Obesity Help - Drink Diary

Many kids get way too many calories from things they drink, including milk, fruit drinks, tea, and soda.

Do you have any idea how many calories your kids get from what they are drinking?

If your child is overweight, limiting the extra calories he gets from what he drinks can be the key to stopping extra weight gain and even helping him lose weight. By filling out this Drink Diary for a few days, you might find that you can cut back on a lot of calories by switching to low fat milk if your child is over age two years old, cutting back on how much fruit juice he drinks, and getting him to drink more water.

Before filling out the Drink Diary, be sure to measure how many ounces the cup your child drinks from actually holds. You may be surprised that it holds a lot more than a typical cup (8 ounces), so that your child is getting more calories than you think.

The 'Calories/Oz' entry is only included in case your child drinks more than one typical serving. For example, a cup of 2% milk (8 ounces) has 120 calories. If your child drinks 8 ounces at a time, then it is easy and you can just record 120 calories on the Drink Diary. It is a little more complicated if he drinks 12 ounces. In that case, you can figure out that 2% milk has 15 Calories/Oz (120 Calories/8 Oz) and then multiply that by 12 ounces, to get a total of 180 calories for that serving.