Dad, Help Me Be Healthy
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wabmester
Posts: 2,748 Member
Yikes. I didn't expect to hear that last night.
"Dad, help me be healthy. But I don't want a kidney stone! Mom, what do you say? Let's both be healthy!"
She is 12. Her self-image is becoming VERY important.
So here's the family dynamic. Mother and daughter are joined at the hip. Dad is kept around mostly for entertainment value. Dad is routinely ridiculed for his "crazy diet," but they've seen the transformation.
Mom's eating habits are not great. She's experimented with some half-measures, but carbs (and diet soda) are her mainstays.
Mom cooks, so kid follows Mom. Dad moans and groans a bit, but mostly stays silent since Mom accepts the cooking burden.
The only success I've had is to ween the kid off of sugary drinks over the summer. I think she's sticking with it. I consider that a win, but she's still a carboholic.
I think her epiphany came when looking for alternatives to sugary drinks, and she discovered fruit-infused water. She makes it herself, and she calls it "detox water." Damn the internet!
So, I'm trying to formulate VERY SIMPLE advice for her. She's active, so that's not as issue. She's too young to join MFP, so counting calories and carbs is probably out. She tunes out when I give her a science lecture, so evidence-based advice is out.
I'm thinking I should just boil it down to: EAT REAL FOOD.
Thoughts?
"Dad, help me be healthy. But I don't want a kidney stone! Mom, what do you say? Let's both be healthy!"
She is 12. Her self-image is becoming VERY important.
So here's the family dynamic. Mother and daughter are joined at the hip. Dad is kept around mostly for entertainment value. Dad is routinely ridiculed for his "crazy diet," but they've seen the transformation.
Mom's eating habits are not great. She's experimented with some half-measures, but carbs (and diet soda) are her mainstays.
Mom cooks, so kid follows Mom. Dad moans and groans a bit, but mostly stays silent since Mom accepts the cooking burden.
The only success I've had is to ween the kid off of sugary drinks over the summer. I think she's sticking with it. I consider that a win, but she's still a carboholic.
I think her epiphany came when looking for alternatives to sugary drinks, and she discovered fruit-infused water. She makes it herself, and she calls it "detox water." Damn the internet!
So, I'm trying to formulate VERY SIMPLE advice for her. She's active, so that's not as issue. She's too young to join MFP, so counting calories and carbs is probably out. She tunes out when I give her a science lecture, so evidence-based advice is out.
I'm thinking I should just boil it down to: EAT REAL FOOD.
Thoughts?
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Replies
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Why not get her an easy, healthy eating cookbook and spark her interest in making "cool" new meals for the family? Will take the burden off her mom, get both of them to eat better (mom's notoriously love supporting their kids interests), and she will have some fun. Start out maybe just with a smoothie recipe book or something like that. Let her find out that putting veggies in there doesnt make it taste bad, and she can experiment with different flavors and all? Make it just about a fun new hobby more than science/lecture/healthy. Its a start!
There is a grocery store chain in my area that offers cooking classes for kids. I sent my son as young as 6 there. Look around - maybe she will make a friend or two with a similar interest to help out.
You could also challenge her if she is the competitive type. Tell her you guys will have pizza every night for a week - but she has to come up with 5 different ways to make it without crust!
There is a junior version of this site - something like sparks? Meant for under 18. I am sure someone will come along with it.0 -
I have found that the shorter my lecture - like this - Your best options are always real food - sticks with the youngsters more than you think. Short and sweet, but often and mix it up. She's getting the message, sometimes it just takes people a while to process and figure it out and if they think they are figuring it out for themselves, they are more likely to pay attention and stick with it, regardless of what it is. I see it in my own kid often. I plant the seed, water it, pull the weeds and voila, next thing you know, she thinks the flower that bloomed was her idea. It works great. That's how I used to get my husband to try new restaurants too. If it was my suggestion, he didn't want to go, but if I could somehow make him think he came up with it, we were sure to give it a try. I think you're on the right track, just have patience and keep giving little pecks and pushes and the above suggestion of cookbook is a great idea too, but let her find it on her own with you guiding her from behind.0
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Why not ask her about her favorite meals? Then brainstorm some of the modified alternatives together?
