Are you making your kids fat?

aimforhealthy

My 14yo son is skinny-fat. He's a healthy body weight on the slender side (he's 5'9", medium-framed and weighs about 135) but he has no physical stamina or muscle tone at all. I've never been able to get him interested in playing any sports. I don't play any myself, and it's always been just the 2 of us, so part of that has been my fault that he never had anyone to teach him what he enjoyed. So we are learning together now what we like (turns out we both like hiking and indoor rock climbing, so we're doing that more!)

As for food, he's the typical teenage boy bottomless pit, but he also has high-functioning autism and has strong sensory aversions to many foods deemed healthy, like whole grains, oatmeal, most legumes, any "mixed" food like casseroles or stews and the list goes on. As he's gotten older, his palate has gotten much broader, but he went through a very autistic period where he would not eat anything but pizza. It's still his favorite food, so we're trying to make it at home and I always pair it with a big salad. But there's a lot still he won't eat.

I agree that making anything off-limits for kids makes it more desirable. I have never forbidden my son from eating anything, although I'll admit I have nagged about eating his vegetables on many occasions. If he wants candy or cookies, I'll get them - always have. Let him pig out at Halloween, let him have dessert whenever he was in the mood. As a result now, he doesn't pig out. We've had a package of Double Stuff Oreos in the house for a week and he still hasn't eaten them all. I think the important thing is to educate, set a good example and encourage your kids to eat as wide a variety of things as possible. Make any food off-limits and you turn it into something special and prized.

allie7383

I think I developed a bad relationship with food mostly from my father. Growing up, my mom cooked most nights and I'd have milk at dinner. We'd have take-out here and there, and pretty much every Friday was either pizza or Chinese food night. I was in dance and marching band throughout high school, and now looking back on it, I wasn't terribly as overweight as I may have thought I was. Things really started to get out of control when I got to college (hello freshman 20 and beyond). My mom was never overweight, but my father was always heavy. He also had a permanently broken leg which limited his mobility, as he needed to walk with a cane. We would always have Coke in the house, and he would have at least 3-4/day. He was able to retire at 50 and then really didn't do much besides lay in bed and eat while watching tv. He had several doctors, and had had procedures for his back and all different things, but still, he never took care of himself. I think a big piece of this was due to underlying depression but that's a whole other story.

I think the biggest thing that will always stick in my mind was how selfish he was with food. We were not poor, and I never had to worry that we wouldn't have a decent meal. I'll never forget this one time we ordered Chinese, and he and I both ordered the fried wontons. They ended up only giving us one order, and when I went to take some, assuming we would split the 12 of them, he got mad and grabbed the bag from me and allowed me 2 of them while he took the rest. I def carried that mentality of not sharing with me for a long time. If I had something sharable like grapes or cookies, they were all mine. I would always notice if someone ate something that I bought. It was almost a need to hoard what I had. He ended up passing away 10 years ago after having several complications after a GI bleed. His sister and her husband came up for the funeral and I saw how big they both where and it was a big dose of reality for me of how my future could look, having the genes I have. Of course it didn't have an effect until a couple years ago when I began on MFP, but fortunatelty I've taken control of my life and hopefully will not end up in the same boat as my father.