Parenting from diet perspective
rugged1529
Posts: 95 Member
Hello all
I have a dilemma. My daughter is overweight just like me and my wife. So my daughter went to weight herself and she is feeling really bad about the scale (of course, this makes me and my wife feel horrible). My wife is dieting too however it's the SAD WOE in my opinion ("healthy carbs, fruit, etc"). I started Keto about 1.5 months ago and have been doing well (not just with weight but overall everything, I have RA) and my wife does not want to try what i'm doing or want our daughter to do that. I understand where she is coming from because I tried so many things that didn't work(Mcdougal, juicing, FA, etc.). However, I have found what works (I feel). I proposed to her "if she (daughter), after a month of doing it your way, gets process, keep going. But if not, lets try what I'm doing". She seem so against it though she sees me losing weight and feeling so much better (moving better). How do I convince my wife to trying this without waiting to see how I do after a long time for the sake of my daughter? As you can see, this is a sensitive issue.
I have a dilemma. My daughter is overweight just like me and my wife. So my daughter went to weight herself and she is feeling really bad about the scale (of course, this makes me and my wife feel horrible). My wife is dieting too however it's the SAD WOE in my opinion ("healthy carbs, fruit, etc"). I started Keto about 1.5 months ago and have been doing well (not just with weight but overall everything, I have RA) and my wife does not want to try what i'm doing or want our daughter to do that. I understand where she is coming from because I tried so many things that didn't work(Mcdougal, juicing, FA, etc.). However, I have found what works (I feel). I proposed to her "if she (daughter), after a month of doing it your way, gets process, keep going. But if not, lets try what I'm doing". She seem so against it though she sees me losing weight and feeling so much better (moving better). How do I convince my wife to trying this without waiting to see how I do after a long time for the sake of my daughter? As you can see, this is a sensitive issue.
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Children should not do keto without a doctor's supervision - it can impact their growth. Low carb (around 100g - 150g/day) would be a better option for her and still give her the bulk of the benefits (satiety, craving control, etc) without being so low on carbs that her growth would be impacted. Also, since RA is very heritable it might help reduce inflammation and keep her from ever becoming symptomatic even if she has the genetic predisposition. But that's just my suggestion, it really needs to be something your daughter wants more than something either you or your wife want - she's not going to sustain any eating plan for either one of you, she will only do it for herself. You can educate her and give her ideas of stuff to try, but in the end she is going to have to find what works for her and what she enjoys and what she wants to eat.4
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As a woman who struggled with her weight as a teen I know the positives and negatives of having parental involvement. Your heart and actions are clearly coming from the right place. You're an amazing parent! From my perspective and experience:
1) find something active your daughter likes to do and invest the time and energy to do it with her. Softball? Trail hiking? Dog walking? Scooter/bike riding? Do it as something fun and as a family, not as exercise.
2) remind her daily she is not her weight. Her value and worth as a person comes from her actions and deeds. Encourage her to say thrse things to her self daily as well. This is so important.
3) at first, encourage her to think about how food makes her feel. Use a journal to track what is eaten and when and energy levels etc through out the day. There's no judgement in the tracking, its just for information only.
After tracking she may determine what works for her and what she wants which is the very best possible outcome.
I dont know how old she is but you can modify some of these for younger kids for sure.
Good luck, youre on the right path.5 -
How old is your daughter if you don't mind me asking? Only because if she is still very young I would recommend enforcing a healthier way of eating instead of 'dieting'. This is the point of her life you want to encourage her to make a healthy relationship with food, instead of it being the constant battle most of us have grown to know.2
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How old is your daughter?
Perhaps guide her into a way of eating that is midpoint between your wife's WOE and your WOE? To me that would equate to all foods being OK in moderation and some foods having more nutritional value than others.
Personally, I eat keto but that is not saying I believe it to be the best diet for overall health for the masses. Nor do I think it is the only way to lose weight. I know it is not the only way to lose weight since I lost my excess 60 never knowing about keto.
Vegans can be just as physically healthy as Zerocarb carnivores regardless of what either "side" presents in their research and justification for their chosen WOE. IMO.
