Child Weight Loss And Healthy Carbs By David Kraft At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Losing weight ultimately comes down to two factors: changes in your diet and changes in your physical activity level. At summer weight loss camps, counselors and other trained professionals teach children healthy eating habits as well as allow them to explore fun ways to exercise that they can continue to do at home. When it comes to talks about dieting, one hot topic is carbohydrates. Many people wrongfully believe that reducing or eliminating carbohydrates from a diet will lead to weight loss. This may be true, but is not necessarily healthy. The truth is that carbs are a part of a healthy diet - the issue that most people and children need help with is choosing to eat the healthy carbs and avoid the bad ones.

First, a little education. Carbohydrates are one of the three macro nutrients essential for a healthy diet. These are protein, fat, and carbs. Proteins are things like meat, nuts, dairy products, soy and seeds. Fats come from meat (animal fat) and oils found in plants. Additionally, they are present in things like butter and cooking oil and some fruits and veggies, like avocados.

It is recommended that a person eat a daily diet that is 20-25% protein, 20-30% fat, and 50-60% carbs. Looking at those numbers, it is easy to see how completely cutting carbs out of your child's diet can be unhealthy.

Carbohydrates come from plants for the most part. Fruits and vegetables contain some carbs, as do processed foods like flour, crackers, bread, and cookies. If your child is reading along with you, be sure to point out that this does not mean they can replace their daily vegetable intake with cookies because they both contain carbohydrates!

Cookies are not bad in and of themselves. In fact, a cookie every once in a while isn't going to make anyone obese. The problem with things like cookies and other mass produced "sources" of carbohydrates is that the healthy part of the food, the wheat, loses a lot of its healthy-ness during the production of the food. Today's foods are processed and then processed again, sugars are added to make things taste better, and in the end we have a "source" of carbohydrates that has been transformed from something that is essential to a healthy diet to something that is full of unhealthy carbs that our body doesn't really need.

While this all may sound complicated and you may be asking "Well how do I tell carbs that are good for my kids from carbs that aren't?" - the truth is that it isn't too complicated. For a general rule of thumb, before purchasing something and considering it as a part of a healthy carbohydrate intake, think about how easy it is to trace that product back to something that grows naturally. If tracking it back to Mother Nature involves a couple of factories that process the grains, then chances are the product is full of unhealthy carbs. To make things even easier, here are a few good choices:

* Vegetables
* Fruits
* Whole Grain breads, pastas, rice, etc. that are made with the entire grain kernel and not flour. Also check to make sure they haven't added a lot of sugar or fat.
* Seeds and nuts like sunflower seeds or pistachios.

The next time you're off to the grocery store to shop for your family, keep these things in mind. Additionally, if you're considering sending your overweight child to a fitness camp or weight loss camp this summer, check out the food they serve. If you don't see some of the above recommendations being followed, look elsewhere. However, given that most weight loss camps employ a full time nutritionist, my guess is that you will.

Finally, keep in mind that it will be a difficult transition for kids to make - going from foods that are sweet to whole grains and vegetables. However, in most cases, with enough time, most people will develop a taste for more "natural" foods and will begin to prefer them to sugary alternatives.

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