What the best way to help a 12 year old to lose weight who is 50 pounds overweight?

Answer 1

DISCLAIMER: Consult a medical professional before implementing any major dietary or health related changes to your lifestyle. Weight loss and dieting is a particularly complicated subject. For a person of your age (12 years old) it is particularly dangerous to be "dieting" as your body is still growing and developing. Dieting in adolescence can lead to future development problems, such as stunted growth, late onset of puberty or even other more long-term permanent afflictions, such as osteoporosis. Furthermore, it is typically more important to focus on fat percentage or body mass index (BMI), which are a more accurate representation of your relative health and weight, taking into consideration your gender, age, height, body-build, etc. That being said, weight loss, absent any extraordinary medical conditions, is essentially a numbers game. The more calories you intake over the calories your body requries to sustain its daily activities, the more weight you will gain; the reverse is also true, the more calories you burn over your daily intake, the more weight you will lose. The key is limiting your caloric intake properly (i.e. not cutting out essential vitamins and nutrients) and burning calories properly (i.e. proper exercise). Starving yourself is never a good way to lose weight. While you may see immediate results, these results are damaging to your health and short-lived. Your body runs off energy from the food it consumes on a daily basis, but it also stores extra energy, in the form of fat, for emergency situations. If you starve yourself, your body will begin to store a larger portion of the food you do consume, as fat, because it will be preparing for what it believes to be another starvation period. In essence, you will be losing weight in the short term, but conditioning your body to store more fat when you do actually eat. Portion control is probably one of the easist ways to improve your diet, particularly when eating out at a restaurant. The typical serving size of a restaurant entree is two (or sometimes more) times the recommended daily serving allowance for a single meal. Try eating half of what you order and taking the remainder home as leftovers. Not only will you see an improvement in your health, you will also see an improvement in your budget! Another way to improve your diet is by cutting back on "empty" calories. An empty calorie is one that has zero nutritional value - soda, candy, potato chips - your "junkfoods". Watching what you eat does not mean you have to starve yourself, or stop snacking, but instead of reaching for the Doritos, try having an apple or some carrot sticks (without the Ranch dressing =P). Working out and exercising on a regular basis is a recommended practice for people of all ages. Hopefully, at your age, you are already, relatively active - e.g. walking to school, a member of an athletic team or activity, etc. The US Center for Disease Control suggests that ADULTS engage in 30 minutes of moderately intense (i.e. something that raises your heart rate, but does not cause you to be short of breath) activities each day and at least 20 minutes of vigorously intense (i.e. something that makes you sweat, e.g. jogging or running) activity three times each week. Again, to highlight, that is the recommended activity level for adults. As a twelve-year-old adolescent, you should consult a professional before engaging in any exercise regiment that is aimed at losing weight.