I have never cared about all of these stories about teen stars who are fat or not fat. I have never cared about how the press, public, and fans feel about these teen music stars with the three year, three album career that are all the hype and then disappear just a few years later.

That is until my daughter turned 9.

Miley Cyrus right now is the hottest music star for your girls. Not only is Miley Cyrus huge but so is her show and alter ego Hannah Montana.

This week Miley Cyrus made a comment on twitter about her legs being jiggly when she shook them. This for many people is normal since you have muscle on your legs and if you have much bodyfat at all then it will cover your legs and when you leg muscles are loose then you will be able to shake that muscle around.

She also said this:

“Talk all you want. I have my flaws. I’m a normal girl there’s things about my body I would change, but stop calling my fat in post. I don’t even like the word. The ones that scar people and cause them to do damage to themselves of others,”

If you look at the pic on the side here Miley Cyrus does not seem to be fat at all.

One of the things that drives me even crazier than people pandering to the new mini pop stars are people hurting young peoples self image. There needs to be an easy way to have young girls stay fit, not worry about body image, and still not crush their frail self confidence. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: Cyrus Fat, Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus

We all know that cardio is great for adults to improve fitness and to improve our health but what about kids? We always see the kids running around but never think about that as any kind of training that you and I would do.

There is a new study that shows that cardio is great for kids too:

The study, whose first-year results are reported at EuroPRevent 2009, randomised 188 school children with a mean age of 11.1 years (from seven classes at three different high schools) to either an active exercise programme in their school routine, or to a conventional curriculum of just two sports lessons a week. The exercise programme comprised daily supervised exercise which included at least 15 minutes of endurance training. “So it was well controlled,” says Dr Walther, “with the teachers making sure that the programme was followed.”

“It’s clear that children today have different lifestyles from the past,” says investigator Dr Claudia Walther from the Heart Centre of the University of Leipzig. “They’re less active, and it was our hypothesis that an increase in their exercise activity would result in fewer risks of cardiovascular disease later in life.”

These are exactly what we see in adults and it is nice to see that diet alone is not what keeps the kids in good health but some real exercise as well Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cardiovascular disease, Claudia Walther, Heart Centre, investigator, Leipzig, obesity, sports lessons, Stockholm, University of Leipzig

Exercise may fight off depression and improve self-esteem in overweight children, researchers here said.

But according to one key measure, white children seemed to benefit more from exercise than black youngsters, a difference the scientists found intriguing but not easily accounted for.

In a randomized trial, heavy kids who exercised for 40 minutes a day saw decreases in depressive symptoms and improvements in self-esteem compared with those who remained sedentary, Karen Petty, M.D., of the Medical College of Georgia, and colleagues reported online in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

Effects of childhood obesity

Childhood obesity has been associated with many psychological problems, including low self-esteem and depression, but little is known about the effects of physical activity on feelings of self-worth.

So the researchers conducted a study of 207 overweight and sedentary children ages seven to 11 years. They noted that the youngsters in the sample were not clinically depressed, with only 4% scoring above the cutoff for depression.

How much exercise do kids need?

The children were randomized to either 20 or 40 minutes of daily exercise, or told to continue their sedentary lifestyle. The exercises periods, which lasted for 13 weeks, included running, jump rope, basketball, and soccer.

The researchers found that the 40-minute exercise group sustained the greatest psychological benefit, with evidence of a dose-response relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: clinical depression, depression, Georgia, Karen Petty, Medical College of Georgia, obesity

I try to get my kids out as much as possible to exercise, especially during our long northern winters. The following study gives me an excuse to talk about how we can keep our kids active and more healthy and this is a good way to combat the problem of childhood obesity

According to a recent study submitted today at the American Heart Association’s conference in Florida, children at risk of being overweight who live in close proximity to parks, green spaces or recreational areas are more physically active. The new ongoing Canadian study is exploring the link between park proximity and walking.

The children included in the study are all exposed to a potential risk for future weight problems because one of their parents is obese. To evaluate the effects of environment on obesity, the families will be monitored over the next ten years, or until subjects turn eighteen. To date, the researchers have established that girls live close to parks are motivated to walk to school, while boys seem to be like walking in their free time. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: American Heart Association, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Florida, obesity, researcher, Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center, school Lead author professor, sports fields, Tracie A. Barnett

We all want our kids to be fit and healthy, but with the fast lifestyle which most of us lead these days, helping kids stay healthy seems to be a tough job. With childhood obesity reaching alarming levels, it is time we take a look our kids’ life and don’t let them become victims of obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, kidney problems, heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, etc. Even if your kid is not obese but eating junk foods, you should still read this article because if he continues with his present lifestyle, it is only a matter of time before he would be displaying a big fat belly like his peers.

