Weight Control

Am I overweight?

More than 25% of American teenagers are overweight. You are overweight if:

You weigh more than 20% over the ideal weight for your height.
Your calculated BMI (weight divided by height²) is greater than 95% on a growth chart. This corresponds to a value of 25 for an older adolescent or adult. What is my BMI?
The skin fold thickness of your upper arm’s fat layer is more than 1 inch (25 millimeters) when measured with a special instrument.

What is the cause?

The tendency to be overweight is usually inherited. If one parent is overweight, probably half of the children will be overweight. If both parents are overweight, most of their children will be overweight. If neither parent is overweight, the children have a 10% chance of being overweight.

Heredity alone (without overeating) accounts for most mild obesity, whereas moderate obesity is usually due to a combination of heredity, overeating, and underexercising. Some overeating is normal in our society, but only those who have the inherited tendency to be overweight will gain significant weight when they overeat.

Less than 1 percent of obesity has an underlying medical cause. Your physician can easily determine whether your obesity has a physical cause with a simple physical examination.

Regardless of the cause of being overweight maintaining a healthy, lowfat diet and increasing activity level are critical to decreasing the chance of serious health consequences!!

Why should I lose weight?

Being overweight is a common and growing health problem in this country. In the short term it can decrease your energy level and make it more difficult to participate in certain activities. In the medium to long term being overweight increasing chance for developing Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, elevated cholesterol and related problems. Along with elevated cholesterol and family history it is a major contributor to your risk for having a heart attack or stroke. Also due to the social stigma of being overweight there is an increased risk for developing depression or social withdrawl. Since most health consequences occur in adolescence and later years it is important to make any lifestyle changes long before that time. Additionally dietary and lifestyle changes are much easier to accomplish the younger the person.

When is the best time to lose weight?

Losing weight is very difficult. Keeping the weight off is also a chore. The best time for losing weight is when a teenager becomes very concerned with personal appearance. A self-motivated teenager can follow a diet and lose weight regardless of what his or her family eats.

How do I lose weight?

Motivation

You can increase your motivation by joining a weight-loss club such as TOPS or Weight Watchers. Sometimes schools have classes for helping teenagers lose weight.

Setting weight-loss goals

Pick a realistic target weight based on your bone structure and degree of obesity. The loss of 1 pound a week is an attainable goal. However, you will have to work quite hard to lose this much weight every week for several weeks. You should weigh yourself no more than once each week; daily weighings generate too much false hope or disappointment. When losing weight becomes a strain, take a few weeks off from the weight-loss program. During this time, try to stay at a constant weight.

Once you have reached the target weight, the long-range goal is to try to stay within 5 pounds of that weight. Staying at a particular weight is possible only through a permanent moderation in eating. You will probably always have the tendency to gain weight easily and it’s important that you understand this.

Sometimes the goal is keeping the same weight rather than trying to lose weight as a growing child. Discuss with your healthcare provider which is the best plan.

Diet: Decreasing calorie consumption

You should eat three well-balanced meals a day of average-sized portions. There are no forbidden foods; you can have a serving of anything family or friends are eating. However, there are forbidden portions. While you are reducing, you must leave the table a bit hungry. You cannot lose weight if you eat until full (satiated). Eat average portions instead of large portions and avoid seconds. Shortcuts such as fasting, crash dieting, or diet pills rarely work and may be dangerous. Liquid diets are safe only if they are used according to directions. Calorie counting is helpful for some people, but it is usually too time-consuming. Consider the following guidelines on what to eat and drink:

