Tips to Help Save Your Overweight Child from Obesity

I received an email from a woman the other day who has two overweight boys who are about to hit puberty. She is obese and wants the three of them to find a way to beat this now before the boys get much older. Having been an obese teen myself, I know the horrors and humiliation a young child feels when they do not fit into the current styles, cannot keep up with the other kids physically, and are the brunt of fat jokes. It is not a fun place to be.

My parents did not know how to help me and I did not know how to ask for help. I wish I had because maybe I would have found ways to break my bad food habits way back then instead of waiting until my late forties.

Helping someone deal with something you have never experienced yourself is hard, or even if you have experienced it, your reaction may not be the best. My father had been chubby around thirteen and was teased for it. He felt the best way to help me was to humiliate me constantly. I guess he felt, better him than someone else. Needless to say that backfired.

As I work with obese adults I hear similar stories of how their parents perpetuated or even caused their obesity. Here are a few of the reasons they give.

• Mother had major eating issues she transferred to me
  
  This is common. A mother who is obsessive about her own weight, and I am talking mothers who only have ten to thirty pounds to lose, transfer that food obsession onto their children.
  
  Examples of this would be putting their daughters on strict diets when they are young and still just have that pouchy baby fat. Mothers who obsess over weight very often transfer that to their children, especially to their daughters. They want there girls to have perfect little bodies or rationalize dieting will keep their girls from every having to live through that extra ten pounds they feel keeps them from being perfect.
  
  This tends to backfire and causes many eating disorders. Children rebel and in that rebellion their relationship to food becomes skewed. Don't make your children afraid of food, instead give them healthy abundant choices and understand that when they go out with their friends, if it is a pizza party, they want to fit in and eat the pizza too.
  
  
• Parent in an attempt to help the chubby child singled her out for special diets.
  
  Many clients have told me that in an attempt to help them when they were young, their parent had them on strict diets as early as ten years old. Come the holiday when siblings got to eat lots of goodies, theirs came sugar free. No ten year old wants sugar free chocolate. Not only does it taste nasty, it singles the child out making her feel less than.
  
  This behavior by parents is done out of love, but it usually backfires because the moment the child is of age to buy her own goodies, she will take on binging behaviors. Instead of learning to enjoy one or two chocolates, she has learned that to get to eat the good stuff she must do it in private to not get caught. That fear of getting caught will causes her to eat fast and excessively as she is afraid she will not get to do it again soon enough.
  
  This type of behavior also causes shame. Once shame and guilt are associated with food it is hard to recover to eating properly. So many adults use food to almost punish themselves. It is a love/hate relationship. And it is destructive in nature.
  
  
• Parent(s) were obese and eating was a family affair.
  
  Some children can find their way past this, but others are set off on the wrong direction right from the get go. If you are obese, it is your responsibility as a parent to bring only healthy good food into your children's lives. You sitting around eating junk food every night or making late night trips to the local KFC is teaching your child bad fat habits that they may never be able to break. No one likes being obese. If you love your children, you are going to have to start making health a family affair. There are no other options.
  
  As an obese person yourself, you have issues about your weight you have to deal with. Life is tough, but being able to put your children's health over your own food addictions could be the best thing that happened to you. Many people can't seem to diet for themselves, but if they thought that it would be good for their children the incentive could be stronger.

So how do you refocus your overweight child toward healthy eating and normal weight? It takes work, it takes patience, and it takes consistency. Just like anything else you want to teach a child.

• Set Family Rules
  
  Don't make these rules specific to your overweight child. That singles them out and makes them the culprit for change. Instead set them for the family. Take a good look at the eating behaviors of your family and where mindless eating takes place.
  
  - Start a no eating while watching TV rule. Or to make it more realistic to a child, no more eating or drinking in the family room. Now that means you have to abide by the rule yourself.
  
