Teaching children about weight and nutrition
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Me: Overweight
Wife: Obese
Kid was a little on the chunky side, to be honest. But he ate what was offered, and what was allowed, which was everything, within reason.
Kid is now 18, in college, and skinny as a rail.
He has seen us struggle with diet, complications, obesity, diabetes, heart attack. He knows what is sensible because his mother and I have been discussing what is sensible for quite a while.
RE: nutrition and young 'uns.....They have brand spanking new bodies that are incredibly efficient at pulling nutrition out of anything that goes in their mouths, and even creating nutrition when not available in a meal's menu choice. I think our kid survived whole weeks with cereal, peanut butter, and jelly, yet he was never nutritionally deprived. Yeah, I know, amazing that he never got rickets.
Now, as new adult, he likes variety of foods and variety of styles, goes easy on mealtime meat, and though he snacks on bags or preprocessed crap (hot cheetos and beef jerky), he doesn't finish a bag in a sitting or even a day.0 -
:grumble: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.
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.
Yes. Lead by example is the key when it comes to kids. I have even sat down to dinner with everyone and eaten, even though I had already met my calorie allotment for the day, because I don't want my daughter to see me skipping meals (it was not a well planned day for sure and doesn't happen often). I weigh, but don't keep the scale out where she can use it. She is not required to finish all her food, but is required to at least eat a good portion of the healthiest items before she can run off to play. She isn't one to linger over food though. She is slim and food is fuel to her, not something she thinks much about thankfully!! She sees me put on my running shoes and heading out the door for my runs. Or banging out a set of impromptu push-ups. She does not formal sports anymore, but her NEAT is very high. The child never stops wiggling while seated, and hops and skips instead of walking. And talks about not wanting to wear long sleeves because she gets too sweaty during recess.0 -
I have always emphasized to my three boys the importance of eating healthy. Since they were little, they were always given healthy meals. I didn't deprive them of sweets, it was just not offered on a constant basis. Never do we have chips or soda in the house unless it's a party of some sort. We have plenty of fruit, crackers (like Goldfish or Ritz, etc), and pudding snacks. Sure, I buy ice cream for them every couple of months. An occasional candy bar is okay too. But day to day living, we do healthy.
It was a struggle sometimes because their friends didn't always have the best eating habits and my kids would be mad that I didn't have junk food around the house. Now that they are older (teenagers), they are grateful that I stuck to my guns because some of their friends have serious weight issues while my boys are slender.0 -
I am not a parent, but I do have a bit of common sense and have learned some things over the years both from my own experiences as well as watching how my friends handle this with their children.
Make "healthy food" the norm. Especially vegetables!! When I was a kid, the veggies in our house consisted of frozen mixed veggies, canned corn, peas, and green beans, and iceberg lettuce and raw tomato salad (I hated that, but later realized I LOVED Romaine or spinach salads with chopped raw bell pepper, onion, etc). My friends' children eat EVERY vegetable. Her son's pickier than her daughter but they both eat a huge variety and I think a lot of that is due to it being served all of the time. It is the norm in their house to have veggies galore and a small portion of meat and/or bread. It's also the norm to go out for ice cream on the weekend, but they don't have dessert after every meal...maybe a piece of fruit. When I was growing up, I ate fairly small portions but we ALWAYS had dessert ranging from ice cream to homemade cookies, cakes, and pie. Every night of the week! I think that's a bad habit to get into, especially for kids because they may be like I was, and start to expect dessert after eating anything savory.
There was always a scale in our house. As an obese teenager, I weighed myself regularly and because I did not really have good eating habits (way too many restaurant meals, hardly any veggies, never drank water) it served mainly to help me justify my high weight. I remember around age 16 or 17 being careful not to eat too much for several weeks and I still weighed 240...not 1 lb lost. Then I resumed eating whatever I wanted and the next time I weighed it was 230-something. So I developed the "belief" that I had a screwed up metabolism and no matter what I ate, it did not really matter. Seriously believed that well into my adult years!
Edited to add: Some of the stuff in this thread has really shocked me. I am not trying to sound holier than thou because I eat plenty of junk along with my mostly healthy diet. AND I don't have kids as I said. But I think my friends on the whole must be pretty extreme with their kids because they do not give them pudding cups, frozen chicken nuggets, etc...and they would never allow full-size chocolate bars unless it was a special occasion - and definitely not for a 3 yr old, ever. Are my friends that unusual in this?0 -
lots of long explanations.
Teach them sport, take them to sport class and not just one sport. A multitude of sports whilst there young. Food awareness will come along naturally.0 -
I think that whole "Go foods" and "Whoa foods" stuff is total BS, that is labeling food "good" and "bad" even if you're just using cutesy words.