Teaching our kids the advantages of following healthy eating habits can help control childhood obesity to an extent. In this article I will offer you four simple eating tips which have worked wonders for my own kids. I am sure you would find them equally helpful.

1. Don’t let them have soda: Soda is probably the number one enemy of your kid, in that it would make him gain weight by leaps and bounds. The only way to control your kid’s soda intake is to find alternative ways to quench his thirst. Water of course is the best medicine, but children are not always willing to drink plain water. So what would you do? Well, you could add low-fat or low-calorie flavors into water to make it tasty. Just be sure to check the calorie and fat contents of the flavors you use.

Further, you can also add a tablespoonful of sugar in water to make it sweet. Children often drink soda mainly because of its sweet taste, but once they find a good alternative in ’sugary-water’, it would be easy to prod them to dump soda for good. Remember that a can of soda contains an equivalent of several tablespoonfuls of sugar; if you could substitute that with just one or two tablespoonfuls of sugar, don’t you think it is a better and healthier option?

2. Be an example: Preaching the rules of healthy eating to your kids is of no use if you don’t follow them yourself. Remember that kids would pick up a bad habit from you quicker than a good one. If you wish to keep your kids healthy, you would also need to lead a healthy lifestyle.

3. Educate your kids adequately: There are several ways to do this. Say, when you shop for grocery, teach your kids how to pick up healthy foods and snacks for themselves, how to identify the high-calorie and sugary foods, etc.

4. Discard junk foods out of your home: It is also important that you clean your kitchen cupboards as well as refrigerator of all the junk foods and stock them with healthier alternatives instead, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, etc. If you keep only healthy foods at home at all times, your kids are less likely to stray than otherwise.

When you have your meals, you should not only eat healthy foods yourself, but also show them how much you enjoy eating those foods. If you have a habit of munching on a packet of chips or popcorn while watching your favorite movie, you should substitute it with apples or carrots; if you really need to eat popcorn, cook them at home using low-calorie oil or margarine instead of butter.

Tags: diabetes, heart attacks, home using low-calorie oil, hypertension, obesity, stroke

Workouts are something hated not only by kids but also adults. Now, if you hate workouts as much as your kid then this article would benefit both of you. Believe it or not, a well-balanced workout regimen could single-handedly keep you fit and healthy throughout your whole life. And of course, no one said you need to do boring cardios for hours or spend 24 hours in your local gym. Simple activities could help you and your kids keep the pounds away.

One reason behind the ever-increasing level of childhood obesity is the increasing addiction of children to video games, PSPs, etc. If they sit and watch video games all day, when would they find time for workouts? The only way to break this habit is to take them regularly for a walk along the park. At the beginning, kids may hesitate to move beyond the world of video games.

Good news is that I have a remedy for this too. Ask yourself first: are YOU an active parent? If not, set a daily schedule for morning walks and then when you come back home tell your kid how much you loved and enjoyed the walk as well as how much your body benefitted from it. The more interesting you make it to him, the more he would be willing to walk.

Slowly you could scale it over to the next level which includes jogging, running, swimming, etc. – activities which would help your kid burn even more calories than he would by walking.

But like I said, they won’t make the first move unless you do, and to be honest, you should move your body too as obesity is harming you as much as your kids. When they see that you prefer to walk, run and jog instead of sitting at home and watching movies, they would soon emulate you and do the same.

Also, if there is any sport that you are passionate about or used to indulge in during your youth, you should start participating in that sport again. It could be anything which makes your body move and sweat, such as cricket, basketball, tennis, etc. Note that by ’sport’ I don’t mean chess or other board games; they are as bad as video games.

Like anything else in life, neither you nor your kid would find time for such activities unless you set a schedule for them. You should prioritize your health over even your most important tasks; once you do that, you would automatically find time to do the activities which would keep you away from fat belly and flabby arms.

Of course, the same applies to your kid too.

Tags: basketball, chess, cricket, obesity, Swimming, Tennis

It is no secret that childhood obesity is on the rise. Truth to be told, obesity has been around for sometime now, but childhood obesity is more of a recent phenomenon. Now let me tell you the root cause behind obesity. Almost everyone would say that you become obese because of following unhealthy eating habits, but WHY do your kids follow unhealthy food habits?

Is it just to satiate their tastebuds? If that would have been the case, then they would be eating those “bad” foods only once in a while and not daily at breakfast, lunch and dinner; also eating moderate amount of fast foods doesn’t make anyone obese. The root cause behind the increasing consumption of junk food is fast lifestyle. As years pass, we become busier than ever. We are so busy that we don’t even have time to cook our own meals.

