Are you worried about your overweight child? What is a healthy diet to burn fat? How to prevent your child from the risk of obesity? If you are vexed with all these questions, then you have arrived at the right platform which helps to make your child lose belly fat.
These days most of the kids have potbellies which makes them feel shy and stay away from the other kids with the fear of teasing, bullying. Fat belly may lead to severe health problems, so it needs to be paid attention at the earliest.
This article presents the exercise and diet ideas that help to reduce belly fat in your child. At the end of the article, you will find ways to reduce belly fat in kids.
How to Recognize Whether a Child Is Overweight?
The amount of body fat in kids changes with age and differs between boys and girls. One way to know your kid’s weight is through Body Mass Index (BMI), which uses a formula and produces a score stating whether the person is underweight, normal weight or overweight. BMI uses age, sex, height, and weight to generate a score.
How Do Kids Get Belly Fat?
Nowadays, Belly fat and obesity are becoming common issues that everyone including kids encounters.
The two major factors that subject to overweight in kids are: too many calories and less physical activity. The few things that make your child more prone to belly fat are:
1. Digital Platforms:
These days kids are far away from physical activities like outdoor games, exercises and help kids to lose belly fat and stay sharp, healthy and active. Kids used to spend most of there in front of screens playing video games, watching video games. This screen time is preventing them from playing outdoor games.
2. Sugary Food:
Most of the kids are fond of sugary food like candies, cakes, and drinks. Eating an excess amount of sugary food makes them susceptible to obesity, malnutrition and tooth decay. Sugary foods also impart psychological harms.
3. Kwashiorkor:
It is a form of severe malnutrition in children. It occurs when the child consumes high calorie food with insufficient proteins in them. This malnutrition results in the bloated stomach in children.
It is more likely to occur in the areas of rife and poverty and rarely occurs in developed countries.
How To Lose Belly Fat In Kids?
Help your overweight and obese kid to get a healthy weight by taking in charge of their routine. The right weight range of your kid depends on gender and height. Talk to your kid’s pediatrician to know the healthy weight of your kid and follow the safe plans if your kid needs to slim down. Some children with belly fat are vulnerable to health problems like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
Children with belly fat are more likely to feel depressed or low self esteem. Here are the few ways to reduce your kid’s belly fat:
1. Cut back Junk Food:
Junk food is higher in calories and fat. The things that attract the kids towards junk food is the setting in which they are located. Most of the junk food stalls are situated in such settings which promise fun and excitement. The presence of ingredients like added sugars, bad fats, processed substances, food toppings will impose many adverse health effects on children.
Fill your child’s plate with fruits and vegetables rich in fiber, which helps to keep your kid full for a long time. Don’t give up even if your child regrets to eat them. Research shows that kids are more likely to eat something after seeing it for a few minutes on their plates.
Try the following healthy snacks in order to keep your child away from junk foods:
1. Air popped popcorn without butter.
2. Tomato avocado melt
3. Homemade fruit pops
4. Strawberry banana protein smoothie
5. Veggie wraps
6. Banana oat muffins
7. Baked cinnamon apple chips
2. Choose Healthy and Nutritious Foods:
Encourage your kid to have three small meals and two snacks in a day. Involve the entire family in healthy food to avoid the feeling of single out in your kid. Make them eat fruits and vegetables and allow them to drink a sufficient amount of water.
Here are the few food ideas that burn belly fat for kids.
- Fill the pantry with kids friendly foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, low fat yogurt, whole grain crackers, string cheese, and nut butter.
- Avoid the usage of processed foods and refined grains
- Prefer to cook food at home instead of going to restaurants. Prepare steamed broccoli, green beans, and carrots which are more tasty. Add good appealing to the food items by adding healthy toppings.
- Water helps a kid to reduce belly fat, as it carries nutrients to the parts of the body. It will help in the digestion of food, thereby burning more calories resulting in the reduction of the belly fat.
