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It isn’t your imagination if you think that there are more obese children today than in decades past. In fact, the fattening of America has worked its way down to our children. And it’s no laughing matter. Patterns established in childhood may have lifelong implications. When it comes to obesity, there are many things that parents can do to protect their children.

Get Educated

First, it’s important to become educated on the subject of childhood obesity. Learn what causes it, and how to change patterns of behavior that include eating, exercise and other activities.

What exactly is childhood obesity? It is a serious medical condition affecting both children and adolescents. A child is obese when he or she is well above the normal weight for his or her height and age. Childhood obesity is particularly troubling when it starts kids on the path toward what were once considered adult diseases, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

According to the Mayo Clinic and others, childhood obesity may have some genetic and hormonal origins, but most excess weight is simply caused by children eating too much and exercising too little. That’s the simple explanation, but, of course, childhood obesity is anything but a simple condition.

Some children may be predisposed to childhood obesity as a result of genetic diseases and hormonal disorders. Two syndromes, which affect only a small proportion of children, include Cushing’s and Prader-Willi syndrome.

Prevalence of Childhood Obesity

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), childhood obesity has more than tripled in the last three decades. Among children aged 6 through 11, childhood obesity increased from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008. Among adolescents aged 12 to 19, it increased from 5.0 percent to 18.1 percent in the same time period.

Know the Risk Factors

The American Obesity Association and the Mayo Clinic identify six major risk factors or causes for childhood obesity to take into consideration. These include genetics, diet, inactivity, as well as family, psychological, and socioeconomic factors.

• Genetics – Children who come from a family of overweight individuals may be genetically predisposed to childhood obesity. The genetic tendencies are aggravated by living in an environment where there is little exercise and high-calorie foods are always available.

• Diet – High-calorie, high-fat foods contribute greatly to childhood obesity. Eating foods from vending machines and fast food outlets – all high-calorie – help pack on pounds. High-fat foods are loaded with calories, which also contributes to weight gain. Foods and beverages high in sugars and calories include desserts, candy, cakes, and soft drinks.

• Inactivity – It’s a proven fact that sedentary individuals – children, adolescents, and adults – are much more likely to put on weight. They can’t burn the calories they consume because they don’t get enough physical exercise. Activities that are pursued sitting down – such as video games, being on the computer, and watching television – further complicate the problem.

• Family factors – Children generally eat what is served to them or is available in the house. They aren’t the ones who shop for the food, although they may accompany the parent who does. Stocking up on sweet, salty and fatty foods – or leaving them where children have access to them – is a recipe for disaster. These foods all taste good. Naturally, children are attracted to them. Too often, healthy foods are either not in the home or are avoided in favor of the tastier ones – the ones that add to weight gain.

• Psychological factors – Children, as well as their parents, may eat to cope with emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, stress, and boredom.

• Socioeconomic factors – Poverty and childhood obesity are commonly found together. This may be due to the fact that children from low-income families have parents who lack the resources, time or energy to attend to their children’s needs for healthy eating and physical exercise.

Maltreatment Often Leads to Childhood Obesity

Other issues come into play when searching for the cause of childhood obesity. Beyond the need to serve healthy meals and encourage exercise, parents’ parenting roles play a vital part in whether their child becomes obese. In other words, lack of positive parenting and the extreme opposite, maltreatment by parents, has been shown to be linked with childhood obesity.

Examples of maltreatment include:

• Inflicting corporal punishment on the child – such as spanking the child with a hand on the bare bottom, or using a belt, whip or other article

• Psychological aggression – threatening to punish the child without actually doing it

Neglect Contributes to Childhood Obesity

Researchers have also studied the association between neglected children and childhood obesity. Neglect is another type of maltreatment.

Examples of neglect include when one or both parents do not show affection for the child due to preoccupation with their own problems, leave the child home alone and without proper supervision, and do not taking the child to the doctor when it is needed.

A 2007 Temple University study of maltreated children found that those who were neglected had odds 50 percent greater of becoming obese. Corporal punishment and psychological aggression, the researchers said, are common forms of discipline that children come to expect as a result of misbehavior.

Because the child doesn’t understand the cause of the parental neglect, however, the child often assumes it is his or her own fault. Consequently, there is a lot of stress the child experiences. This takes the form of moodiness, anxiety, depression, activity and diet. Adults often eat inappropriately as a stress-coping mechanism. Researchers believe children may do so as well.

Parents can help children to combat stress by serving as more of a buffer against it. Proper parenting can thus help alleviate the tendency to overeat or eat inappropriately as a result of stress.

Prevention Strategies

There’s never a bad time to start employing positive strategies to help prevent childhood obesity. The fact that you’ve been a little lax in encouraging rigorous physical activity, or have contributed to the poor eating habits by indulging yourself in too many high-fat, high-calorie meals and snacks doesn’t mean that you can’t change things now. In fact, it’s high time to do so. Fortunately, the prevention strategies aren’t all that difficult. And you can gradually work them into your family’s lifestyle so that they don’t seem so intrusive or abrupt a change. Here are some suggestions offered by the Mayo Clinic and others.

• Schedule yearly medical checkups for your child. The only way to know for sure if your child is on track for a normal weight for his or her age and height, as well as to rule out any underlying causes for weight gain (or loss), is to schedule regular medical checkups. Annually is probably sufficient, unless the physician advises otherwise. In the yearly checkup, the doctor measures the child’s height and weight and calculates body mass index or BMI. If the percentile increases dramatically year over year, that’s a strong indication that your child is at risk of becoming overweight.

• Set a parental good example. Children soak up and internalize what they see and hear around those who are closest to them. As parents, you are in a position to reinforce positive behaviors by setting a good example. This includes making and eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, and inviting your children to join you.

