To diet or not to diet
What we'd all like is for children to eat healthier, without feeling deprived or guilty. This means that your commitment to your own dietary health is a very important ingredient in successful change for your children.
A diet should be high in fiber and complex carbohydrates. Foods such as brown rice, vegetables, and a variety of fruits contain these complex carbohydrates. Your children may not like some of these foods at first, but it's often because they haven't had much exposure to them. Continue to serve them until your children begin to develop a taste for these foods and start to enjoy them. This is of course true for the whole family.
The biggest dietary change should be made in the area of sugar and fat. Ice cream, cookies, chips, muffins, whole milk, red meats, fried foods, fast foods, all tend to be high in fat. Add to this soda, lots of white breads (bagels, rolls, Italian breads, etc.) and fruit drinks with only ten percent juice, and much of what children consume consists of what we call "empty" calories-calories that contain a minimum of vitamins and other nutrients.
Unless your children are 100 percent or more overweight, the best overall diet strategy is to reduce fat and sugar, and hope that calories will be reduced enough to result in a slow but steady weight loss. I don't suggest that you be very restrictive, or that you feed your children radically different foods from those that you eat yourself. Doing so can be isolating, and be felt as punishment.
Instead, it's helpful if modest reductions are taken on by the entire family-such as serving fruit for dessert instead of cake, or vegetables lightly steamed instead of with gravy, or macaroni with tomato sauce instead of cheese. This way your children will be more accepting of dietary changes, as well as be more apt to achieve a permanent lifestyle change.
