Parents who attempt to implement a diet plan for the whole family to follow face a tremendous challenge. The combination of busy schedules, different dietary needs and diverse tastes make it difficult to implement a family diet and get full cooperation from all family members. A family diet plan works best when it is a part of a healthy lifestyle, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An easy diet plan that works for your family and reinforces healthy eating habits needs certain characteristics to increase the potential for success.
Diet Plans
KidsHealth suggests that to avoid the hype about diets, you should focus on healthy eating and lifestyle. The American Council on Exercise recommends that parents who are worried about unhealthy eating habits and childhood obesity model healthy habits for their children by cleaning up the family diet.
Simple
Simple diets work best for families. Diet plans with easy to remember guidelines. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPyramid dietary program takes the family food pyramid and uses it to help families design healthy diets that are easy to follow. The simplicity of the food pyramid is revealed in its six differently colored stripes and the five major food groups. Simple diets are easy for families to follow because there is no need for a lot of information. Colorful charts hung on the refrigerator door can help keep family members on track.
Flexible
Choose a flexible diet plan for your family to ensure they can stick to it long-term. Avoid diets that make certain foods off-limits and that impose difficult restrictions on family members. Choose a diet that promotes variety and creativity. An easy to follow family diet includes breakfast each morning to kick-start metabolism, a couple of healthy snack periods each day and meals planned in advance to control content and portion sizes without sacrificing variety and taste.
Balance
The USDA dietary guidelines list the recommended daily servings for each food group based on an individual's total daily caloric intake. The varying widths of the food pyramid's colored stripes help family members understand, at a glance, which foods to eat more of and which foods to limit. HelpGuide recommends a diet that encourages your family to eat a rainbow of fruits and vegetables while limiting fats, protein and sugars. Unless your family follows a vegetarian diet, a balanced diet includes foods from all of the major food groups so that your family members have a lot of choices and they get all of the nutrients they need.
Lifestyle
KidsHealth uses the food pyramid as a companion to its easy lifestyle plan, which is 5-2-1-Almost None. KidsHealth recommends eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables, watching no more than two hours or less of television, engaging in one or more hours of physical activity and drinking almost no sugary beverages. Some diets combine diet with lifestyle and promote the two as inseparable. The American Council on Exercise recommends that parents engage children in lifestyle changes as part of a family diet and include them in shopping for food, planning meals and physical activity as a family project. An easy to follow diet is one your family thinks of as a lifestyle and not as a temporary weight-loss measure, which means they will stick to the diet when away from home at school or work.
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