Calories In vs Calories Burned

Hey folks – thanks for checking in today! I want to get right to work with you regarding Childhood Obesity. There are two critical components that contribute to this epidemic. They are sedentary lifestyles and high caloric input. At its essence, these are the root of the problem and the fix is not difficult – especially if healthy eating habits are developed early in a child’s life.
Using a Calorie Count Calculator, I was able to determine that an 11-year old male child who has a sedentary lifestyle (i.e 2 hours of computer/video per day plus 1 hour of TV per day) will burn approximately 1100 calories per day. This is assuming a child is 4’2”, and 75 pounds. (This is within healthy weight range).
So how does this child become obese? They simply take in more calories than they burn. Have a bowl of cereal and orange juice for breakfast and you are at 200 calories. Add a snack at some point (such as a doughnut, cookies pop-tart, etc) and you are up to 500 calories. Next they have a soda. You’re up to 650 calories. Have a peanut butter sandwich with potato chips and a juice bag and you are at 1200 calories. Now add an after school snack of fruit rollups, a healthy dinner of chicken potatoes and a vegetable plus milk and you are at 1700 calories. What did I just hear? The Ice Cream Truck?! Wow! We just crossed the 2000-calorie milestone!
Now, let’s add 1 hour of moderate exercise such as playing tag or soccer moderately to this same child’s day. You can take away 235 calories or have 1335 calories burned that day. So we need to still lose 665 calories.
Let’s replace the morning snack with a healthy snack such as carrots & celery and you are at 1735 calories taken in. Remove the soda and potato chips and replace them with water and an apple and you are at 1485 calories taken in. Finally, replace that fruit rollup with actual fruit and we are pretty much square! Heck, we can even still get our kid the ice cream! (Let’s just not do it every day!)
So you see? It really isn’t that hard to keep our kids on a healthy path. Encourage them to eat well and get off that couch! They will enjoy a more healthy body and the healthy benefits that come along with it.
Please know that these caloric numbers are based off of online calculators from a number of sources. They are estimates. These online calculators are a great way to track your Child’s progress and caloric intake.
Until next time,

Diana