Teaching children about weight and nutrition

eblakes93

I'm not a mom, but I am a daughter in an overweight, but very loving, family, and I feel like I can say modeling is key. The best thing you can do is be a role model to your kids. Be flexible, don't be strict, but eat a balanced diet/stay active/have a treat every once in a while. Be casual and normal about it, and your kids will see that healthy nutrition is just a normal part of healthy living. Eat as a family, talk about your days, then go on a walk. Don't demonize friends or relatives that don't make the same choices as you to your children.

sevsmom

I have 5 kids ranging in age from 7 to 22. None of them have a weight problem. All but my daughter are fairly active. My daughter is a book worm and artist....she's not much into exercise yet. We have cakes, cookies, pretzels and chips in our house. My kids have learned over the years to self regulate. To enjoy snacks, but eat healthy meals.

I talk with my daughter about body image and health. She's aware of the weight issues in our extended family, and she's reasonable about her food consumption. She just isn't interested in exercise (although she did participate in the girl's track team this spring, but hated it).

You model health, values, morality, work ethic, etc. You teach them and then let them own it and own the outcomes. That's all you really can do.

rml_16

I have 5 kids ranging in age from 7 to 22. None of them have a weight problem. All but my daughter are fairly active. My daughter is a book worm and artist....she's not much into exercise yet. We have cakes, cookies, pretzels and chips in our house. My kids have learned over the years to self regulate. To enjoy snacks, but eat healthy meals.

I talk with my daughter about body image and health. She's aware of the weight issues in our extended family, and she's reasonable about her food consumption. She just isn't interested in exercise (although she did participate in the girl's track team this spring, but hated it).

You model health, values, morality, work ethic, etc. You teach them and then let them own it and own the outcomes. That's all you really can do.

I'm sure you're aware that "active" doesn't have to mean formal exercise or sports, but if your daughter is artistic and you're looking for an activity for her, have you tried enrolling her in dance classes?

I'm a lot like what you describe and I was not much for sports, but I loved ballet.

bluestarlight19

Right now my girls are 15 months and 2.5 years old so I got time. Right now, I am just trying to get them to eat veggies. Its not too hard but my oldest sometimes refuses. I just set an example by having a lot of veggies on my plate, she does watch me and watch what I'm eating. If I eat it and say "oh this tomato is so yummy!" she is more likely to pick it up and eat it and actually like it. My youngest just devours everything we stick in front of her, but she is super super active wall climbing baby. We don't deny them any food really and I do have to watch when she gets growth spurts because she can eat more than me at those times but then for the next week hardly eats half her food, so it can get hiccupy right now.
When they get older, I will hopefully be at my goal weight and fitness level by then, *cough*, but I plan to emphasize health over everything. That healthy food fuel the body and nutrition and how exercise is important for muscles and your heart, etc. I don't want to put the focus on weight and looking good because girls could take it too far as they get older. And as there mom, I always want to encourage and be supportive, not put them down by telling my future 14 year old, "hey, your getting a little bit of pudge there, might want to do something". I had that happen when I was a teenager and it did not do good things for my self image at the time.

randomtai

I wonder if doing a family weigh in (maybe monthly) and tracking height/weight especially as children are growing might be a good way to have some interesting teachable moments.

:grumble:

Double :grumble: With a

twixlepennie

So now its easy, but at some point I will have to verbalize information about nutrition and weight to her.

Why? If you lead by example and are feeding her good food and showing her good habits you will never have to verbalize information about nutrition and weight. All of these threads about kids weight and nutrition are setting us up from being a nation of obesity to a nation of eatting disorders.

Bottom line , she will do what you show her. Lead by example.

+1

I started running this summer and now both of my girls (7 and 9) want to start running. I never talked to them about it, but they saw me doing it, see that I enjoy it and now the oldest is going to be doing Girls on the Run through school and my other daughter wants to do it when she's old enough. Being a good example is the one thing that will have the biggest impact with your kids.

Eta: I now have one daughter who loves salads, just because she saw me eating them all the time and was curious to how they tasted. My 5 yr old son loves green smoothies because he saw me having one on a daily basis during the summer, when I'd get fresh produce from the farmers market (and my kids always went with me and they got to pick out new things to try).

They are watching us so closely and they see the good, the bad and the ugly lol.

NaomiJFoster

I teach preschool. My school has recently become affiliated with the "Discover/CATCH" program. It's a part of the JCC of America system. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach To Children's Health. You can Google it.

