Childhood obesity is an increasingly difficult problem. Action, if taken early, can change the outcome for obese children or even prevent it happening in the first place. An appropriate exercise problem is one tool that can alter the outcome for such children

When we talk about exercise routines for children we must not get them confused with the strict routines that adults follow. Children's exercise routines should be fun, flexible and enjoyable, not the three or four gym visits per week type routines. As children are still growing, certain types of exercise may be harmful to them at a younger age. You can however incorporate aerobic exercises, strength building exercises and activities to improve flexibility into your child's routines to build overall fitness.

The following is fact ...

Being overweight as a child can also cause psychological distress. Teasing about their appearance affects a child's confidence and self-esteem and can lead to isolation and depression

As well as encouraging your child to exercise you should also try to limit their inactivity. For example, set limits on the amount of TV your child watches and the length of time they play on video games. The amount of time children spend doing these types of activities has increased dramatically in recent years. Instead of them sitting around, try to ensure that your child is involved in play that is physically active.

Did you know ...?

Obesity is rising among children. In the past ten years it has doubled in six-year-olds (to 8.5 per cent) and trebled among 15-year-olds (to 15 per cent)

Exercise helps to regulate body fat so your child will be less likely to become overweight. Blood pressure and cholesterol levels may also be lowered and they are at a lesser risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Your child will also develop a leaner physique with stronger muscles and bones. Being physically fit and active also helps to improve your child's sleeping habits and their mental agility in day to day tasks.

While most children are pretty flexible anyway, it is a good idea to incorporate some bending and stretching exercises into their routine. These types of exercise help to improve your child's flexibility and their overall range of motion. What this means is that they can bend and stretch their muscles and joints without experiencing any difficulty or pain. There are some great exercises to improve your child's agility:

Side stretches, touching your toes.

Yoga, Pilates.

Gymnastics.

Dancing.

Martial arts.

If you are struggling with your weight loss, then let me give you 2 quick fixes for your weight loss workouts. These small changes to your workout program will help you burn more fat and lose weight.

Have you ever had a friend or co-worker tell you a story, but they end up giving you a little too much information? A bit of the story that they just didn't need to tell you, making the situation a little awkward.

Happens all the time, right?

Well, the same thing happens for a lot of people with fitness information. You read one article saying X, while another says Y. All in all, it leaves you with too much information and you probably end up more confused and frustrated than you were before getting the information.

I get a lot of questions from people who are in precisely that situation. They have so much info from so many sources that they don't know where to start.

Even worse, some of you start obsessing over details. Fitness and nutrition minutia that won't make a darn difference at the end of the day. Sometimes these obsessions lead people to go to extremes, and you can end up worse off than if you had done nothing at all!

Recently a reader sent me his program that was full of extra mini-workouts at different times of the day, low-carb eating during the week followed by a carb re-feed on the weekend, and all sorts of other odds and ends that needed to be sorted out.

His goal was to look good on the beach, but his exercise and nutrition obsessions had him going the wrong way (too much cardio and not enough calories - you'll never build muscle that way).

If you, or your clients are like this, then try to remember one thing...and that is:

Consistently performing the basic requirements will give you 90% (or more) of your results.

Adding in fancy training methods, extra workouts, impossible-to-follow eating plans, and other un-necessary details will only serve to overload most people's already over-stressed lives - until one day you just won't be able to take it anymore...and the next thing you know 3 weeks have gone by since you last worked out or ate properly (because you just couldn't take the extremes anymore).

So here were two basic changes our reader had to make:

1) Cut back on his cardio from 6 session per week to 4. In terms of health, and fat loss, you'll quickly find out that 6 sessions are not better than 5, and 5 sessions are not better than 4. Remember, a good weight loss workout is all about training QUALITY, not quantity. Take a deep breath and realize you won't get fat if you cut back on your cardio to only 4 sessions per week.

(Some day I'll tell you about the reader that was doing 7 hours of cardio per week and not losing a pound!)

2) We got him back on track with a normal, healthy eating schedule. Just stick to the basics: eat low-sugar, high-fiber carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Quite simply, eat vegetables, fiber-rich fruits, lean proteins (including fish), nuts, etc. He needed to toss the low-carb weekdays, carb-refeed weekends crap. It's too complex. And wasn't even working. Stick to eating this normal, healthy approach 90% of the time and you can't go wrong.

Here's a great quote from Alwyn Cosgrove when he was asked how folks can get to the fitness truth from all the hype...

"I help people to break through by looking at things logically. One of my favorite examples is when folks talk about 'fasted' cardio for fat loss. In real world terms it won't make one single bit of difference over time whether you eat two eggs and then train or train and eat two eggs. It doesn't make any real world sense. Before acting on something, think thru the process and determine if it actually makes any sense whatsoever." - Alwyn Cosgrove

Let common sense be your guide to weight loss success!