Helping Your Child Maintain a Normal Weight

 Here it is, nice and simple:

Biggest Indicators for Weight Maintenance

·         No solids before 4 months

·         Breastfed, then family meals

·         Enough sleep

4-12 months: 14-16 hours/day

1-3 years: 12-14 hours/day

3-6 years: 10-12 hours/day 

·         No TV before age 2, limited TV after

“Preschool children exposed to three household routines — regularly eating family meals, getting adequate sleep, and limiting screen-viewing time — had a roughly 40 percent lower prevalence of obesity than those exposed to none of these routines. The study, “Household Routines and Obesity in U.S. Preschool-Aged Children,” published in the March issue of Pediatrics

·         Very limited sugar beverages

Decrease or Eliminate:

Juice

Soda

Sweetened teas, sports or vitamin drinks

·          Limited sugar–added foods

“High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are both compounds that contain the simple sugars fructose and glucose, but there at least two clear differences between them. First, sucrose is composed of equal amounts of the two simple sugars — it is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose — but the typical high-fructose corn syrup used in this study features a slightly imbalanced ratio, containing 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. Larger sugar molecules called higher saccharides make up the remaining 3 percent of the sweetener. Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization. In contrast, every fructose molecule in sucrose that comes from cane sugar or beet sugar is bound to a corresponding glucose molecule and must go through an extra metabolic step before it can be utilized.”  News at Princeton

·         Maternal restrictive eating practices

The more a parent interfers, the less the child follows their own internal cues for hunger and satiety.