Is Your Kid Getting Fat From Drinking Juice?

If your kid is getting fat it might be what he is drinking. One of the first steps to losing weight no matter how old you are is to try and figure out where extra calories are coming from. Many parents would be surprised to learn that their kid is getting an extra 500 – 1000 calories a day by drinking fruit drinks, milk and soda. If your child is under five then this means that what they take in as fluids could equal half of the calories they need to intake in a day. 

Not sure which beverage is the culprit? It is time to keep a food diary and record of the calories consumed.  I was shocked to find out that milk or juice could be the culprit.

Like you I was raised to believe these beverages were health and nourishing but not fattening. For instance when it comes to your child's milk intake The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that —  Children who are one to three years of age  get about 2 servings of milk (low fat milk after age 2 years) a day.Children who are three to seven ears old get about 3 servings of low fat milk Kids who are eight to eighteen years old get about 4 servings of low fat milk  

As far as juice goes, the American Academy of Pediatrics  has even more severer recommendations – Infants should not have any fruit juice because it is too much sugarBe sure the juice that you give your kid is 100% pasteurized and not from concentrate or a fruit drinkYounger children aged 1 to 6 years should have only 4-6 ounces of juice a day.

Older children should be limited to 8-12 ounces of juice a day Diluting your kid's juice with water is  also a good idea.

So if juice is off limits how does your fatter kid get his or vitamins? The answer is supplementation or to encourage your kids to eat whole fruits. If your child gets dehydrated or thirsty the best thing to do is give him or her water.

Gatorade however is not a bad choice if your kid is dehydrated or overheated. The idea is to get your four-year-old child to drink only three servings of 2% milk and six ounces of 100% fruit juice. This equals about 460 calories which is reasonable. If you want to make a four year old kid fat try giving him or her three servings of chocolate milk at 720 calories each, two juice servings at 200 calories each and one can of soda at 150 calories.  This is 1070 calories which is twice what he or she should have and even worse the kid is getting 50% of all the calories that he or she needs. 

Keep in mind these liquid calories are in addition to all of the other things a kid can eat in a day!  Now wonder it is so easy for our kids to get way too fat and no wonder childhood obesity is becoming an epidemic.

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Getting Your Kids To Compost

Given the state of global warming and everything else it is probably a good idea to get your kids compositing.

It is actually quite easy to get them to understand how the whole process work.  It is also a way of gently explaining the natural process of life, death and decay to them. 

The best thing is to describe it as Nature's own recycling system. Just say it is magic and you are turning garbage into dirt if your kids are really. It gets complicated when you want to explain to a kid that that you can't put all kinds of garbage in the compost. Show them that weeds, leaves, grass clipping and vegetable peels are the most suitable by keeping a compost container right on the kitchen counter. Get them in the habit early of throwing their banana peels, orange rinds and bread crusts in there. 

If your child has trouble understanding this use the example of how when leaves drop from a tree, they decay into dirt over time, without any help from anyone Explain that everything that has once lived will eventually turn back into your dirt. Part of your kid's guide to composting should be to explain this natural process and how decomposition begins with thousands of microorganisms.  Try not to scare him or her if she I really little. 

If you know anything about composting you know that these microorganisms feast on anything and generate heat in the process. As the temperature inside the decaying pile of matter rises, fungi, bacteria and insects also help with the decomposition process. Kids can directly assist with this process by helping to turn or stir the compost pile with a stick or a garden fork. This helps add oxygen to the pile in the form of air, which heats the pile up even more.  This heat is absolutely necessary to help kill bacteria.  The more thoroughly and evenly your child distributes air through the pile the sooner you will great fertilizer for your garden. This is really good exercise for a fat kid. 

The sign that the pile has cooled down and that it is clean of bacteria is when you start seeing earthworms in the humus.  This is the cue to start feeding the humus  (the fertilizer) to new plants. Most compost piles rest on bare ground, but you can build the pile on a raised platform of loosely spaced boards. This allows air to be drawn up from the bottom so that it circulates through the compost and allows it to develop the essential soil bacteria more quickly.  If you have a child that is old enough it can help you build this type of open-air composter. 

One of the main reasons to guide your child through the process of composting is to teach them how to be an ethically minded responsible citizen. This is especially important in the decades to come when gardening locally might be a matter of survival thanks to the effects of global warming. 

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