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Elementary School Gym teachers telling kids to restrict calories!
Replies
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your case is really the opposite of what I'm seeing. I'm sorry your child is having issues. the teacher is not allowed to pull the fat kids aside and say your fat and if you don't change the way you eat now you will be a fat teen then a fat adult and nobody wants that. so they tell everyone the same thing. you cant look around these days without seeing seriously overweight children. I'm lucky that my kid is naturally thin and active. many of the children in his grade are heavy enough that they will have health issues at a young age. don't blame the teacher in this case. teach you daughter to eat healthy and not extreme. help her build self confidence and be active. its our jobs as parents to do that. you got this.0
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leanjogreen18 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »I think kids ARE body conscious once they get past the preschool years. I was VERY aware of the fact that I was too tall, wore glasses, and had crooked teeth as a kid - elementary school. Kids know how they look compared to others. Teaching what calories are will not cause them to become body conscious. IMO.
Perhaps a lot of kids are.
Mine were very self confident, nor was I body conscious until after having my first child (20's) did I notice my hips were a little bigger, my feet grew 1/2 size. It was the first time in my life that I'd even thought about weight.
Prior to that it was "is my make up on dark enough", "do i need more eyeliner", "are my bell bottoms big enough" or "oh crap super straight legs are in now what did I miss over the summer":)
Body conscious and confidence are separate issues in my mind. I knew I was tall and wore glasses but no one bugged or bullied me about it because I didn't care what they thought... Or maybe they were just afraid to pick on the 5'8", 130 lb 12 year old in grade 6. LOL
... I hated that post pregnancy foot growth. I went from an 8.5 to a 10.5 by my last one. Had to buy all new shoes.
Ah, I see body conscious as negative and not confident in ones appearance or looking to improve it or having an issue with. Different again of self awareness or confidence where one says ok I have big feet but who the heck cares confident that big feet are a sign of greatness (total exaggeration I'm sure you get what I'm saying:)).
Its good to understand ones definitions:)
Whoa thats a big leap from 8.5 to 10.5. I only went up 7 1/2 to 8 but as I get older I'm back down to 7 1/2. Whats up with that weirdness?
I see what you are saying.
You're feet are shrinking? That is odd. Could it be weight loss helping with it?
Yeah I mean it could be weight loss I have no clue. Shoe sizes vary but I'm consistently a 7.5 now it's so weird!0 -
coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »
You do understand that caloric intake is the foundation upon which nutrition lies, right? Maco and micro ratios are ratios dependent on the whole caloric total. Hard to figure those out, if you don't know what you're taking in...
The bigger question is, do you understand age appropriateness when it comes to calorie counting and nutrition? 11 year olds are too young to be counting calories. They are NOT too young to learn about what makes a high calorie or low calorie food and what makes up good nutrition and a balanced diet. They are at the age where they are beginning to learn about fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Pushing them to actually COUNT the macros and calories is not something they are ready for. High School kids, sure. Elementary and Middle School kids, no.
Exactly. They don't need to learn to do the math yet, they need to learn that there is an important concept coming down the road. It's laying a foundation so that when they are age appropriate, they can learn to count calories, or not even count them - just that calories are what drive the overall energy balance equation.
Why don't they need to learn the math yet? My kids, at age 11, were already learning algebra and biology...
It has nothing to do with the math. It has to do with not perpetuating body image issues with children who are still growing and maturing.
You mean perpetuating the notion that obesity is in fact, not OK? If so, I'm cool with that.
Then you should teach your kids to start counting calories at age 11. Not the school.
And, again, if we just relinquish that as "Well, teach it at home!" we'll continue down the path of ever-increasing obesity rates among children and adult; and Type II diabetes in children will continue to rise.
Because, as a whole, parents are failing at this, and failing hard. To the point where the US cannot meet recruiting quotas, not due to unwillingness to enlist, but medically unable to do so due to obesity.
And again. I'm not saying the schools should not talk about this at all. I am just saying that the level of detail provided would change over time just as any concept taught in school changes as children age and mature. I support teaching about CICO and nutrition in schools. I feel like you are ignoring that.
I get what you're saying. We were talking about 6th graders here, though. How is that too young? They're only a couple years away from high school at this point.
That is in the middle of pubescence. There's raging hormones, kids tend to develop issues with self-esteem and become very aware of (and often self-conscious about) their bodies and others' bodies. It's a high risk time period for developing eating disorders.
In a couple of years that dies down somewhat.
Early puberty is frequently related to children being overweight and obese, which is contributing to the fact that girls are experiencing menarche younger on average than they did in the past.