Encourage physical activity for the win with both you and your wife engaging in the same.2 -
Thanks everyone for your comments so far. great advice.How old is your daughter if you don't mind me asking? Only because if she is still very young I would recommend enforcing a healthier way of eating instead of 'dieting'. This is the point of her life you want to encourage her to make a healthy relationship with food, instead of it being the constant battle most of us have grown to know.
I can't believe I forgot to mention how old my daughter is! She is 9 years old. I'm not forcing keto on her but I definitely want to lower her carbs or educate her about it.
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rugged1529 wrote: »Thanks everyone for your comments so far. great advice.How old is your daughter if you don't mind me asking? Only because if she is still very young I would recommend enforcing a healthier way of eating instead of 'dieting'. This is the point of her life you want to encourage her to make a healthy relationship with food, instead of it being the constant battle most of us have grown to know.
I can't believe I forgot to mention how old my daughter is! She is 9 years old. I'm not forcing keto on her but I definitely want to lower her carbs or educate her about it.
What a cool dad. Even if what you say doesn't "take" right away, your words and feeds will stick with her forever.1 -
rugged1529 wrote: »Thanks everyone for your comments so far. great advice.How old is your daughter if you don't mind me asking? Only because if she is still very young I would recommend enforcing a healthier way of eating instead of 'dieting'. This is the point of her life you want to encourage her to make a healthy relationship with food, instead of it being the constant battle most of us have grown to know.
I can't believe I forgot to mention how old my daughter is! She is 9 years old. I'm not forcing keto on her but I definitely want to lower her carbs or educate her about it.
Yeah, I personally think 9 is way too young to be dieting. I would encourage her to eat her fruit and veg, carbs in moderate amounts, and learn that treats are treats, not daily/weekly habits. I speak from experience. At the age of 10 my mum was encouraging me to diet, I went to exercise classes with her and the whole of my childhood was focused on dieting instead of being a child and now I'm 27 year old at 227lbs.
When it comes to meals ask her what fruit/veg she would like. When she wants sweets suggest that she has fruit and get her to pick what fruit she would like. Nuts instead of crisps/chips. Get her to make choices and guide her in the direction of healthy choices.
Build up a foundation of healthy food decisions and at her age she will be fine. But I think instead of making the decision for her, you should ask her what she wants, and if it isn't healthy, guide her towards a healthier option and explain why an apple is better than a packet of crisps/chips/sweets. Also get her involved in the preparation of her meals, it might encourage her to eat her veg if she knows she helped towards the cooking of it.
Also, I don't think she should be weighing herself. She is too young to have that on her mind. I became obsessed with my weight. I was making charts, weight goals, exercise goals as a child when I should have been playing. I understand your concern for her, but if she learns the correct relationship with food and is more active, she will loose it.0 -
And tell her she is beautiful the way she is. My parents didn't tell me that enough.
Sorry, this topic cut a bit deeper than I realised. Please don't let her focus on her weight, there is more to her childhood right now.1 -
I can feel that it cuts deep for you @Lois_1989 and it is sad all that occurred and could have long term affect on your thoughts/feeling/actions.
The great thing is you are 27 years old now and can be your own person. Your choices are yours to make.
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I can feel that it cuts deep for you @Lois_1989 and it is sad all that occurred and could have long term affect on your thoughts/feeling/actions.
The great thing is you are 27 years old now and can be your own person. Your choices are yours to make. I know my parents did it because they care. They just went the wrong way about it. If I can stop that happening to others, it's a good day. 1 -
I think you AND your wife just need to approach this differently in that you stop any and all focus on seeking scale weight loss as the goal.
I honestly think sugar coating the truth to try and save a kids self image doesn't actually do that either. Telling them, "you don't need to lose any weight, you're perfect the way you are" is literally choosing to ignore a symptom of poor health and/or poor lifestyle choices that will only do long term harm physically and mentally. How is that any better?
Instead, take ALL the focus off of scale weight. Health has zero to do with it! Sit her down and tell her that number doesn't mean anything. That people of the same weight and even sane height can look and feel very different from each other. Plus, she's got quite a long time that her body is going to be growing and changing and the only thing that is actually important is feeling good physically.
