Tubby toddlers

• Walk, don’t drive. Do you really need to take the car for short journeys?
• Make sure your child isn’t buggy bound. Encourage them to walk beside you on the pavement
• Encourage healthy TV habits. Limit the hours of TV your child watches. The American Academy of Paediatrics suggests one to two hours daily. Try planning your child’s viewing, so that it is turned on for a specific programme and then turned off
• Give your child lots of opportunities for active play. Children of this age love unstructured activities like running, swinging, climbing and swimming
• Have toys which encourage activity, like bikes, wheeled toys and balls.
• Do active things together as a family, like going for walks, swimming or trips to the local park.

Dr Judy More recommends you get professional medical advice, either from a GP or health visitor. They’ll be able to calculate your child’s body mass index, which is a way of working out whether there’s a genuine weight problem, as opposed to the usual puppy fat. You may be referred to a dietician for diet and lifestyle advice.

Healthy eating is encouraged – not dieting

Putting children on a diet is not recommended. An increasing number of young children are suffering with eating disorders, and dieting can make them anxious about food and about their body image. ‘We would never expect a child of that age to lose weight,’ says More, ‘but we would hope their weight gain would be slower.’ She suggests that concerned parents can safely increase the amount of exercise their children take, by making sure that they walk more and have lots of physical fun to keep them trim.