Under such circumstances, we feel that buying that cool white bread, cake or burger from the local store is far more convenient than trying to cook stuff at home. In other words, we are more or less living a “buy, eat and go” type of lifestyle. Most parents don’t stuff children’s tiffin boxes with home-cooked meals (as used to be the norm at the time of our forefathers); instead they are asked to buy this or that food from the store and as you might have guessed, almost always these foods turn out to be calorie-rich junk foods.

Children learn only from adults; no wonder then that they too have become ‘busy’ as well. They have their school projects to finish, dozens of books to read, video games to watch, etc. So where is time for them either to take a walk outside or indulge in sports?

That said, there are still ways to control your kids’ lifestyle provided that you are willing to implement them. Here I offer you a simple tip you can use to keep them from adding tonnes of extra pounds to their bodies.

Children are habitually accustomed to eating in small quantities. They prefer spending more time on grazing and sucking foods than eating them, and usually favor snacks over large meals. Snacks are one of the best foods for your kids. This doesn’t however mean that you should hand over a huge can of soda or a big box of cookies to them; rather you should take the time to cook healthy snacks which are low on sugar and calories. Remember that these snacks, unlike burgers and French fries, would not only keep your kids full but also help them maintain their normal weight.

Speaking of low-calorie snacks, many people wrongly assume that since they’re low on calorie, it is okay to eat as many of them as you like. That is not true at all. Let me show you a simple example: let’s say that your kid used to have one snack of 100 calories daily. Now you offer him 100 low-calorie snacks in its place, each of which contains an average of 1 calorie. What is the difference?

Even if it is low on calorie, it is still important to snack in small quantities. Since kids are habitual grazers, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to inculcate this eating habit right from their childhood.

Tags: food, junk food, obesity, unhealthy food habits

People learn only from their peers, and this holds true for adults as well as kids. It is no secret that the level of childhood obesity in the world is rising alarmingly with every passing year. Even though parents tend to blame their kids’ unhealthy lifestyle habits as the root cause of obesity, the fact remains that if parents are willing, they can change those habits during the growing years of their children.

Remember that a stitch in time saves nine; if you nip these bad habits of your kids in the bud then they would always remain fit and healthy. If you are clueless about what to do in this direction, I will tell offer you two tips on that.

Make no mistake, even though now I am a fitness professional, I too was a big, fat ugly kid hated by my class mates and neighbors alike. Just like your kids I too loved all the tasty and yummy junk foods my parents used to feed me.

My parents believed that I would cry less if they feed me delicious foods all the time; however this didn’t help at all as I cried even after all that ‘pampering’; if anything, I fell prey to unhealthy eating habits for which I had to pay dearly later on.

When I grew up a little, Mac Donalds became my regular destination and their burgers my all-time favorites. To top it all, my parents even took me to a doctor for they thought I was grossly underweight and malnourished, and oddly enough, that doctor only gave reassurance to my parents’ fears.

I don’t even need to tell you the end result of it all; soon I had a fatty belly and a pair of flabby arms which I hated very much (even though my parents seem to have no issues with them).

After keeping up with the taunts of my schoolmates for a while, I thought that enough was enough, and one day decided that I would lose weight no matter what.

1. Encourage your kids to idolize professional athletes and bodybuilders: These days, kids usually idolize movie stars and prefer to sit on the couch the entire day and watch movies of their favorite idols. There is nothing wrong with hero worship at all, as long as it helps your kids stay fit and avoid weight gain. Idolizing movie heroes and heroines won’t be of any use to them; on the other hand, idolizing professional sportspersons, body builders and athletes would really help them stay active all the time.

While it is true that I indulged in hula hopping because it was a very popular sport among our neighborhood kids, I played tennis mainly because famous tennis players such as Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick were my idols (they still are).

When kids consider athletes to be their heroes, they like to emulate their active lifestyle and have a have a healthy body like them, which in turn means that your kids would start eating healthy and indulging regularly in outdoor games.

2. Don’t stop your kids from participating in sports: So when I decided to lose weight, I started spending much more time in my favorite sports than I used to.. Thankfully, unlike the parents of some of my peers, my parents never prohibited me from indulging in outdoor sports.

Take a cue from this: if you are a parent and wish to keep your kids fit and healthy then keeping them from indulging in sports is just stupid. Far from making your kids sit at home and forcing them to stick their eyes on books throughout the entire day, you should actually encourage them to become active in life, since only active kids are able to keep the fat away for the rest of their lives.

Really, that is the only thing I did, apart from changing my unhealthy eating habits, in order to acquire the fit body that I still maintain. And you thought it was too difficult to help your kids lose weight.

Tags: Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, favorite sports, obesity, outdoor sports, Tennis

It is said that America tops the obese adult population in the world, which is of course true. However, one seems to overlook the fact that America is also home to the highest population of obese children. If WHO (World Health Organization) is to be believed, our world contains more than twenty million obese kids, most of whom are in the age group of five-eight.