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TL;DR - Kids aren't just getting junk food at home, they're getting it from school too.
I'm seeing comments to the tune of 'parents are the ones buying the junk food in the first place,' and I want to play the devil's advocate a little bit.
While I agree that good food choices begin at home, I think school-provided meals should be taken into consideration. They are almost uniformly high calorie and low nutrition; I'm talking a pack of mini powdered doughnuts for breakfast and then a 1,200 calorie lunch level unhealthy here. And many, many children are eating two meals and sometimes snacks five days a week at school.
I think that most of the time the parents are completely uninformed about what their kids are eating at school, and it's true that's on them if they choose to stay uninformed, but I can understand how they trust the schools to do their due diligence and provide appropriate foods for their little ones.1 -
coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »coreyreichle wrote: »
You do understand that caloric intake is the foundation upon which nutrition lies, right? Maco and micro ratios are ratios dependent on the whole caloric total. Hard to figure those out, if you don't know what you're taking in...
The bigger question is, do you understand age appropriateness when it comes to calorie counting and nutrition? 11 year olds are too young to be counting calories. They are NOT too young to learn about what makes a high calorie or low calorie food and what makes up good nutrition and a balanced diet. They are at the age where they are beginning to learn about fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Pushing them to actually COUNT the macros and calories is not something they are ready for. High School kids, sure. Elementary and Middle School kids, no.
Exactly. They don't need to learn to do the math yet, they need to learn that there is an important concept coming down the road. It's laying a foundation so that when they are age appropriate, they can learn to count calories, or not even count them - just that calories are what drive the overall energy balance equation.
Why don't they need to learn the math yet? My kids, at age 11, were already learning algebra and biology...
It has nothing to do with the math. It has to do with not perpetuating body image issues with children who are still growing and maturing.
You mean perpetuating the notion that obesity is in fact, not OK? If so, I'm cool with that.
Then you should teach your kids to start counting calories at age 11. Not the school.
And, again, if we just relinquish that as "Well, teach it at home!" we'll continue down the path of ever-increasing obesity rates among children and adult; and Type II diabetes in children will continue to rise.
Because, as a whole, parents are failing at this, and failing hard. To the point where the US cannot meet recruiting quotas, not due to unwillingness to enlist, but medically unable to do so due to obesity.
And again. I'm not saying the schools should not talk about this at all. I am just saying that the level of detail provided would change over time just as any concept taught in school changes as children age and mature. I support teaching about CICO and nutrition in schools. I feel like you are ignoring that.
I get what you're saying. We were talking about 6th graders here, though. How is that too young? They're only a couple years away from high school at this point.
That is in the middle of pubescence. There's raging hormones, kids tend to develop issues with self-esteem and become very aware of (and often self-conscious about) their bodies and others' bodies. It's a high risk time period for developing eating disorders.
In a couple of years that dies down somewhat.
Yep. This.0 -
First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
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First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.0 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.3 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.2 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
Oh what a pity. Maybe you weren't eating only when hungry and didn't form habits that wouldn't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end. It's okay, same here
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
If I ate every meal until I was full, I'd be eating twice as much as I need in a day.1 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
If I ate every meal until I was full, I'd be eating twice as much as I need in a day.
That was true for me also when I was gaining weight.0 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
If I ate every meal until I was full, I'd be eating twice as much as I need in a day.
That was true for me also when I was gaining weight.
There's a difference between full and no longer hungry. No longer hungry is more in line with the proper amount of calories for me.
And it no doubt colors my position now, because I can see the direct impact not leaning about calories had on me.
When I think back to all the stuff that I was taught in school about diet and nutrition, calories were never on that list. They weren't taught at home either. I leaned a lot about eating my vegetables and getting my calcium and how great protein is, but I leaned nothing about calories.
So I got all my macros and my micros, then a buttload of extra calories I shouldn't have consumed because not one person thought it might be a good idea to teach those limits. Because I was just a kid, and kids shouldn't worry about calories. Bad habits start young, and I was drinking loads of calories and snacking constantly between my healthy balanced meals because hey, as long as I got all my vitamins I was doing fine, right?
