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Weight management tips for parents

Disclaimer: This fact sheet is for education purposes only. Please consult with your doctor or other health professional to make sure this information is right for your child.

Weight management tips for parents

• Make sure that your child eats breakfast. Some quick, nutritious breakfast options include cereal and low fat milk or liquid meal replacement drinks such as Up & Go TM.

• Have set meal and mid meal times when food is served and times when food is not. This helps to teach children that there are times for eating rather than encouraging a "grazing" eating style.
• Encourage water as the drink of choice. Soft drinks, fruit juice and cordials all contain a lot of sugar and are not suitable for children.
• Where possible, choose grain based breads and breakfast cereals. Wholegrain products are more filling than more processed white varieties. Some examples of wholegrain breads and cereals include multigrain breads, WeetbixTM, Mini WheatsTM and Just RightTM.
• Always ask your children if they are hungry before offering them food. If a child says he or she is hungry after their meal, offer only extra salad or vegetables. This will tell you if your child is really hungry.
• Read your food labels and try and choose foods with "Less than 10 grams of fat per 100 grams".
• Encourage your child to eat more vegetables. Very few children eat the required number of vegetables every day. One way to encourage children to eat their vegetables is to involve children in preparing them.
• Swap all dairy foods including milk, yoghurt and cheese to low fat varieties.
• Look for nutritious filling snack options for morning and afternoon tea such as low fat yoghurts, wholegrain crackers with topping, toasted sandwiches, flavoured milks and low fat muesli bars. Highly processed rice crackers, muesli bars, chips, chocolates and fruit snacks are not filling.

• Children respond well to structure with their food habits. Stick to meal and mid meals times and avoid a “grazing” style of eating at home.
• Other easy dietary changes that can be used to help with weight management include always eating breakfast, choosing low fat dairy foods and encouraging water as the drink of choice.

The Children's Hospital at Westmead Tel: (02) 9845 3585 Fax: (02) 9845 3562 www.chw.edu.au	Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick Tel: (02) 9382 1688 Fax: (02) 9382 1451 www.sch.edu.au	Kaleidoscope, Hunter Children's Health Network Tel: (02) 4921 3670 Fax: (02) 4921 3599 www.kaleidoscope.org.au