Diet
It is advisable that you do not allow your teen to fast or drastically reduce their calorie intake. Not only is this way of losing weight psychologically stressful on them, but it may adversely affect their growth, and what a teen sees as “normal eating”. So making sure that they have a balanced diet, with moderate restrictions on the amount of calories they have, is ideal. A great way is to reduce dietary fat, which has been found as a successful way of treating teens that are overweight. It may be that your teen needs to be educated on the nutritional values of foods, also.
So by controlling a teen’s diet, and getting them to do more exercise, will help to treat their weight problem.
Modification of a Teens Behavior
There are many behavioral strategies that are used on adults, which can be successfully applied to teens, such as:
1. Self monitoring and recording the food they have
2. Increased physical activity
3. Slowing the rate at which they eat their food
4. Limiting the time and place when eating (do not allow them to sit in front of the TV or computer, get them to sit at the dining table)
5. Provide them with rewards and incentives, if their behavior is what you are looking for.
It is easier to prevent a teen from being overweight, than it is to treat it. Where prevention is concerned, it focuses on educating the parents about providing their children with a good nutritional diet and plenty of physical activity. However, where such preventive measures can not help those teens who suffer from weight problems because of a heredity factor, then the education of the parents should be focused on building up their teens self esteem, and addressing any psychological issues that they may have.
