April Is National Child Abuse Prevention Month - 30 Tips and Facts in 30 Days

With certainty, fattening kids up by making them overweight/obese is child abuse.

Nutritional child abuse is the most common form of child abuse of which we are aware. About one-third of all kids are overweight or obese. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month in the USA. To help these children, who are arguably the most abused on earth, Fitness Watch will offer 30 tips and facts – one for each day in April – directed at saving the children. Even if you are not from the USA, these facts and tips can help you and your children, too.

Today’s Fact and Tip – Do not rely on package labeling that describes a “serving size.”

If you carefully read the nutrition information that appears on a package’s label, you will note in small type that it is “based on a 2,000 calorie (sic) diet.”

Fact is, unless you are willing to do the math and know how many Calories you should consume each day, this “fact” is harmful.

Face it, when an elephant goes on a diet it eats like a horse. Feed an elephant a diet sized for a cat, i.e., a “serving size,” and you will have one hungry elephant that sooner or later will rampage through a jungle of food consuming everything in its path.

If you are overweight/obese, you are accustomed to eating a lot of Calories and to cut back severely will only create an unsustainable hardship. The result is that you will quit. And when overweight/obese people quit their diets, they tend to overeat even more than before, ending up bigger, fatter, with an even greater BMI and therefore less healthy, i.e., at a higher risk of developing certain bad illnesses.

When you are out of caloric control, it is likely that you will subject your kids to too many Calories, too.

You lose all perspective on how many Calories to serve to yourself and those under your influence.

If you are going to set an example for your children and become a calorically responsible parent, which you should, be sure to make haste slowly and decrease your caloric intake in a sustainable, step-wise fashion.