We hate to see it because these are our kids. The problem is real, very real, and growing exponentially each year. Without reiterating the statistics you’ve already seen and heard a hundred times, we must start to face the reality that many of our kids are on the fast-track to a life of medical disasters: early onset diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome [excessive fat tissue around the abdomen, hypertension, and insulin resistance] among our kids is rapidly becoming an epidemic and is costing many their youth as well as their future health and well-being. In the ‘good’ old days it would take our parents or grandparents fifty or sixty years to arrive at these conditions. Now, kids as young as eight are being diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.

All right. No more bad news.If you want to change, read on.

Don’t…put your kid on a diet. All this does is deprive her of the foods she likes to eat; no matter how ‘bad’ they are for her. Deprivation leads to binging, which leads to guilt, which leads to more emotional eating. Not the desired outcome, for sure. Plus, how are you going to supervise her eating habits at her friends birthday party or sleepover? It just ain’t gonna happen, so please don’t kid yourself into thinking you’ll be able to monitor everything that she eats. Not to mention the confusion.

Confusion is the absolute worst thing for any kid, any subject. Period the end. Lastly, diets simply don’t work. They don’t work for you and they won’t work for him, because the results are not sustainable. You just cannot eat cabbage and lemon juice the rest of your life, and neither can your kid!

Do…place limits on the portion size. Cut the portions of junk in half-half the fries, ice cream, soda, etc. This will prevent the binging and sneak eating while cutting the bad calories in half. Now, with the reduction in portion size, replace those calories with healthy snacks like a PB&J on soft 100% whole-wheat, or trail mix and an apple. The snacks will keep him from getting too hungry, which leads to impulse eating [starving and grabbing a handful of ‘fun-sized’ Snickers from the Halloween candy bag you hid behind the oatmeal in the cupboard]. And, very importantly, contact the parents of her friends and let them know to offer her the treats they would normally, but ask that they limit the portion size. This will prevent your child from feeling singled out, yet will maintain the consistent message that a little is okay, too much is not. Who knows, maybe you’ll trigger another family to start taking care of their kids!

At the end of the day, we just can’t be too busy to do our job as a parent. Don’t count on the schools or government to handle your child’s health-it’s not their job to raise your kid and it just doesn’t work! If you wait for them to become adults and deal with it themselves, you, and they, will suffer greater pain than if you take action right now. This is a classic take on the old ‘Pay now or pay later’ adage-it will not take care of itself, so take control of your health and that of your children before it’s too late to go back. After all, you can change what you eat now, but can’t reverse diabetes later.

Lifestage Fitness was created by combining the best attributes of most contemporary fitness centers with unparallelled personal fitness services.

Joe Ranieri is a 30-year veteran of the health and fitness industry, and is owner of Joe Ranieri’s LifeStage Fitness, an individualized fitness and nutrition training facility in suburban Chicago. Joe has helped hundreds of exercise enthusiasts of all ages and ability achieve their fitness goals using his simple, realistic approach to proper nutrition and exercise. Joe can be reached for questions regarding your desire for a healthy lifestyle through his email at joe@lifestagefitness.com.

Understanding that life-changes do not occur overnight, Joe Ranieri provides a real-world approach to making regular exercise and proper nutrition second nature – an easy, sustainable way to gradually, and permanantly, help you help yourself.

• 45 Day Slimdown - Part 1
• 45 Day Slimdown - Part 2
• 45 Day Slimdown - Counting Calories
• Surviving Fad Diets - The "Lose Weight Fast" Scheme
• Get Rid of Excess Fat - Part 1
• Get Rid of Excess Fat - Part 2

• Childhood Obesity - Leading by Example
• Childhood Obesity Step 1- Portion Control
• Eliminating Childhood Obesity - Do's and Don'ts
• Eliminating Childhood Obesity - More Do's and Don'ts

• Manage Holiday Eating - Part 1
• Manage Holiday Eating - Part 2
• Manage Holiday Eating - Part 3