You can't outrun a calorie surplus forever, so yeah, I wish I could go back now to when I was ten and explain calories along with my algebra lessons. Because frankly, I needed it then, when I could've avoided the consequences of getting fat entirely.3 -
Continue to teach your son to be a healthy eater, by being a good example for him. Also, notice his eating habits while at home. He may be going through a phase or possibly following a classmates diet routine. If this continues , I would talk to his regular doctor for some advice.1
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I'd learned about calorie counting somewhere, by my teen-age years (which were in the late 1960s-early 1970s). I got obese anyway. Book learnin' is not a panacea. I suspect, without clear research evidence, that it may be entirely beside the point: Personally, I rarely learn a darned thing, behaviorally, from other peoples' mistakes, let alone from abstract information. But possibly this is a unique character fault.
(I'm inclined to give those on the thread who are teachers of middle-schoolers some extra credence, when they say what they think should be taught in school at various ages. Clearly, parents of children have a basis for opinion, but they don't experience the range of individual students that teachers do.)
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I'd learned about calorie counting somewhere, by my teen-age years (which were in the late 1960s-early 1970s). I got obese anyway. Book learnin' is not a panacea. I suspect, without clear research evidence, that it may be entirely beside the point: Personally, I rarely learn a darned thing, behaviorally, from other peoples' mistakes, let alone from abstract information. But possibly this is a unique character fault.
(I'm inclined to give those on the thread who are teachers of middle-schoolers some extra credence, when they say what they think should be taught in school at various ages. Clearly, parents of children have a basis for opinion, but they don't experience the range of individual students that teachers do.)
To be fair though, the resources available for calorie tracking in the 60s, 70s, and 80s were pretty terrible.1 -
Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.0 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
If I ate every meal until I was full, I'd be eating twice as much as I need in a day.
That was true for me also when I was gaining weight.
There's a difference between full and no longer hungry. No longer hungry is more in line with the proper amount of calories for me.
And it no doubt colors my position now, because I can see the direct impact not leaning about calories had on me.
When I think back to all the stuff that I was taught in school about diet and nutrition, calories were never on that list. They weren't taught at home either. I leaned a lot about eating my vegetables and getting my calcium and how great protein is, but I leaned nothing about calories.
So I got all my macros and my micros, then a buttload of extra calories I shouldn't have consumed because not one person thought it might be a good idea to teach those limits. Because I was just a kid, and kids shouldn't worry about calories. Bad habits start young, and I was drinking loads of calories and snacking constantly between my healthy balanced meals because hey, as long as I got all my vitamins I was doing fine, right?
You can't outrun a calorie surplus forever, so yeah, I wish I could go back now to when I was ten and explain calories along with my algebra lessons. Because frankly, I needed it then, when I could've avoided the consequences of getting fat entirely.
Foe me, the bolded is determined in a large part by the food choices I make. I find it very easy to overeat refined carbs and sugars. For those, full is a stomach ache. 3 -
Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.
This suggests that the deciding factor of if something is "junk" or not, is how many calories are in it. There are plenty of calorie dense Whole Foods as well, the nuts that the teacher ate, things like avocado, banana, etc - could have more calories than a serving of chips or a piece of candy.
Additionally, why is pizza "junk"? I'm actually trying to avoid labeling food "junk" with my kids. I'm trying to teach them that foods have different nutritional content and that some things should be reserved as treats, but really any food can be part of a healthy diet if eaten in moderation.4 -
Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.
I know for me the "portion plate" wasn't the problem. I was eating the right portions of the right foods and having a balanced diet.
And then on top of that, because kids shouldn't count or limit calories, I was eating far too much other crap too. Because why not just tack that on if you have never been told about calories and that there's a limit to how many of them you should consume in a day. There was a single fundamental piece of information missing throughout my entire childhood, and that thing was an upper bound on calories in.2 -
Here are a couple of sites geared toward tracking a child's nutrition. The first site uses a method called the "Stop Light"...no calorie counting. The second site has print outs to help teach children about foods and serving sizes. The printouts are geared toward elementary age children.
https://kurbo.com/why-kids-and-teens-should-not-be-counting-calories/
http://www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-education-printables/category/44-printable-tracker-food-diaries-kids-healthy-goals-tracking-sheets-new1 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »First: Why eat nuts when you don't have enough calories left? Like wth!!!? That's the most ridiculous thing, it's absurd.
Second: You did well contacting the school. Make sure that the meeting will be provided with what you say here. Explain yourself. Kids shouldn't worry about calories, they only have to know the basics (at this age) of good nutrition and benefits of consuming different healthy foods. Varied diet is the best. What that teacher did was a mistake.
Third: Take your child to therapy or counselling or something you can afford that provides him with support. Don't let him battle this on his own and you, the parents, aren't enough in this. I know this for a fact because I am young and when I was a teenager I struggled with my mental health significantly. Not an ED but OCD. I would also binge and purge but only in difficult and stressful situations so the therapist would rather call it a "bulimic episode". Don't fear medications because if he has to take them it won't be forever. They helped me majorly and I took them for a little over a year. With the therapy I can handle this mental *kitten* better and cope by myself.