Ask her if she feels good when she's out playing? Does she feel good after eating her normal foods? Does she ever feel physically bad or extra tired even she slept all night or have tummy troubles or bathroom issues. Or trouble concentrating and paying attention. Those are the important things. And if she's overweight, she may have at least one area of concern that would be a better goal than losing weight. You can then teach how the foods we eat have an effect on whatever thing she decides she would like to get better. You can explain how eating more healthy fats are great for energy and your brain. And how eating wheat and high sugar processed foods can upset your stomach, give you bathroom issues and make your brain feel sluggish. You can ask her if she wants your help to learn what foods to avoid eating that will not help her feel good. And then make those foods unavailable and teach that if she chooses to eat them anyway from somewhere else, that she will have trouble with her goal of feeling her best.
You can compromise with your wife to at least eliminate wheat and all processed grain and sugar foods. Your daughter, even if already showing signs of metabolic stress, is still mostly metabolically healthy and will definitely do well even if she's eating fruit and some starchy vegetables and beans. I would teach that vegetables are better than fruit and some fruit is better than other fruit and it's just about making good choices and eating what makes you feel good. So let her know to think about when she feels the best and think about the food she chose that day to fuel her body and maybe those were things her body particularly likes. Try to teach a "food is fuel" idea without making it so strict as to come across as that's all it is either. You also don't want a "food makes things fun or makes everything better" message. That's where some people fall into a food makes me happy mindset that is very hard to deal with. And then the idea that parties or holidays are only fun because of the food... try to teach taking the focus off of food as being a reward or food for the sole purpose of enjoyment... food can still be enjoyed, and work to teach that the best part of enjoying it is how good you feel and how you know that lots of good food can be eaten, enjoyed and not do your body harm.
If your wife can't agree to get rid of packaged and processed foods and not be trying to fit them in and justify "deserving" them, then she needs to learn the "eat to live, don't live to eat" message too. And that kind of reluctance is likely rooted in food addiction. Without recognizing it, it won't get better.6 -
Also, low carb, even keto is perfectly healthy for kids. We are born ketogenic. It's our natural state. Why would oversupplying glucose beyond needs somehow be better just because they're a child. That makes no sense.
This can be a start if you want to read about why it's perfectly safe. And why some people think it's not.
https://www.ketovangelist.com/is-keto-safe-for-kids/7 -
How overweight is she? A certain amount of plumping up and then stretching out is how growth works in a lot of kids. I agree that 9 is too young to diet. A growing child shouldn't "diet" but should eat for growth and get lots of activity.
I wouldn't have her go keto. I would, however, not buy sweets, juice, chips, crackers and fast/convenience food.
Please recognize that there is a serious mental component to this, especially for a young girl. DO NOT let her weigh herself...seriously, get rid of the scale if you have to...DO NOT talk diet or weight or "fat". DO talk about health, energy, strong, active, smart, beautiful. Go hiking with her, ride bikes with her, get her playing soccer, get her in a dance class, involve her in cooking healthy meals.
Best of luck to you!!3 -
how does this sound? Stop using words. Post a COLOR photo of you at your recent heaviest and a graph that says "Daddy" 236 pounds. Update it weekly March 1, March 8, March 13,...) demonstrating the weight drop. More effective than words, no? Whether children should be on keto or not, they shouldn't be on the Standard American Diet (SAD) of sugar, fat, salt because hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza, chips, french fries, and coke are the most deadly food. Try to model Dr Joel Fuhrman's GBOMBS diet. Greens bitter collard, kale, turnip top, watercress. Onions. Mushrooms. Beans. Berries. Seeds. Eaten together these foods catalyze each others disease fighting properties. Food is fuel, not amusement (a-without, muse-thought.)0
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AND model more movement. Walk up the steps vice elevator, escaltor. Park far from your destination and walk. Purchase a mini trampoline and run in front of the TV. Just talk a walk. get off the subway a stop early. Dance. The best exercise is the one that your family with continue to do.2
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WOW! I am touched my everyone's responses. Thank you so much. I'm going to discourage my wife from letting her weigh herself again but maybe go by inches. I don't want her to think her self worth is associated with what she weights. Thank you again so much! If anyone else wants to "weigh in" on the situation, please do so.1
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rugged1529 wrote: »WOW! I am touched my everyone's responses. Thank you so much. I'm going to discourage my wife from letting her weigh herself again but maybe go by inches. I don't want her to think her self worth is associated with what she weights. Thank you again so much! If anyone else wants to "weigh in" on the situation, please do so.
