No Image

Welcome to Penn State Hershey Pediatric Weight Management

The Pediatric Weight Loss Program is a multi-disciplinary weight management program designed by a physician and registered dietitian to meet the specific needs of overweight children and teens.

  • Excessive weight is the most prevalent nutritional disease among children and adolescents in the United States.
  • Overweight adolescents have a 70-80% chance of becoming overweight adults. More people are now overweight than they were 15 years ago.
  • Obesity is defined as a generalized accumulation of body fat. It is determined by measuring both height and weight of the child to calculate a Body Mass Index (BMI).  A BMI percentile compares a child's BMI to his/her peers.
  • A child or adolescent is considered obese if she or he is significantly over the ideal weight for the child’s height (BMI > 95th percentile).

  • Availability of high-calorie snack foods
  • Parent’s attitudes towards food
  • Increase in consumption of fast foods
  • Using food as a reward or to change behaviors
  • Lack of regular activity or exercise
  • Increase in television watching or computer/video game
  • Not knowing how to eat healthy
  • Heredity (the size of parents and other family members)

WHAT YOU NEED TO EAT

  • NEVER skip a meal.
  • Eat smaller portions or servings of the foods you normally eat.
  • Reduce you fat intake.
  • Reduce your sugar intake.
  • Cut back on the number of calories you eat every day.
  • Reduce snacking to once or twice a day.
  • Each snack should be less than 100 calories.
  • Select lower calorie snacks such as fresh fruit, raw vegetables, rice cakes, low fat popcorn or pretzels.


WHAT YOU NEED TO DRINK

  • Drink water or sugar free beverages in place of regular soda, iced tea, lemonade, and fruit juice. All drinks should have zero calories or have the word DIET in them. Examples include diet sodas, sugar free Kool Aid, sugar free lemonade, sugar free iced tea, diet V-8 splash.
  • Drink skim or 1% milk.
  • Avoid alcoholic beverages.


HOW YOU NEED TO MOVE

  • Get at least 1 hour of physical activity daily!
  • Select an aerobic activity (anything that increases your heart rate and makes you breath harder) that you enjoy doing every day. Examples include dancing, swimming, walking quickly, jogging, stationary bike, jumping rope, and aerobics tapes such as Tae Bo.
  • Cut down on television watching, videos, and video/computer game time to less than 2 hours per day
  • Spend time outdoors.
  • Get your family involved in daily exercise. IT’S MORE FUN WITH A BUDDY!


EAT LESS FAT

  • Eat smaller servings of meat. Eat fish and chicken often. Choose lean meats.
  • Prepare all meats by roasting, grilling or broiling. Trim off any fat you can see.
  • Avoid added sauces or gravies.
  • Take the skin off chicken and turkey.
  • Avoid fried foods and avoid adding fat in cooking.
  • Eat less high-fat foods such as lunch meats, bacon, sausage, hot dogs, butter, margarine, nuts, salad dressing, lard, and shortening.
  • Eat less ice cream, cheese, sour cream, whole milk and other high fat dairy foods.


EAT MORE HIGH-FIBER FOODS

  • Choose dried beans, peas, and lentils often.
  • Eat whole grain breads, cereals, and crackers.
  • Select fresh whole fruit in place of fruit juice.
  • Try other high fiber foods, such as oat bran, barley, brown rice, and wild rice.


EAT LESS SUGAR

  • Avoid regular soft drinks. One 12oz. can of soda contains 9 teaspoons of sugar.
  • Limit intake of table sugar, honey, jam, jelly, syrup, candy, sweet rolls, fruit canned in heavy syrup, regular gelatin desserts, cake with icing, pie, and other sweet foods.
  • If desired, use sugar substitutes that don’t have any calories. Saccharin, aspartame, and Splenda are a few of the sugar substitutes available.

 

Small changes now make a BIG difference later!!!

Stay connected with Penn State Hershey

 Follow Penn State Hershey on FacebookFollow Penn State HersheyFollow Penn State Hershey
Follow Penn State Hershey