Fluids: Mainly drink low-calorie or no calorie drinks such as skim milk, diet drinks, or flavored mineral water. Milk should be skim or 1% fat content. All other drinks should be either water or diet drinks.
Meals: Eat fewer fatty foods (for example, eggs, bacon, sausage, and butter). A portion of fat has twice as many calories as the same portion of protein or carbohydrate. Trim the fat off meats. Eat more baked, broiled, boiled, or steamed foods and fewer fried foods. Eat more fruits, vegetables, salads, and grains. â��Fast foodsâ�� and fried foods are the biggest culprits here.
Desserts: Try to eat smaller-than-average portions of desserts. Try more Jell-O and fresh fruits as desserts. Avoid rich desserts. Do not eat second helpings. You don’t need dessert after every meal.
Snacks: Eat mainly low-calorie foods such as raw vegetables (carrot sticks, celery sticks, raw potato sticks, pickles, etc.), raw fruits (apples, oranges, cantaloupe, etc.), popcorn, or diet soft drinks. You should have no more than two snacks a day.
Vitamins: Take one multivitamin tablet daily during your weight-loss program that contains iron. Also consider calcium supplement (Tums is a good choice) for a teenager.

Alternatively it may be helpful to classify foods in three broad groups.

RED: This primarily includes high calorie foods of little nutritional value. Examples include desserts, fried foods, potato chips, soft drinks, and other foods made up of “empty calories.”
YELLOW: These are foods that do belong in a healthy varied diet but portion sizes need to be monitored. Examples include pizza, meats, cheeses, and other foods with nutritional value but that contain significant calories.
GREEN: Foods that are very low in fat belong in this group. Ideally these should make up the majority of food intake and be the first choice at snack time. Examples include fruits, vegetables, starches, breakfast cereals, pasta and other foods that contain complex carbohydrates. These foods can be filling while keeping the total amount of fat in the diet to a minimum.

Eating habits

To counteract the tendency to gain weight, you must learn eating habits that will last you for a lifetime.

Don’t skip any of the three basic meals.
Eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re bored. Reducing snacks and limiting eating to discrete meal times can be very helpful.
Eat smaller portions.
Avoid high-calorie snack foods such as potato chips, candy, or regular soft drinks.
Do keep available diet soft drinks, fresh fruits, and vegetables.
Leave only low-calorie snacks out on the counter--fruit, for example. Put away the cookie jar.
Store food only in the kitchen. Keep it out of other rooms.
Eat no more than two snacks each day. Avoid continual snacking (“grazing”) throughout the day.
Eat only at the kitchen or dining-room table. Don’t eat while watching TV, studying, riding in a car, or shopping in a store. Once eating becomes associated with these activities, the body learns to expect it.
Reward yourself for hard work or studying with a movie, TV, music, or a book instead of food.

Exercise: Increasing calories used

Daily exercise can increase the rate of weight loss as well as the sense of physical well-being. The combination of diet and exercise is the most effective way to lose weight. New evidence has taught us that even a very brief time spent exercising (like 10 minute walk around the block) can be a very important part of a healthy lifestyle, burning calories as well as decreasing stress. Consider the following forms of exercise:

Turn off the television. Watching television or playing at the computer greater than 7 hours a week is strongly associated with being overweight.
Walking or riding a bicycle instead of riding in a car.
Using stairs instead of elevators.
Learning new sports. Swimming and jogging are the sports that burn the most calories. Your school may have an aerobics class.
Taking the dog for a long walk.
Spending 30 minutes a day exercising or dancing to records or music on TV.

Social activities: Keeping the mind off food

The more outside activities you participate in, the easier it will be for you to lose weight. Spare time fosters nibbling. Most snacking occurs between 3 and 6 PM. Fill after-school time with activities such as music, drama, sports, or scouts. A part-time job after school may help. If nothing else, call or visit friends. An active social life almost always leads to weight reduction.

When should I call my health care provider?

Call during office hours if:

You have not improved your eating and exercise habits after trying this program for 2 months.
A sign of diabetes may be a dark discoloration to the back of the neck which is a sign of the body developing a resistance to insuling (acanthosis nigricans).
You are a compulsive overeater or feel a loss of control regarding your eating habits.
You are depressed.
You feel you have no close friends.
You have other questions or concerns.

Other resources

overweight-action-plan.pdf