Heh, I was trying to avoid puns. I was going to say scales shouldn't 'weigh' on her mind. I wasn't sure it this was the time or place, but if your ok with it.
I think you are both great parents for caring and acknowledging that maybe things should change. Good luck, I know you will figure out a solution!0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Also, low carb, even keto is perfectly healthy for kids. We are born ketogenic. It's our natural state. Why would oversupplying glucose beyond needs somehow be better just because they're a child. That makes no sense.
This can be a start if you want to read about why it's perfectly safe. And why some people think it's not.
https://www.ketovangelist.com/is-keto-safe-for-kids/
this! I just thought about this about forty minutes ago.1 -
You have gotten some great advice here! I can see it being really difficult with you and your wife being on different pages when it comes healthy eating and weight loss. When I first started my journey towards better health, my motto was that I was tired of feeling like crap, so I needed to quit eating crap. My first focus was on real food/clean food... ideally 5 pronounceable ingredients or less. That was something everyone in the house bought into without convincing... My SO was always the one commenting how much better he felt after a meal. Baby steps. I agree with everyone here that the focus should be more about long term health. Maybe set silly, competitive family goals and THIS is what I would chart... who can run furthest around the block without stopping(or jump rope, or swim or whatever) - they don't have to do supper dishes that night (or some other non-food based reward)! Who had the least amount of screen time that day? etc3
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rugged1529 wrote: »WOW! I am touched my everyone's responses. Thank you so much. I'm going to discourage my wife from letting her weigh herself again but maybe go by inches. I don't want her to think her self worth is associated with what she weights. Thank you again so much! If anyone else wants to "weigh in" on the situation, please do so.
I wouldn't do this either, not with a tape measure at least. You will visibly see how her clothes are fitting...use that as your guide.
Get her moving, eliminate sweets/junk (which your wife, even on a standard diet, should be on board with) and let her naturally growing body take care of the rest. She will be entering puberty soon, her body HAS to add fat stores for her changing hormone function. You really don't want her entering that time of her life overly aware of weight. It will mess with her head and self worth.2 -
I teach my 9 and 7 year old girls that sugar is what is unhealthy. If processed sugar can be cut out of her food choices and replaced with real food (fruit veggies etc), then she will get the nutrients she needs and will feel full.
If it is just the three of you, why not get rid of the junk food in the house and have plenty of good food to eat? Seems like a Keto and standard dieter could agree on that.
Eating an apple is sweet, but the fiber will balance it for her and fill her up more than the same calorie serving of chips. She will end up eating fewer calories because she will be full on good foods.
It is a point of focusing on 'healthy' not on weight. Eating the foods that gives her what she needs for her mind and body to work.
And.. I honestly don't think low carb high fat is bad for kids, but since your wife disagrees getting rid of junk food can be something she could agree on. ... but please don't do low fat for her. You can point out the recent study about kids drinking whole milk end up a healthier weight than skim milk drinkers.
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There is much good conversation here. I will just add that at that age, it is not about losing weight, but maintaining it so she can grow into it. Dr Naly talked about this in one of the Keto Talk with Jimmy and the Doc how he deals with overweight kids. He said, except for extreme cases, kids shouldn't lose weight and that it is better to just aim for eating such that weight stays fairly steady and they grow into that weight.
