Some 58 million American adults, and 4.7 million children, are overweight, according to the National Institutes of Health. Overeating can lead to obesity, which can trigger life-threatening illnesses such as diabetes, certain types of cancer and coronary heart disease. As any parent knows, mealtime can turn into wartime when you try telling your children how much they should be eating. Adults and children do better at controlling portion sizes when they serve themselves. The dinner table should not be a battleground.
Parents are responsible for bringing in healthy food, and putting it on the table.
Talk to your children so they can learn from their own bodies how much to eat, and to stop eating when they feel full. Berg says too much parental control over how much a child eats can be a factor in causing eating disorders. There are no bad foods. Instead of forbidding your kids to eat sweets, provide them with nutritious foods first. Stopping kids from snacking just before dinner is wrong if they are munching on healthy foods, says cookbook author and healthAtoZ nutritionist Robin Vitetta-Miller.