Dr. Oz had a mother, father (Mike) and child (Lillie) on his show. Lillie is only 4 years old and already weighs 83 pounds. Dr. Oz says that if you are obese when you are 7 years old, then you have a 41% chance of being obese as an adult. Childhood obesity is a major problem in America, and we must help these children lose weight and get healthy before its too late!
Dr. Oz had Lillie evaluated by Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician. Dr. Greene said that Lillie has high blood pressure, her trouble breathing at night could be sleep apnea forming or asthma, and the fact that she is always thirsty is because she has pre-diabetes.
Dr. Oz is determined to help save Lillie and get her on the right path! So he brought on Carolyn Foster from Dietician Associates. Carolyn is a registered dietician and says that parents proveide the nutition and decide how things will be prepared, and what will be consumed at home. She gave an assignment to Lillie’s parents: to write down a list of 20 painful experiences with Lillie that have to do with food… this will help identify triggers (so step one was to recognize and deal with the emotional side).
Step two was to teach Lillie’s parents how to prepare a healthy meal. Dr. Oz said that the parents have to cook healthy foods and that Lillie does not have to eat everything on her plate, but she has to have at least one bite of everything (to help her acquire the taste for the healthy food). There are three categories of foods: red foods (you can never have), green foods (you can always have), and yellow foods (you can have sparingly). Red foods are things like chips, soda, white bread and candy bars. Yellow foods are things like dark chocolate and air popped popcorn. Green foods are fresh vegetables and fruits.
One idea for young children (like Lillie) is to try taking their favorite baby food and use it as a sauce for over food, or a dip for veggies or even as a spread on whole grain toast.
The last step is to get a more active lifestyle and to exercise. One fun game for kids is to take a pair of socks and make it into a ball, then throw the ball at your kid and they have to dodge the sock ball to keep it from hitting them… and then they throw it back at you, and you have to dodge it this time… and repeat… its great family exercise for everyone!
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