He also talked about how a kid, even on the SAD, will frequently be in ketosis especially if they are active. The act of growing itself burns a lot of energy and therefore kids will shift to ketosis regularly during periods of activity. Back in the old days, like when I was a kid, we would go outside and play between lunch and dinner during the summer. If kids did that now, they would be in ketosis when they came in for dinner.1 -
At 9 years old you and your wife must control nearly all of her food consumption. The biggest issue is for you and your wife to get on the same page about how to feed her a nutritionally healthy diet - what foods to restrict to what times - like sugar only once a week on a weekend, or starchy foods only every other day, or whatever you two can agree is going to meet her nutritional needs without setting her up for health problems.
I don't have any keto kids, but a friend of mine has a 12 year old on keto for health reasons...her doctors have her in several times a year for testing certain nutrient levels and bone density, if you are going to go that route please consider medical supervision.2 -
It's so sad that a nine year old feels badly about her weight. I recently had to take my 8 yo son to the doctor because he was displaying early signs of anorexia. So, although very different, I understand your concern. 9 is a perfect age to get her into gymnastics, martial arts, or any number of fun activities. I wish you the best.1
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Heather4448 wrote: »It's so sad that a nine year old feels badly about her weight. I recently had to take my 8 yo son to the doctor because he was displaying early signs of anorexia. So, although very different, I understand your concern. 9 is a perfect age to get her into gymnastics, martial arts, or any number of fun activities. I wish you the best.
To follow up on this, 9 is a good age for a girl to take karate or something similar. As the dad of an 11 yo girl, I wish we had gotten her started sooner. She just started and will soon be 12. In this day and age I think it is of utmost importance for us to teach our daughters skills to defend themselves. The physical fitness side of this is just a side benefit.
BTW, about a month in and my daughter LOVES karate. She is a book nerd reading well above her grade level and not inclined to do anything that remotely resembles exercise. This has gotten her interested in trying other physical activities and is in fact now going to try out for track next year when she enters 7th grade.5 -
I always grew out then up as a kid. I agree with the "grow into her weight advice" may be a gentle way to get her started and stressing healthy food choices and making those choices available, easy and fun for her to choose. I also agree with finding an activity or two that she loves, maybe even one you could all do together. Karate is a great idea as well as soccer, tennis, trampoline, roller skating, and even hula hoop! My youngest son and I won the hula hoop competition at his school because we played so much with it at home. I love doing it and it is great exercise! There are some great free hula exercises on you tube. There are tons of free exercise videos on you tube of all kinds.1
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Maybe you could create an account at www.cronometer.com not for her to track food but just to play with making fake example days of eating to see how it shows the nutrition certain foods provide.
You could guide her in building fake days of eating different junk food and fast food then help her build days of eating real food and compare the nutritional profiles.
I do think it might be a good idea to mostly ignore the total calories the different days have to avoid developing the mindset that you have to eat very little food or something. Lots of us women have literally starved ourselves for short periods of time over and over again because of that mindset. I'd keep the focus on all the stuff real food provides compared to junk food. Even at 9, it's easy to understand getting enough vitamins is important. Let her play with chronometer like it's a game. Don't even let her realize that people actually use it to track the food they eat on a daily basis because that might make her obsess about it. Make it more of a tool to see examples of good foods.
I would be careful to stay away from any section referring to losing weight and calorie deficits. Just make it a fake account to play with and not have her true stats.4 -
Great idea!2
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How about an active game of Badmitton in the backyard or driveway?
Tie one end of a jump rope to a door knob and take turns jumping. See who can go the longest without missing.
Play a board game with no snacks for added entertainment. The best bedtime snack is a big hug from Mom and Dad with a confirmation that we had a fun day.1 -
Dieting may not be the right choice, but definitely choosing the right foods. Choosing a lower carb lifestyle might be good so that she doesn't have to give up the things she likes, but isnt getting an overabundance of carbs she doesn't need.
I'm not sure about the "growing into your weight" statement. That has to vary. For me, my family fed us adequately and I was always a little chubby -- not enough to be a real concern but I was still bigger than most kids. I was also active as a child. The weight never balanced out, I maintained mostly the same shape and am at 160 at 5 feet tall. So take care to guide her now while she's growing and still take the focus off the scale. She can be content with her body and also make better choices.0
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