WHO also says that childhood obesity has reached the level of an epidemic in America, so much so that in the past three decades the number of obese American kids has more than tripled. Isn’t your child one of them too? It is time to take control of your kid’s life and help him lead the kind of comfortable and healthy life we would want him to lead. And this is only possible by helping him get rid of the extra pounds.

In fact, if America tops the number of obese kids, even third world countries are not far behind. You would think that an economically backward continent like Africa would have skinny kids because most of their parents are too poor to feed them properly, let alone overfeed them. However, very often our beliefs don’t coincide with reality. Just recently a special task force sent to Africa to gauge the health stats of the people living there encountered more obese kids than malnourished children.

You maybe thinking: why all this hullabaloo about childhood obesity? What is wrong if the belly of your kid if a tad fatter than his peers? The answer is: just like overweight adults, fat kids are also likely to suffer from harmful diseases such as high blood pressure, type 1 diabetes, hypertension, fatigue, heart diseases, and in some cases, even early death.

Believe it or not, the root cause of childhood obesity has little to do with genetics and more with poor lifestyle habits. Often people add two and two and jump to the conclusion that the kid is fat because of his parents. But that is not true at all. Kids emulate the unhealthy habits of their parents and naturally become fat like them. If you and your kids follow healthy lifestyle habits, both of you would be able to get rid of fat very quickly.

Truth to be told, the onus of the rising levels of childhood obesity lies on parents to a great extent. We parents prefer our kids to have junk foods since they can be easily procured from outside and help save the time we would have spent on cooking. A diet rich in fat and sugar could only make your child fatter and fatter. There is really nothing new to be said about it. Unless you are willing to spend a little time and energy in cooking healthy foods at home, don’t expect your kids to become any slimmer.

Apart from making them eat healthy foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, it is also important that you try to reduce their intake of soda and fizzy drinks.

Controlling the food habits of your kids is only half the battle won, the other half being that of encouraging them to become more active. If you are concerned about your child’s future and wish to offer him a healthy life, you would need to take him away from Xbox and PSPs to outdoor sports such as cricket, basketball, tennis, etc. Encouraging them to indulge in cardiovascular activities such as swimming, dancing, rope jumping, etc., would also help them burn fat and lose weight.

Tags: Africa, America, basketball, cricket, diabetes, energy, fatigue, food habits, heart diseases, high blood pressure, hypertension, obesity, outdoor sports, Swimming, Tennis, World Health Organization

We all know that the only way to keep our kids from getting any fatter is by making them eat healthy fruits and vegetables as well as forcing them to stay away from junk foods. However, any parent knows that it is easier said than done. After all, which kid would want to give up on the tasty junk foods for the sake of fruits and vegetables. Well, good news is that there is a little trick which works wonders in this case. In this article I will talk about that little-known but useful trick.

The trick is that of hiding healthy foods in the guise of ‘comfort’ foods. How about a spinach burger, or a ’soft drink’ made up of just plain water with a tad of sugar and a pint of natural lemon or mango flavor? How about using margarine instead of butter for the purpose of cooking those delicious and yummy popcorn balls? There are plenty of ingenious ways you can use to make your kids eat healthy foods without much fuss.

Now, there are certain things to keep in mind here:

1. First of all, contrary to what many parents believe, there is nothing unethical about tricking your kids into eating healthy foods; the only ‘bad’ thing which is going to happen as a result of this trick is that your child would be more and more addicted to healthy foods and his addiction towards junk foods would automatically diminish over time.

Most of the organic fruits and vegetables out there are rich in fiber, among other nutrients. Therefore these foods help keep your kids full for a long time, and consequently, their appetite for junk foods is killed.

2. Secondly, while it is true that this trick only works for young children, it is also true that if you make them accustomed to healthy foods right from their infancy, it would be easier for them to incorporate healthy eating habits later in life, and when that happens, you won’t really need to trick them anymore by offering healthy foods camouflaged as junk foods. Remember that habits, good or bad, are adopted by human beings right from a very young age.

3. Thirdly, in the quest of making our children eat healthy foods, we must not lose sight of the foods they maybe allergic too. Milk may be good for the growth of kids, but many kids are lactose intolerant and as such, cannot digest milk properly. The only alternative is to offer skimmed or ‘fat-free’ milk instead.

Also there are many kids who are allergic even to the innocuous potatoes. If your kid doesn’t like potatoes no matter how you cook them, then there is more to it than its bland taste. However if your kid seems to prefer potato chips in place of roasted or steamed potatoes, then it is just an unhealthy food choice which needs to be taken care of. Granted that potatoes are high on carbs, but still, steamed potatoes are lower on calorie content than potato chips; plus your kids need carbs anyway.

Tags: potato chips, unhealthy food choice