Weight Management Tools and Resources

Maintaining a healthy weight for life is important for everyone. These tools and resources help families and communities learn more about managing a healthy weight. Find additional tools and resources in the nutrition, physical activity, and screen time reduction sections.

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• Parent Tips and Handbook
• Tools
• Weight Management News Stories
• Additional Resources

Parent Tips and Handbook

Families Finding the Balance: A Parent Handbook (1.5 MB)

Offers practical tips to help parents help their families find the right balance of eating well and being physically active to maintain a healthy weight. Order the handbook online.

• Available in Spanish: ¡Nosotros Podemos! Familias Encontrando el Balance: Manual para Padres (1.9 MB). Order the Spanish-language version online.

Calories Needed Each Day (165 KB)

This tip sheet explains the calories needed each day for boys and men, and for girls and women by age and three levels of physical activity.

Energy Balance: ENERGY IN & ENERGY OUT (786 KB)

Use this worksheet to better understand how balancing energy in and energy out can help your family maintain a healthy weight.

Get Started! Eating Healthy and Moving More (91 KB)

Try these tips from We Can! to eat well and move more and see how easy taking small steps toward a healthier life can be.

Healthy Snacks—100 Calories or Less (81 KB)

Find ideas for tasty and healthy snacks that will help you and your family stay at a healthy weight.

Knowing What Your Weight Means (98 KB)

Body Mass Index—or BMI—and waist size are two numbers that can help you decide if your weight is healthy, or if you need to make some changes. This tip sheet explains how to find both and what they mean.

We Can! Parent Tips: Be a Good Health Role Model (835 KB)

Find tips for using your power as a role model to make your home a healthy eating zone, get your family moving, and limit screen time.

We Can! Parent Tips: Healthy Families, Healthy Weight (88 KB)

This tip sheet provides an overview of the We Can! program and tips for living a healthier lifestyle with your kids.

Words You Should Know (97 KB)

Learn the meaning of words related to maintaining a healthy weight, such as calorie balance, overweight, and portion size.

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Tools

We Can! Animation for Parents

This 60-second animation highlights the importance of preventing overweight and obesity for families.

Body Mass Index Calculator

Use this calculator from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to determine your Body Mass Index (BMI) according to height and weight.

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Weight Management News Stories

Your Child’s BMI Could Signal Weight Problems | PDF  (719 KB)

This short community news feature explains how BMI relates to weight problems. Community news features are great for for print media distribution, newsletters, and hand-outs.

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Additional Resources

Aim for a Healthy Weight

This website from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Obesity Education Initiative has information to help reduce the prevalence of overweight along with the prevalence of physical inactivity in order to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and overall morbidity and mortality from CHD.

CDC Childhood Obesity Web Page

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health provides online information about healthy youth, including childhood obesity.

NHLBI Health Topics: What Are Overweight and Obesity?

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Health Topics website gives you a quick and easy way to get complete and dependable information. It includes information on overweight and obesity, as well as information about heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders.

Surgeon General’s Childhood Overweight and Obesity Prevention Initiative

This Web page out of the Office of the Surgeon General provides information about childhood obesity prevention and the program: Healthy Youth for a Healthy Future.

Weight-Control Information Network

An information service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, this website provides the general public, health professionals, the media, and Congress with up-to-date, science-based information on weight control, obesity, physical activity, and related nutritional issues.