Helping your child lose weight can be a difficult task. The last thing you want to do is find yourself in a power struggle with your child over what he or she does or does not eat. How you help your child trim down will depend on many factors.

A first consideration will be your child's age. A very young child may not be aware that he or she is too heavy. You will want to have healthy lower calorie snacks available for the younger child. Check your own behavior. Are you giving the child overly large portions or using food as a substitute for other positive attention? When your children is overweight you will want to use other ways to reward his or her good behavior. Do not make food a reward.
A child who is old enough to know he or she is overweight will usually want to lose weight. It is important to asses their motivation and if it's appropriate, to offer your help. However, you will want to avoid being pushy or demanding with your child and be sure to let your child know you love them whether they are overweight or not. Offer to help with their weight loss because it is something they want and will make them healthier and perhaps happier.

You can help your child lose weight by keeping healthy low calorie high nutrition snacks available. Eliminate desert from the evening meal or change desert to low fat, low sugar items. Fruit or yogurt or low calorie Jello are good examples. Make sure your child starts the day with a good breakfast containing some protein and minimal fat and sugar. Good ideas for breakfast include whole grain toast with low sugar jelly or peanut butter, fruit salad, oatmeal with fresh berries, apples with peanut butter dip or a small omelet with ham and cheese.

Increasing your child's activity will help them lose weight as well. Many children love joining local team sports. Baseball, softball, soccer and football are good examples. Another option for exercise is letting your child choose lessons for tennis, horseback riding, golf, ice skating or dance. Finally, if money is no object and your child likes the idea consider finding him or her a personal trainer to get started on physical fitness program.

Remember that whatever you do to help your child lose weight you should not ignore your child's feelings and response to your help. Don't forget that serving as a healthy roll model can go a long way in helping your child develop good habits.

The first weight loss program typically researched is a low calorie diet. Even though literally hundreds of them exist that are used by millions of people, research as shown that low calorie diets do not work.
Look around as you go about your day to day business. Do you really think low calorie diets work now. The heavy people you see have all probably been on one diet or another that restricts caloric intake. The results speak for themselves.

The way around this is to use a Calorie Shifting weight loss program. Calorie Shifting confuses your body so much that it actually starts burning more calories then it normally does.

Your child will love a varied plan like this. How many celery sticks from a low calorie plan will they eat before they completely resist?