  - Enforce family dinners where everyone sits at the table and uses the time not to stuff their face, but to discuss their day and reconnect. This sounds very Ozzie and Harriet, I know, but letting your kids eat off schedule and whatever they want is setting up disastrous eating habits they will have to break as adults. Thin or heavy, children need to learn how to eat right.
  
  
• Stop eating at fast food restaurants
  
  This is just a given with the obesity rate of children today. Fast food is destroying them. You as the holder of the purse, get to say when fast food happens. It cannot be every night. Do not think well, Billy is the only one with a weight problem so the rest of us can have our McD's and he can get the apple slices. It is not fair and will only make him feel deprived. Instead start eating more at home where you control the health, fat, and caloric level of the meal.
  
  
• Do not bring soda into your house
  
  Soda is not good for children. The fact that Type II Diabetes is no longer considered adult onset, should tell you this much. Each soda has at least 100 calories per 8 oz. That is a lot of sugar. Once in a while as a treat, but never in the home. Getting your children addicted to diet soda is no better. It just sets up a life-long bad habit of drinking garbage. Water is all the rage these days. If you feel you have to buy them something in a bottle, get them expensive fancy water!
  
  
• Do not bring junk food into your home
  
  Save things like chips and cakes for special occasions. Stop their abuse in your home. Children who have bigger appetites and who like sugar, salts, and fats will hunt down every piece of food they can find. If you don't have it in the house then they will have to eat the healthy food you do have. And when they do, do not yell at them for eating all your fruit, or having taken the last bit of carrots you wanted for dinner.
  
  
• Learn the truth about the foods you feed your family
  
  Do you know that a serving of spaghetti is 1 cup? Do you know what a small amount of pasta that is? Did you know that if you check out the calories of bread you can see a range from 50 calories a slice to 150. Check out fresh bread made at a local health store. Many are now made without oil and the calories are much lower. What a way to shave 100 to 200 calories from you child's lunch without them ever knowing!
  
  
• Become an active family
  
  Children who are prone to obesity tend to not be overly athletic. Sports is not for everyone, but other things like riding a bike, hiking, and just shooting hoops in the evening can bring a new level of activity to a family. You don't need expensive bikes to get out together. Sign up for a fun bike race with your kids and then as a family start preparing for it. Kids of all sizes love bikes. Hiking on the weekends to remote places is great fun. Give you children cameras, teach them how to identify animal tracks, make the outdoors a family adventure. Once a child falls in love with nature, they will be outdoors more often than not.
  
  
• Get rid of all video games except for Wii
  
  Make sure to get the Dancing, Outdoor Adventure, and Fit Board accessories. This new way of interacting with video games is perfect for the lazy child. Just standing up to play rather than leaning back on the couch is a plus. Start family competitions. Everyone is good at something. You skinny daughter might rock at hula hoop, your thin son might be a fast runner, but your heavy child might just be the best boxer in the family. These games are positive reinforcement. Even when a child just competes with himself, he is building confidence that will relate to other areas in his life.
  

Being an overweight or obese boy or girl is a hard place. Children do not understand why they want to eat more, they just do. Don't blame yourself for this if you have no reason to. Some kids just come with bigger appetites and have food preferences that are not healthy. When I was little, I would want second and third servings. My sister hid her food behind the refrigerator so my parents would think she had eaten. That wasn't a learned behavior for either of us, we just had different appetites. I have had to learn to live with my bigger appetite and my inability to feel full or satisfied with most food. You child can too, but it can't be forced on them.

Take a deep breath, forgive yourself for your child's weight problem, and forgive the child. As a family develop good eating habits that will help your bigger child learn to eat right from the start so when she gets older she will not have to deal with obesity. Being an obese teenager can be devastating.

As you implement these changes, everyone in your family may scream at you. Let them. Good health comes from nutritious food and daily exercise. Even your thinnest child will benefit from these changes and adopt a healthy relationship to food. Remember good eating habits are lifelong. Thin people have bad eating habits as well and as adults tend to suffer the consequences.

Take action now to give your family the gift of health. Who knows it may be the best gift you ever get yourself.