Key point: your sweet child shouldn't suffer, therapy can help him. My mother had to see that her help wasn't enough yet it was with her help that I got to have these issues hugely managed with the assistance of therapy. You and your husband know the suffering of a mental disorder and so did my mom (also OCD).
The most basic part of nutrition is the amount of it that someone consumes. That alone will determine whether one is under weight, healthy weight, or over weight.
Yes of course but when it comes to school and delivered in the way the woman who started the topic said, it's when it becomes wrong. What kids should know is that: eat when hungry, stop when full. That's when the kid will learn to not use food as a substance for pleasure or filling a void or creating a void inside. 12 year olds concerned with counting calories seems to be going too far.
If they can't teach this correctly in schools then it's better not to teach it at all. At least it's something you can learn at home. You know, forming habits that won't make you end up counting calories for weight loss in the end.
What schools could teach is the nutrition of different foods and teach the kids to embrace healthier foods. Just because one can look healthy on the outside, it doesn't mean that one will look as healthy on the inside.
"Eat when hungry, stop when full" is what landed most of us here to begin with.
Intuitive eating, when really paying attention to satiety cues, has been helpful for many trying to lose weight. However, very few people are accustomed to being this attuned to hunger cues/fullness cues. Hence calorie counting as mainstream among those looking to lose weight. For children, I think intuitive and healthy eating are enough, and then, as they get older, they can consider counting calories if intuitive eating is too hard. Just my opinion.3 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.
This suggests that the deciding factor of if something is "junk" or not, is how many calories are in it. There are plenty of calorie dense Whole Foods as well, the nuts that the teacher ate, things like avocado, banana, etc - could have more calories than a serving of chips or a piece of candy.
Additionally, why is pizza "junk"? I'm actually trying to avoid labeling food "junk" with my kids. I'm trying to teach them that foods have different nutritional content and that some things should be reserved as treats, but really any food can be part of a healthy diet if eaten in moderation.
Nicely said!0 -
Here are a couple of sites geared toward tracking a child's nutrition. The first site uses a method called the "Stop Light"...no calorie counting. The second site has print outs to help teach children about foods and serving sizes. The printouts are geared toward elementary age children.
https://kurbo.com/why-kids-and-teens-should-not-be-counting-calories/
http://www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-education-printables/category/44-printable-tracker-food-diaries-kids-healthy-goals-tracking-sheets-new
While it's not calorie counting per se this system is just removing absolute numbers from the calculation, It is still "budgeting" food. Not that I find anything wrong with this, Believe it's a good concept for younger kids, jr high, IMO are old enough to develop an understanding of calories and the impact the wrong amount (high or low) has on their bodies.
From the link
At Kurbo, we don’t tell kids that they can never eat their favorite red light foods again. We teach them to budget their red-light foods, so they don’t eat too many of them on any one given day. Say, for example, your family is going to a birthday party on a Friday. Your kids can use the Kurbo app to rebudget their reds, adding more reds on Friday (and fewer on other days of the week) to make sure they can eat pizza and cake and still meet their red-light goal for the week!3 -
Packerjohn wrote: »Here are a couple of sites geared toward tracking a child's nutrition. The first site uses a method called the "Stop Light"...no calorie counting. The second site has print outs to help teach children about foods and serving sizes. The printouts are geared toward elementary age children.
https://kurbo.com/why-kids-and-teens-should-not-be-counting-calories/
http://www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-education-printables/category/44-printable-tracker-food-diaries-kids-healthy-goals-tracking-sheets-new
While it's not calorie counting per se this system is just removing absolute numbers from the calculation, It is still "budgeting" food. Not that I find anything wrong with this, Believe it's a good concept for younger kids, jr high, IMO are old enough to develop an understanding of calories and the impact the wrong amount (high or low) has on their bodies.
From the link
At Kurbo, we don’t tell kids that they can never eat their favorite red light foods again. We teach them to budget their red-light foods, so they don’t eat too many of them on any one given day. Say, for example, your family is going to a birthday party on a Friday. Your kids can use the Kurbo app to rebudget their reds, adding more reds on Friday (and fewer on other days of the week) to make sure they can eat pizza and cake and still meet their red-light goal for the week!
