Teen Weight Management

Wondering how to help your teen maintain a healthy weight? With these four steps, teen weight management can be a family effort to stay healthy and happy.

1. Activity
Being physically active is a great way to maintain a healthy body weight. Make small things into regular habits. Walking the dog daily, spending an hour after school running with a friend or playing with a younger sibling in the backyard. Take the stairs instead of the elevator ad part farther away from the building. Regularly making healthy choices to be physically active will help teens keep weight off now and later in life.

2. Emotions
When a teen is emotionally unstable or even just bored, eating can become an “easy way out” to de-stress. Make emotional outlets available and help your teen to understand the best ways to stabilize emotions are through expression and activity.

3. Diet
Make healthy foods available to your teen. Plan family meals that are balanced and fresh, and encourage everyone in the family to eat healthy portions. Setting and example for your teen is a great way to demonstrate the importance of maintaining healthy and properly portioned meal habits.

4. Habits
Having a healthy routine is the best way to guarantee long term weight management for teens. Even things that are unrelated to weight—such as brushing teeth and doing family chores—will emphasize to your teen that a healthy, happy lifestyle requires diligence and effort. Establishing healthy family eating habits and other lifestyle habits is essential to teen weight management.