We are required to teach nutrition and exercise as part of our daily/weekly curriculum. We must have 60 minutes of planned physical activity each day, in addition to our normal playground time. And we talk a lot (I mean *a lot*) about food. In CATCH there are no 'bad' foods. We call them Go Foods and Whoa Foods. Whoa foods are those things with lower nutritional value, that you can still always have but should pause when making that choice. Pause, say 'whoa', and remember that this is something to have in small doses. It's a sometimes food, not an always food. We don't forbid anything, we just help the children know that some foods have better health value than others. And those healthier foods are the things w want to choose more often, and eat in higher quantity. It's amazing. My class of three year olds, after just 3 months of this type of learning, can sort their own lunches into sections of Go and Whoa foods, they independently choose to eat their Go Foods first and take only small tastes of the Whoa Foods, they are instructing their parents during grocery shopping trips, they ask questions about which of their foods have protein or calcium or vitamins, etc. It's wonderful.

rml_16

I teach preschool. My school has recently become affiliated with the "Discover/CATCH" program. It's a part of the JCC of America system. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach To Children's Health. You can Google it.

We are required to teach nutrition and exercise as part of our daily/weekly curriculum. We must have 60 minutes of planned physical activity each day, in addition to our normal playground time. And we talk a lot (I mean *a lot*) about food. In CATCH there are no 'bad' foods. We call them Go Foods and Whoa Foods. Whoa foods are those things with lower nutritional value, that you can still always have but should pause when making that choice. Pause, say 'whoa', and remember that this is something to have in small doses. It's a sometimes food, not an always food. We don't forbid anything, we just help the children know that some foods have better health value than others. And those healthier foods are the things w want to choose more often, and eat in higher quantity. It's amazing. My class of three year olds, after just 3 months of this type of learning, can sort their own lunches into sections of Go and Whoa foods, they independently choose to eat their Go Foods first and take only small tastes of the Whoa Foods, they are instructing their parents during grocery shopping trips, they ask questions about which of their foods have protein or calcium or vitamins, etc. It's wonderful.

Love it!

We definitely learned about nutrition in very early school years. I have absolutely no problem with that kind of teaching. It's the focusing on weight in the OP that makes me see red.

sam_r_i

Definitely a discussion I'm interested in as well. My girlfriend and her son live with me now, and he's on the heavy side for his age (7 years old). He is very tall, but still overweight for his height. We don't really focus on his weight, but try to focus on eating healthy and making healthy choices (limiting sweets and soda, eating balanced meals).

He's very active with us, taking swimming lessons, playing football and baseball, riding his bike. However, it appears that when he's at his dad's (which is most of the time), he's not getting much exercise and eating out is the norm.

I've been searching for ideas to make living a healthy lifestyle fun so that he might be encouraged to do this on his own while he's with his dad, although at 7 that might be a tough battle. Would love to hear peoples ideas on how to encourage this behavior.

AlabasterVerve

I teach preschool. My school has recently become affiliated with the "Discover/CATCH" program. It's a part of the JCC of America system. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach To Children's Health. You can Google it.

We are required to teach nutrition and exercise as part of our daily/weekly curriculum. We must have 60 minutes of planned physical activity each day, in addition to our normal playground time. And we talk a lot (I mean *a lot*) about food. In CATCH there are no 'bad' foods. We call them Go Foods and Whoa Foods. Whoa foods are those things with lower nutritional value, that you can still always have but should pause when making that choice. Pause, say 'whoa', and remember that this is something to have in small doses. It's a sometimes food, not an always food. We don't forbid anything, we just help the children know that some foods have better health value than others. And those healthier foods are the things w want to choose more often, and eat in higher quantity. It's amazing. My class of three year olds, after just 3 months of this type of learning, can sort their own lunches into sections of Go and Whoa foods, they independently choose to eat their Go Foods first and take only small tastes of the Whoa Foods, they are instructing their parents during grocery shopping trips, they ask questions about which of their foods have protein or calcium or vitamins, etc. It's wonderful.

Oh, goody. Another low fat diet. :huh: I hope the program is optional -- no wonder so many parents are choosing to home school.

rml_16

I teach preschool. My school has recently become affiliated with the "Discover/CATCH" program. It's a part of the JCC of America system. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach To Children's Health. You can Google it.

