Updated December 04, 2014.

Be a good role model

To help get your child motivated to exercise and eat more healthy, it is very important that you provide him with a healthy lifestyle that he can model his own life against. This includes having healthy eating habits and participating in a regular exercise program. Also limit how much time that the family watches television.

Protecting Self Esteem

While it is important to help your child reach a more healthy weight, it is not as important as maintaining their self-esteem.

Some tips to help support your child include never telling your child that he is fat, avoid strict diets or withholding or depriving your child of food when he is hungry and don't overly nag your child about his weight or eating habits. Also, make sure your child knows that being overweight doesn't change what kind of person he is or how much you love him.

Important Reminders

• Be patient. This is a chronic problem.
• Get the whole family involved. Healthy eating habits and regular exercise should be a regular part of your family's life. It is much easier if everyone in the house follows these guidelines, than if your child has to do it alone.
• Allow your child to have special foods or desserts on special occasions.
• Avoid strict diets, fasting, and crash, liquid or fad diets. They rarely work and will discourage your child from continuing. Adult diets, such as the Atkins diet, cabbage soup diets, etc. have not been proven safe or effective dieting tools for children.
• Call your pediatrician if your child is not having some weight loss with this regimen or if it is affecting his self-esteem.

• Consider seeing a nutritionist for help with dieting, weight loss and in planning your family's diet.