Also, some of that healthy lifestyle teaching can backfire. I have a friend with a 10 yr old daughter who has a heart condition and is very active. She is underweight, and thanks to her school's nutrition education she's OBSESSIVE about what she eats and constantly thinks that her overweight grandmother is going to die any day (the woman is 62 and healthy). To the point she has panic attacks.0 -
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.
No offense but I wouldn't want my child to be a part of a program like this. Unless it were run by a registered dietician that I was comfortable with. My husband and I will teach our kids about nutrition as we see fit. We have already decided to home school so it won't be a big deal.0 -
Lots of parents have a growth scale or mark on the door where their children have grown to. If you had the same with a weight, they wouldn't think it strange when they became teenagers - and it would be pretty easy to figure out a healthy range for them to stay in. They key is healthy _range_ because that will remind them that sometimes they need to put on weight too.0
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Some people I'm acquainted with who are very much into active, healthy living, have taught their kids that there are "snacks" and there are "treats". Treats are things like chips, cookies, etc., reserved for movie nights or holidays. Snacks are everyday things like fruit or yogurt or...whatever they give them for recess and after school. Makes sense to me, and the children seem to understand and appreciate the difference.0
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STOP.Lots of parents have a growth scale or mark on the door where their children have grown to. If you had the same with a weight, they wouldn't think it strange when they became teenagers - and it would be pretty easy to figure out a healthy range for them to stay in. They key is healthy _range_ because that will remind them that sometimes they need to put on weight too.
A height chart is NOT the same as weighing them all the time. This is NOT a healthy practice with children. Just stop.0 -
"LEAD BY EXAMPLE" thats it.
No sermons, no speaches needed, no major discussion. She is young, she will learn through observation.
Growing up though my mother worked she cooked 7 days a week, everything from scratch, even Friday night 'junk' food night were eg burgers she'd made herself. As a child and teen I kinda developed a pallet for fresh ingredients so I did not get as excited as my peers over KFC, McDonalds or Wimpey, they just didn't taste of anything special to me and still don't.
Now I am a mother myself, 3 kids and work full time I know nothing else but to cook from scratch, just like my momma, my junk food nights may be either home cooked pizza's or store bought pizza's, I don't sweat it.
In the UK schools must provide healthy snacks and meals, my children sometimes complain of the 'quality' of some ingredients so tuned their pallets are to good fresh produce.
I do have a sweet tooth which my kids have inherited but my mantra is 'balance...a bit of good, a bit of bad with plenty of exercise thrown in".
I home bake too and I don't mean cake mix I mean flour, eggs, sugar, butter etc.
The kids can bake, make their own breakfasts and packed lunches and sometimes help me cook the main meal so they are used to seeing and handling fresh produce.
The younger 2 are going through a Saturday morning pancake phase, again cooked from scratch, not a packet in sight.
My father always liked to work out and subsequently so do my siblings and I.
My children know I work out every morning and when they awake are used to the sight of me in sweats, sweating!
We eat together around the dinner table as a family as I did growing up. Junk food night in the lounge in front of the TV, no big deal.
I followed my parents examples on a subconcious level, my kids better follow mine so help me God!:frown:0 -
I agree about modeling what healthy habits you want to instill in your child... You can't expect them to always do what you say not what you do... I also agree with telling them why they need to eat something from a nutrients standpoint... I always tell my daughter she needs to eat some things so she can grow up to be strong and smart, but she is also only 2.5.0
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"LEAD BY EXAMPLE" thats it.
No sermons, no speaches needed, no major discussion. She is young, she will learn through observation.
Growing up though my mother worked she cooked 7 days a week, everything from scratch, even Friday night 'junk' food night were eg burgers she'd made herself. As a child and teen I kinda developed a pallet for fresh ingredients so I did not get as excited as my peers over KFC, McDonalds or Wimpey, they just didn't taste of anything special to me and still don't.
Now I am a mother myself, 3 kids and work full time I know nothing else but to cook from scratch, just like my momma, my junk food nights may be either home cooked pizza's or store bought pizza's, I don't sweat it.
In the UK schools must provide healthy snacks and meals, my children sometimes complain of the 'quality' of some ingredients so tuned their pallets are to good fresh produce.
I do have a sweet tooth which my kids have inherited but my mantra is 'balance...a bit of good, a bit of bad with plenty of exercise thrown in".
I home bake too and I don't mean cake mix I mean flour, eggs, sugar, butter etc.
The kids can bake, make their own breakfasts and packed lunches and sometimes help me cook the main meal so they are used to seeing and handling fresh produce.
The younger 2 are going through a Saturday morning pancake phase, again cooked from scratch, not a packet in sight.
My father always liked to work out and subsequently so do my siblings and I.
My children know I work out every morning and when they awake are used to the sight of me in sweats, sweating!
