Overweight / Obesity (A child)

Specific diets, that are usually hard to maintain, are not always necessary, and in most cases, are not recommended for children anyway. With few simple adjustments to your child's eating habits that he/she can use their whole life, he/she can lose weight in a healthy way and not be hungry all the time.

Here is what you can do:

• Educate yourself about eating healthy so you can educate your child. Learn more about eating healthy at healthline.
• Ban beverages filled with sugar from your home. You can do it gradually so it is less stressful for your child. Switch to water or tea. You can add squeezed lemon if you like.
• Instead of giving your child snacks filled with salt, sugar and fat, make him eat fruit or nuts or perhaps healthy snacks such as crackers, chocolate bar or these rice crackers.
• Make sure your child eats a proper meal when at school. If he/she can't get anything healthy to eat at school, prepare it for him/her at home so he/she can bring it to school. Don't let them it junk food.
• Your child can still have relatively big breakfast and lunch, but dinner should be as light as possible. It should also be at least 2 hours before bedtime.

Just because a certain food is considered healthy, doesn't mean you can eat as much as you want. Healthy food still has calories. For example, almonds are considered healthy because they contain fiber, good fats, minerals, vitamins, and protein, but it is really easy to go into calorie surplus with them. A handful a day is enough.

Be especially careful with "healthy" processed food like canned food, low-fat cereals and dairy products, low-sugar/fat snacks, substitutes for butter (margarine, canola, soy or corn oils) etc. They claim to be healthy, but if you carefully read labels, you might get shocked.

Most cereals and dairy products that are low in fat, are high in sugar. Sorry to burst your bubble, but when you remove fat from yogurt, it tastes horrible. That is why manufacturers add sugar, various high-fructose syrups or artificial sweeteners.

Snacks that claim to be low in sugar, tend to be high in fat and contain artificial sweeteners that are connected to various diseases, including cancer.

Butter substitutes are industrially made vegetable oils (canola, corn, soy) and various kinds of margarine that bring disbalance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids to your body and are also filled with potentially cancerous ingredients. Use butter or homemade olive oil instead. Just like with any other food, all within reasonable limits.

Bottom line, stay away from the processed food as humanly possible, no matter how healthy it claims to be. Stick to the real, whole food.

Your pediatrician can help you determine the body mass index (BMI) of your child. This will tell you how overweight he/she is and what the best exercises or diet plans are. They will also exclude diseases that may be causing the weight issues.

Eating many small meals during the day means that the body can more easily burn every meal into energy, instead of harvesting the excess energy of large meals for later. This process is called metabolism. Read more about a correlation of metabolism and weight loss here.

If for some reason, you are unable to do any sport, or perhaps, you just don't feel like it, try walking. It doesn't sound like much, but any activity is better than no activity. Walking at least one hour per day, especially after a meal, can help you lose weight.

Cut down on driving in a car, or in a public transportation system. Use stairs instead of elevators. Walk everywhere you can if you have time and your health/physical condition allows it.

Becoming dehydrated can signal your body that you are hungry. So try to drink a bit more than you normally would. When you feel hungry, and it's just been an hour or two after your last meal, instead of eating something, try drinking a full glass of water and see if that helps.

To get a sense of how much water is optimal, check out this table.

Being sleep deprived harms the way your body burns calories. Learn more about how sleep deprivation affects your weight here.

When you chew your food slowly, it takes you more time (naturally) to finish your meal which allows more time for your stomach to tell your brain that it is full. Not chewing properly (besides causing you digestion problems) allows you to put in your body lots of calories that you don't actually need because your brain hasn't had enough time to realise that you are full.

For more information about slow eating read here.

Children don't know that too much food, especially junk food and sweets, are not good for them. That is why you have to control them and learn to say no. For more information and advice check this site.

Studies show that eating in front of a TV makes you eat up to 300 calories more per meal. When watching TV, you eat mindlessly and don't even realise that you are full. When eating, focus just on eating your meal and proper chewing. Think about how much and what you eat. You will get full sooner.

When you are done eating dinner, brush your teeth to suppress late-night munching. People are less likely to eat anything after brushing teeth. First, most food tastes horrible if you eat it after brushing your teeth. Second, there is something about the perfect cleanliness of your mouth and teeth that you just don't want to ruin with eating and then having to brush your teeth all over again.

Drinking green tea has many positive effects on your body. One of them is boosting up your metabolism and make you burn up to 70 calories a day thanks to the antioxidants it contains. It might not seem like a lot, but every bit helps. Especially if you drink it instead of sodas.