• Use other behavior modification methods rather than food. For years, parents have used certain foods as a motivator or punishment for certain behaviors. Be good and you can have ice cream for dessert or If you don’t behave, you can’t have any candy. The child associates approved behavior with eating empty calories and high-fat foods. This lays the groundwork for parental/child battles over food, which is usually not the parents’ intention.

• Make the changes fun. No one likes to be around a sourpuss or to do things that adults find unpleasant. In order to change behavior and put into effect practices that encourage healthy living, parents need to make it fun. That means putting not only a positive spin on things but also actively participating along with the children. Don’t just talk about exercise. Do it. Take the children on a day hike in the woods, or search for shells along the beach and wrap it up with a refreshing swim. Erect a badminton set in the backyard. Engage in touch football or play softball. The more active your child is, the better his or her lungs, heart, and muscles will be. Encourage them to eat only when hungry, not when they are bored or out of habit. Make mealtime special with lit candles for special occasions, artistically-arranged platters of brightly colored fruits and vegetables. Invite the children to help in the food preparation – even to the point of allowing them to create menus. Then, celebrate the accomplishments.

• Have patience. Making changes takes time, but the changes you are implementing and helping to foster will have a lifetime of rewards. If your child is currently overweight, dropping those pounds may become easier as your child grows taller, for example. And upping the exercise quotient, along with eating healthier, is bound to have an impact – given time. Above all, never harp on your child’s overweight condition or focus too much on how much they may have lost or gained in the short term. This often backfires and results in the child eating even more as a means of compensating or coping with the stress of not living up to your expectations. Take it slowly and be patient.

What to Do to Encourage Children

When your child is overweight, he or she is subject to a lot of teasing and meanness from other children. With slimness and attractiveness so much prized and emphasized in today’s society, any deviation from the ideal can have devastating results in children. Very often, the result is a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence. Children don’t have the reserves built up to be able to withstand relentless criticism and ridicule – especially by their peers. They may retreat into overeating as a self-defense mechanism. Parents can help counteract outside influences by working diligently to change the child’s self-perception and increase self-confidence.

• Build your child’s self-esteem every chance you get. Give them lots of praise for actions and independent decisions that show they are developing healthy behavior patterns.

• Talk openly as a family about the importance of health and fitness, but be objective and never personal. Your child could easily interpret it as criticism and retreat into a cocoon of self-indulgent overeating.

• Celebrate positive changes with rewards – but not with food. When your child makes progress, take the opportunity to go out to a movie (no greasy popcorn and high-calorie candies, however), or a sporting event, or out to the beach, a carnival, or other desirable activity seen as a reward.

• Allow your child to discuss his or her emotions. Help your child to find ways of dealing with unpleasant or unexpected emotions that do not involve a preoccupation with food.

• Encourage goal setting. Your child needs to set realistic and achievable goals. As parents, you can help him or her design those goals and heap praise on the child when such goals are accomplished. For example, after a couple of months of vigorous after-school exercise – cleaning the yard, mowing the neighbor’s lawn, participating in school sports programs – comment on the fact that you’ve noticed they are able to run without being winded, or that their endurance is a lot greater since they’ve taken up (baseball, running, swimming, etc.). Highlight their developing muscle tone and strength, and skin tone and color. Help your child to set new goals when existing ones have been reached.

What is Healthy Exercise?

The CDC website lays out what constitutes healthy exercise for youth, taken from the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Guidelines for youth include the following:

Children and adolescents should engage in 60 minutes (1 hour) or more of daily physical activity. Types of physical exercise should encompass:

• Aerobic activity – Most of the daily 60 minutes-plus should include moderate or vigorous aerobic physical activity. At least 3 days a week, it should include vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity. Examples of aerobic physical activity are: bike riding, walking, running, dancing, and playing active games such as basketball, soccer and tag.

• Muscle-strengthening activity – At least 3 days during the week, children and adolescents should include muscle-strengthening physical activity as part of their 60 or more minutes of daily physical activity. Examples of muscle-strengthening activity include: gymnastics, playing on jungle gyms (for younger children), and weight-lifting, push-ups, and pull-ups (for adolescents).

• Bone-strengthening activity – In addition, as part of the daily 60 minutes or more of physical activity, children and adolescents should include bone-strengthening physical activity on 3 days each week. Bone-strengthening activity includes: running, jumping, hopping, skipping, and playing sports such as basketball, gymnastics, and tennis.

Healthy exercise for children and adolescents should be both age-appropriate, include a variety, and, of course, be fun.

The Active Family is a Healthy Family

To the extent possible, encourage vigorous physical exercise and lots of outdoor recreational activities and do them as a family. Take regular outings to the park, nature preserve, state and national parks. Go on short and long hikes, perhaps packing a nourishing picnic lunch or stopping off to view a waterfall or swim in a lake or pool.

Take breaks during long car trips on vacation to allow for time to jump rope, play beach ball or Frisbee, or engage in other activities that allow children and adolescents to stretch their legs and move around a bit.

Instead of just sitting around watching the television after dinner, go for a walk in the neighborhood as a family. Attend physical activity events and go to community and school centers where such activities are offered. Being physically active doesn’t have to cost a lot either. Make use of free (or low-cost) tennis, baseball, and basketball courts at public parks. Another simple way to incorporate exercise into your daily routine is to park far from the entrance to buildings – shopping mall parking lots, grocery store, hardware, church, etc. – and walk briskly to and from your destination.

Before long, every member of the family – including children and adolescents – will reap the benefits of being physically active. That positive lifestyle change, along with eating healthier, will go a long way toward protecting your child from obesity.