"Stop Light" sounds like simplified calorie counting because it is simplified calorie counting, much like Weight Watchers and their points system or "21 Day Fix" and the color coded containers. If a kid isn't great with arithmetic, simplifying it might be to their advantage, but thinking back about myself at age 11 (when I was learning basic algebra) I'd have definitely found that method too childish, much like today I'm not going to go for a special set of plastic containers when I can just count the actual calories.
It just seems like something that would work for six and seven year-olds, but any kid in a more advanced math class in middle school wouldn't need it to be that simplistic.0 -
I've just been doing my usual dose of people watching, as usual - away from home so, picking the better options in a restaurant..
I've watched a handful of parents setting up their children with terrible habits for life by teaching them to finish everything on their plate, regardless of how full they are.
Watching a child be told to finish what is clearly an ice-cream meant for sharing - no matter how full they are.
Something NEEDS doing because unfortunately for all the parents that are doing a great job at parenting, there are an equal number that are installing dangerous old fashioned values into their children and causing them to have a terrible relationship with food that - as so many people here know, is insanely difficult to break.
So, though - maybe the method that the teacher used wasn't appropriate, I fully support their reasoning.2 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.
I know for me the "portion plate" wasn't the problem. I was eating the right portions of the right foods and having a balanced diet.
And then on top of that, because kids shouldn't count or limit calories, I was eating far too much other crap too. Because why not just tack that on if you have never been told about calories and that there's a limit to how many of them you should consume in a day. There was a single fundamental piece of information missing throughout my entire childhood, and that thing was an upper bound on calories in.
So no one told you that if you wanted to lose weight, don't take so much food?
You don't need to know anything about calories to know that. I knew that as a kid, but in the other direction. I was 'bird legs'. I needed to eat more.1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Why doesn't she just teach the portion plate?
With that being said I don't know how to teach kids that donuts, poptarts, chips, candy, pizza etc are "junk" without teaching them to look at the label and see how many calories are in the food.
This suggests that the deciding factor of if something is "junk" or not, is how many calories are in it. There are plenty of calorie dense Whole Foods as well, the nuts that the teacher ate, things like avocado, banana, etc - could have more calories than a serving of chips or a piece of candy.
Additionally, why is pizza "junk"? I'm actually trying to avoid labeling food "junk" with my kids. I'm trying to teach them that foods have different nutritional content and that some things should be reserved as treats, but really any food can be part of a healthy diet if eaten in moderation.
I consider junk food to be low in nutrients and high in calories. I see your point with pizza because it go either ways. For example, if you make pizza, you could use a whole grain crust with tomato sauce then top the pizza with lots of veggies and a small handful of cheese. There are lots of nutrients here and I would consider this healthy. When I look at the nutrition facts for a pizza from Papa Johns (different restaurants may vary) I don't see any nutrients. It is high in sodium, has some saturated fat, 1 gram of fiber, and 7 grams of protein. What nutrients is this pizza from a restaurant providing that you couldn't get from a lower calorie (and lower in sodium) source?
For high calorie foods like avocados or nuts, I don't consider them to be junk because they are high in nutrition but the need to be eaten in moderation. You can't get your poly and monounsaturated fats from any food that will be low in calories because fats by nature are high in calories.
1 -
@WinoGelato here is an easy way to determine if something is healthy or not. Ask yourself, is this something I should be eating everyday? I think people should be eating fruits, vegetables, healthy fats in the form of nuts or avocado or oil, dairy, and whole grains, and lean protein everyday. I do not think people should be eating pizza everyday.1
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@WinoGelato here is an easy way to determine if something is healthy or not. Ask yourself, is this something I should be eating everyday? I think people should be eating fruits, vegetables, healthy fats in the form of nuts or avocado or oil, dairy, and whole grains, and lean protein everyday. I do not think people should be eating pizza everyday.
I don't eat pizza every day, but I also don't consider it "junk" food. I eat a lot of the things you described, but I also don't avoid foods like cookies, chips, pizza, or donuts, in moderation; as part of an overall balanced and healthy diet. If an adult like me, or one of my children, is eating fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, dairy, whole grains and lean protein - then how is eating a donut before we go hiking on Sunday, or pizza on Friday nights while we watch a movie - 'unhealthy'? Before you said that you should look at how many calories are in something to determine if it is healthy or not, now you are saying that it's more about how often you eat it. Practicing moderation means that you don't eat unlimited quantities of calorie dense foods and only in a frequency that works within the context of a calorie and nutrient balanced diet. So again, if one is practicing moderation and eating other nutrient dense foods, then is a donut unhealthy? Is a cookie? A pop tart? Pizza? A serving of chips?
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