long as he isn't gaining weight or at least isn't gaining weight as quickly, he can slim out and reach a healthy BMI as he gets taller."

Once a child has met his goal of not gaining weight for a few months, you can work with a pediatrician to set actual weight loss goals. Read more at Pediatrics.About.com.

Specialty high school boarding schools can help kids with emotional or behavioral issues. Oakley School is a private boarding school near Park City, Utah.

Labels: body_mass_index, puberty, weight_loss

Most parents would do anything to decrease their children's risk of behavioral problems, psychosocial stress, alcohol use, and sexual experimentation. But most don't know that one thing that they can do to delay or eliminate these problems for girls is to prevent obesity.

Sound strange? Not when you consider that recent research suggests that childhood overweight and obesity may be contributing to earlier onset of puberty in girls, some as early as 9 years old. And many previous studies have shown that early puberty is associated with stress and behavioral problems as well as earlier experimentation with alcohol and sexual activity.

Labels: health problems, puberty, substance abuse