Here is a sample kids diet plan to lose belly fat in the age group of 5-12 years:
Before Breakfast: A glass of warm low fat milk
Breakfast: Vegetable egg omelet, tomato, spinach, whole wheat bread slices, one apple
Mid Morning: Fruit salad with low fat yogurt as topping
Lunch: Lean chicken- Zucchini stir fry, whole grain roll
Evening: Spinach-mushroom peas cutlet, a handful of almonds, mixed fruit juice
Dinner: Whole multigrain Rotis, Dal, Paneer-peas mushroom mixed vegetable curry.
Bed Time: A glass of warm low fat milk.
3. Set Realistic Goal For Your Child:
Have a track on your child’s weight and keep the target of one pound weight loss in one week. If you observe that your child is attaining the target, then keep following the same diet plan to get rid of belly fat for kids.
4. Be a Good Role Model:
Mostly, children learn by example. Encourage your child to eat healthy food by doing it yourself. Eat healthy meals and snacks along with your child. If the belly fat is not cut down at the start it may create several problems in the teenage.
5. Exercise:
Both kids and adults require one hour of daily physical activity to stay healthy. Provide your child the opportunities where they find time for physical activity like – dance class, martial arts or playing with friends in the park.
Allow the kids to do activities that help them to strengthen their muscles and bones.
A few Bone and muscle strengthening movements activities are:
- Walking
- Running
- Gymnastics
- Games like tug of war
- Basketball
- Dance
- Football
- Tennis
- Sit-ups, Press-ups, and other similar exercises
Some of the stomach exercises for kids to reduce belly fat are:
1. Hanging Knees- Up:
Hanging is one of the kid’s favorite activities. Allow your kid to hang from the bars in the playground. Ask them to move the knees towards their chest while hanging. This will activate the upper and lower muscles of the stomach.
Ask your kid to repeat the exercise as many times as they can, never force them to reach the specific number.
2. Side Plank:
The kids will enjoy practicing this yoga pose.
Ask your kid to lie on his elbow on either side as per the convenience. Make the kid stretch the hands up towards the ceiling. Allow them to hold this pose as long as they can. This exercise will exert stress on the lower abdomen, thus helps in reducing belly fat.
Parents should make sure that the kid’s legs, back, and head are in one line when the kid is above the ground.
3. Dancing
Kids enjoy dancing, which is the best activity to reduce belly fat. Make your kids focus on the single dance that works on abdominal muscles or join your kids in a belly dance classes.
6. Enough Sleep:
Kids need enough sleep to stay physically and mentally active. Insufficient sleep leads to stress which in turn increases hunger. The amount of sleep effects the diet. Insufficient sleep produces hunger causing hormones known as Leptin and Ghrelin, which make your kids more susceptible to eat something.
Study published in pediatrics in 2014 revealed the interconnection between sleep and obesity. Sleep required for the children as per their age group is as follows:
1. Preschoolers-10-13 hours per day
2. School age kids-9-11 hours per day
3. Teenagers- 8-10 hours per day
7. Reduce Screen Time:
Most of the kids, these days, are spending their time in front of smartphones, TVs, and laptops, which make them inactive. When it becomes an addict they are at the risk of eyesight and weight gain. Make your child to understand that he/she has only limited screen time.
After the screen time, Allow them to get involved in games or activities like watering the plants, walking with the dog.
8. Use Behavior Modification Technique:
Praise your child with a reward whenever they are on their diet track. This helps them not to deviate from their path. Offer their favorite activity or toy as a reward.
9. Check With Your Pediatrician:
Visit the pediatrician to make sure that your child is out of the risk of weight gain. Avoid daily weight checks at home that may keep your child feel stress.
If your child did not lose belly fat even after changing diet, physical activity, and sleeping habits, ask your pediatrician to refer to any other healthy eating, and physical activities. You can also your doctor to recommend any weight-management programs, which are offered by a local hospital, or a community health clinic.
Belly fat may not seem to be complicated in childhood when the children grow up to teenage they may come across various health problems. Parents should pay attention to belly fat in their kids and follow the ways to reduce kid’s belly fat. Cutting down the belly fat will help them stay away from the risk of obesity and improves their self-esteem.