I followed my parents examples on a subconcious level, my kids better follow mine so help me God!:frown:
I try to be this way as well... at least for the cooking part.
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STOP.Lots of parents have a growth scale or mark on the door where their children have grown to. If you had the same with a weight, they wouldn't think it strange when they became teenagers - and it would be pretty easy to figure out a healthy range for them to stay in. They key is healthy _range_ because that will remind them that sometimes they need to put on weight too.
A height chart is NOT the same as weighing them all the time. This is NOT a healthy practice with children. Just stop.
QFT.... weight is one thing I do not nor will I EVER emphasis or even introduce more than just the doctors office to my child... Not with girls as young as 3 turning up with weight issues and believing they are "too fat"... not when weight is more complex than what you see on the scale and the BMI.0 -
Everybody has to learn how to control their weight on their own. You cannot do it for them forever. Pushing their lifestyle that way without them fully understanding has very little positive benefit.
You can help them figure it out, but they have to figure it out. Leading by example is the most useful thing you can do.
Developing a poor and harmful relationship with food is very hard to break free from, and if anything harder than breaking free from eating a little too much.
With the benefit of hindsight:
- Skinny rail thin kids are just as likely to be obese adults as anyone else, if not moreso. That type (which I am one of) doesn't end up needing to learn to control their weight until a fairly old age (I was mid-20's when I needed to, didn't bother until early 30's).
- Obese kids can and often do figure it out fairly early, in high school or college. Being an obese kid doesn't resign you to a life of obesity.0 -
STOP.Lots of parents have a growth scale or mark on the door where their children have grown to. If you had the same with a weight, they wouldn't think it strange when they became teenagers - and it would be pretty easy to figure out a healthy range for them to stay in. They key is healthy _range_ because that will remind them that sometimes they need to put on weight too.
A height chart is NOT the same as weighing them all the time. This is NOT a healthy practice with children. Just stop.
QFT.... weight is one thing I do not nor will I EVER emphasis or even introduce more than just the doctors office to my child... Not with girls as young as 3 turning up with weight issues and believing they are "too fat"... not when weight is more complex than what you see on the scale and the BMI.
I never ever discuss weight either, children need good nutrition and should be encouraged to eat a variety they need the calories, they're not just growing taller but their muscles, organs (brain), physical sexual matutiry all need a calorific intake and I would never want them to be fearful to eat.
My middle child gets tubby around the middle just ahead of a growth spurt, if I focused on his weight I'd be deliberately encouraging a reduction in calorific intake and the growth spurt would not occur. Two weeks ago he actually started to appear 'fat' but as I know what he eats I did not fuss, this Saturday nothing fit, trousers all too short and sleeves not meeting wrists, had to go out and buy him new clothes as he literally had nothing to wear the next day.0 -
Like the poster above me, my oldest would get a belly right before a growth spurt, if I was to judge her body by this, I could have harmed her. She is beautiful and slim and now stands 5'6" at 13 yrs old. Kids today can very easily get food/body issues if the parents do not support them. I have never stressed weight with my 2 girls, they are both healthy and slim. I think the main focus should be healthy food without denying and proclaiming certain foods *BAD. To do that is setting unhealthy habits and by denying them the food, they never learn to make choices, plus hell they are kids...they will want the *bad stuff.
I watch little things, my family drinks 1% milk and always has yogurt, veggies and fruit in the house. We also always sit down to dinner together. I also stress self esteem and activity. A healthy lifestyle is easier to maintain and remain healthy than a child that feels like they are on a diet for life. Plus get rid of the scale you may like it, but i guarantee when your daughter is older she will resent it. If you want to see her weight, get a wii fit, it weighs you every time you play and the kids do it themselves.
I also try to model good behaviors, my weight got out of hand when I gained 35 pounds this last couple years, I am now going to the gym and watching what I eat. My husband is slim built and active so the people closest to them do believe in maintaining or in my case fixing an issue before it becomes a huge issue.
If you look at studies and articles about thin and healthy people that have always been that way. They normally do not "work" at it, they just have a healthy relationship with food, active and are aware of their body. When they do "work" at it they look amazing.0 -
Just push health, nutrition, not over-eating, and activity. Leave weight out of the discussion (even your weight).0
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Lots of parents have a growth scale or mark on the door where their children have grown to. If you had the same with a weight, they wouldn't think it strange when they became teenagers - and it would be pretty easy to figure out a healthy range for them to stay in. They key is healthy _range_ because that will remind them that sometimes they need to put on weight too.
No. No. No.0 -
I plan to lead by example, following a relatively "loose" concept. Kids need to eat, but just as vital is being able to play. To run around outside, ride their bikes, play on the playground, etc etc...
Show them that they need to eat fruits and veggies, but they can also have some cake and ice cream... show them also that they need to go outside and move.0
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