All in the Family: Helping Your Overweight Child Make Healthy Choices
Getting out and getting moving!
I entered the exam room with a paper chart (back in the olden days before the electronic medical record), the patient’s name and the patient’s concern, “discuss weight.” I was no stranger to addressing issues like this with my adult patients; it was a routine part of my day, treating and making treatment plans for a patient’s well-being and overall health. What I was not prepared for was, on entering the room, to see a mother and her preteen daughter…the latter, not the former, being the patient. At that point in my career I had little experience with kids and weight problems, much less the emotional dynamics that are involved. The young lady was a bit overweight, not anywhere near obese, and neither was mom. However, I was quickly introduced to a frightening dynamic between mother and daughter, which lead to the frightening reason for their visit: she wasn’t eating, her mom lamented. On further discussion (Mom did all the talking, the daughter a reluctant observer to her own appointment.), Mom readily shared that to lose weight, she and her daughter did a workout video together, and joined Weight Watchers together.
Weight Watchers. A 12-year-old on Weight Watchers.
I was beginning to see the effects of Mom’s own weight concerns on her daughter. And it was leading to a textbook case of an eating disorder, the young lady clearly feeling her body (and herself as a person) being shamed. Predictably, Mom did not want me to exam her daughter without her present; however, she reluctantly agreed and I worked with this young lady one-on-one. (Also not surprising, it was hard to get more than a one-syllable response from this sweet, yet self-conscious tween.)
A couple years later, as I was making a drive-thru run at Dairy Queen (yes, sadly ironic…), the same young lady passed me my blizzard. I’ll never forget that moment. Wondering if she was healing or hurting. (She and her mother never made a follow-up appointment.)
Childhood weight problems are frighteningly prevalent; the number of kids who are overweight or obese has tripled in the last 40 years. And as a result health problems been reserved for adults are being diagnosed in children: high blood pressure, type-two diabetes and elevated cholesterol. In short, our nation has another health crisis on our hands and it is affecting our youth in alarming numbers.
So what can we do? Regular well-visits with a healthcare provider are a must. But the foundational work lies at home, which means families play a major role in addressing and managing childhood weight problems. It’s no easy task in the course of our already busy schedules but a few changes in the right dietary direction (we need to eat anyway, right?) can go a long way toward helping kids, and adults, develop healthy habits and a healthier weight. All without the shame and risk of eating disorders.
Advice straight from the kitchen (or the dark corner of Mom’s closet…)
~Get the junk food out of the house. Just don’t buy it. Of course, total deprivation doesn’t work well, so do allow the chips, M and M’s or ice cream to be a once-a-week treat. Be sure you are walking the walk: get rid of that personal stash hidden in your closet (yes, guilty as charged). It’s a triple-win: your kids aren’t eating the junk food, you aren’t engaging in closeted eating, and it keeps the puppy from finding that half-eaten bag of gourmet jelly beans and gobbling them down…
~Who cooks? Everybody cooks! Get the whole family involved in preparing meals, cold lunches, etc. It’s a great chance to talk about healthy choices, portion sizes, and eating the rainbow. Ask: Instead of croutons, what’s a healthier crunchy choice for this salad? or Instead of chips, what would be a healthier “side” to go with your sandwich? Challenge your kids to make that salad as colorful as possible by making a game out of it: whoever tosses the salad with the biggest variety of veggies (and/or fruit) wins.
~Feedback for “feeding” well. Praise healthy food choices. Reinforce the good. Gently redirect from the “bad.”
~Practice portioning. I know I’m guilty of criticizing my kids for that filling that cereal bowl to the brim with granola and milk (watching them intrepidly shuffle to the dining table with a quivering disaster waiting to happen is hilarious, though…) and my diatribe about waste falls on deaf ears, so I’m learning, ever so slowly, to change my tune and try a different tack. So now I help my kids learn about portion sizes and read nutrition labels. Then we actually measure out a serving size, while I say something like this is the right amount to help our bodies and minds work well. Healthy eating and math rolled into one.
~Don’t allow food to become the center of family life. Instead of rewarding good grades, a music recital or the end-of-soccer-season with ice cream, reward with an outing. In fact, get out and get moving together as a family. Go bowling, or for a hike or family bike ride. Emphasize time together. That said, meals as a family are still an important time to bond and also to establish healthy eating choices (and good table manners…).
~Seek help, see a nutritionist. While making an appointment of this kind is an investment, it’s a worthwhile one. Time constraints? Some grocery stores retain a dietician, making access to assistance much more affordable and convenient. Plus the food choices are right outside the office door, and you can tour the store with the nutritionist as part of your appointment,
This advice may seem overwhelming, and incorporating new habits into a busy work, school and extracurricular schedule can be daunting. But think of these shifts as making substitutions: we grocery shop, prepare meals and celebrate accomplishments as part of our lives already, we just need to make changes in their execution. So it’s not so much time as altering our already-established habits.
So how to talk with overweight or obese children without causing anxiety and shame (and help get them on board with healthy habits? Next week, we will explore this topic.
Sources/links for this post:
author not indicated. (2018) Obesity & Kids: a Weighty Subject, Indeed. health + care, a publication from Mercy Regional Medical Center (Winter 2018), pages 10-11.
www.webmd.com/parenting/raising-fit-kids/mood/features/talking-kids-about-weight#1