We are required to teach nutrition and exercise as part of our daily/weekly curriculum. We must have 60 minutes of planned physical activity each day, in addition to our normal playground time. And we talk a lot (I mean *a lot*) about food. In CATCH there are no 'bad' foods. We call them Go Foods and Whoa Foods. Whoa foods are those things with lower nutritional value, that you can still always have but should pause when making that choice. Pause, say 'whoa', and remember that this is something to have in small doses. It's a sometimes food, not an always food. We don't forbid anything, we just help the children know that some foods have better health value than others. And those healthier foods are the things w want to choose more often, and eat in higher quantity. It's amazing. My class of three year olds, after just 3 months of this type of learning, can sort their own lunches into sections of Go and Whoa foods, they independently choose to eat their Go Foods first and take only small tastes of the Whoa Foods, they are instructing their parents during grocery shopping trips, they ask questions about which of their foods have protein or calcium or vitamins, etc. It's wonderful.

Oh, goody. Another low fat diet. :huh: I hope the program is optional -- no wonder so many parents are choosing to home school.

Where does it say "low fat"? She didn't say which food are "whoa" and which are "go."

AlabasterVerve

She said to google it and I did.

http://catchusa.org/documents/misc/GSW_with Intro_reduced format_English.pdf

rml_16

She said to google it and I did.

http://catchusa.org/documents/misc/GSW_with Intro_reduced format_English.pdf

It doesn't look so bad to me. As she said, nothing is off-limits. Just some things should be eaten with more moderation. And higher fat means higher calories.

Sabresgal63

Hey there.....Just keep doing what you are doing and teach her about portion control. In my house, we have a small plate of food. If they are still hungry, they may have more, but it is discussed about portions and "healthy" amounts of eating. We do not say fat or skinny, just healthy or unhealthy. I would rule out the scale........they tend to make people a bit wonky at any age....lol!:bigsmile:

msf74

Oh, goody. Another low fat diet.

What measures are you using to determine "low" fat? % of total calories, grammes per day or something else?

eblakes93

I teach preschool. My school has recently become affiliated with the "Discover/CATCH" program. It's a part of the JCC of America system. CATCH stands for Coordinated Approach To Children's Health. You can Google it.

We are required to teach nutrition and exercise as part of our daily/weekly curriculum. We must have 60 minutes of planned physical activity each day, in addition to our normal playground time. And we talk a lot (I mean *a lot*) about food. In CATCH there are no 'bad' foods. We call them Go Foods and Whoa Foods. Whoa foods are those things with lower nutritional value, that you can still always have but should pause when making that choice. Pause, say 'whoa', and remember that this is something to have in small doses. It's a sometimes food, not an always food. We don't forbid anything, we just help the children know that some foods have better health value than others. And those healthier foods are the things w want to choose more often, and eat in higher quantity. It's amazing. My class of three year olds, after just 3 months of this type of learning, can sort their own lunches into sections of Go and Whoa foods, they independently choose to eat their Go Foods first and take only small tastes of the Whoa Foods, they are instructing their parents during grocery shopping trips, they ask questions about which of their foods have protein or calcium or vitamins, etc. It's wonderful.

Oh, goody. Another low fat diet. :huh: I hope the program is optional -- no wonder so many parents are choosing to home school.

Meh, I took a look at it, and yeah, it does stress "unhealthy fats" as being a whoa/slow food, but it also said the same things about added sugars. I think this is more about being mindful of foods that are high calorie/low nutrient then demonizing one food group.

AlabasterVerve

She said to google it and I did.

http://catchusa.org/documents/misc/GSW_with Intro_reduced format_English.pdf

It doesn't look so bad to me. As she said, nothing is off-limits. Just some things should be eaten with more moderation. And higher fat means higher calories.

I think whole milk, butter, and meat are dietary staples regardless of their calorie content -- not "whoa" foods to be avoided. Perhaps if people ate more of them they wouldn't be prone to overeating in the first place. I think it's terrible to be teaching that nonsense to kids.

rml_16

She said to google it and I did.

http://catchusa.org/documents/misc/GSW_with Intro_reduced format_English.pdf

It doesn't look so bad to me. As she said, nothing is off-limits. Just some things should be eaten with more moderation. And higher fat means higher calories.

I think whole milk, butter, and meat are dietary staples regardless of their calorie content -- not "whoa" foods to be avoided. Perhaps if people ate more of them they wouldn't be prone to overeating in the first place. I think it's terrible to be teaching that nonsense to kids.

Butter is good, but a "dietary staple"?

And the "whoa" foods are not "foods to be avoided." They're "foods to eat in moderation."

Phoenix_Warrior

I wonder if doing a family weigh in (maybe monthly) and tracking height/weight especially as children are growing might be a good way to have some interesting teachable moments.

:grumble:

Double :grumble: With a

Triple that.

A weigh in? Seriously? Lead by example. The last thing I want my child to feel is that their self-worth is based on a number on a scale.