Crustless pizza is always a fave
My fiance is happy to have roast more often/steaks more often
Also, I read an article once about a woman that got her kids to try all kinds of fruit and veggies by taking them to a farmer's market. Each week they'd get a new selection and figure out what to make with it... Making choices for the family gives the a vested interest.
Also, you can just tell her that her food choices have a lot of impact on her hormones. She can manage or mitigate a lot of PMS/teen moodiness/hormonal crazies by moderating her foods. www.healthfulpursuit.com has a lot of fun youtube videos...
And kids love trying to trick parents. Maybe exploring all the flavors of zoodles or getting mom healthier without her knowing could be fun...
And the real food argument could eventually end up in a discussion of chemicals, processing, how folks wanting to make money make their foods addictive, GMO's, etc. Kids at this age get very socially conscious when guided well. Maybe she'll trigger the food revolution.
Oh, and tying food to skin clarity, hair health (see co-washing), and all those things - natural beauty products (wellness mama), and not needing makeup to look her best could be a trigger, too.0 -
Oh, lots of good suggestions! I just thought of another -- teaching her to read labels. Maybe a game of discovering how many different things mean "sugar." 0
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Encouraging real food is a good one as is reading labels... when I started it wasn't about carbs or sugar, it was about what we couldn't pronounce. Did we want that in our food? We concentrated on shopping the perimeter of the store at first, making a game of being creative about what we could make for lunch "treats".
We started on this path when my daughter was close to 11, she is soon to be 13. She is not low carb (but sometimes wonder if even I am) and would live on pasta if she could, but she easily transitioned to real food and complains of a sore tummy after eating "fast food". Giant leap forward!0 -
KnitOrMiss wrote: »Why not ask her about her favorite meals? Then brainstorm some of the modified alternatives together?
Crustless pizza is always a fave
My fiance is happy to have roast more often/steaks more often
Also, I read an article once about a woman that got her kids to try all kinds of fruit and veggies by taking them to a farmer's market. Each week they'd get a new selection and figure out what to make with it... Making choices for the family gives the a vested interest.
Also, you can just tell her that her food choices have a lot of impact on her hormones. She can manage or mitigate a lot of PMS/teen moodiness/hormonal crazies by moderating her foods. www.healthfulpursuit.com has a lot of fun youtube videos...
And kids love trying to trick parents. Maybe exploring all the flavors of zoodles or getting mom healthier without her knowing could be fun...
And the real food argument could eventually end up in a discussion of chemicals, processing, how folks wanting to make money make their foods addictive, GMO's, etc. Kids at this age get very socially conscious when guided well. Maybe she'll trigger the food revolution.
Oh, and tying food to skin clarity, hair health (see co-washing), and all those things - natural beauty products (wellness mama), and not needing makeup to look her best could be a trigger, too.
Yes! We used to try one "new" thing a week too. Would have fun searching up recipes etc., for that particular ingredient. Some were a hit, some weren't but we did it together and weekly food prep was often does as a team effort too with our perimeter choices. Spaghetti squash is now a staple at our house... and about every 3rd or 4th time, she'll say she's craving "real" spaghetti for a change!0 -
I think the real food and label reading are great. She can look for herself at all the weird stuff on the ingredients list. Ask her where does she think they grow the maltodextrin on the farm. Lol0
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I think it's great news that she approached you with this request. All of the advice already given seems pretty solid. You might also ask her to expand on what she means by both "help" and "healthy". Does she have specific goals in mind? What does "healthy" look and feel like to her? Does she think she's healthy now--why or why not? What kind of support does she want from you (and maybe Mom)?
If she's already a journaler, you might suggest that she keep a health journal, to document her goals and experiments.0 -
mlinton_mesapark wrote: »What does "healthy" look and feel like to her? Does she think she's healthy now--why or why not?
Those are tough questions even for adults. Even for health researchers and doctors.
I think she's getting LOTS of mixed signals. Pizza day at school. Body image messages from media and peers.
I assume she's just looking to find a strong signal in the noise and that she also has a natural desire to do the Right Thing.
So my goal here would be to provide a clear unambiguous signal and to let her sort out some of the social, peer, and media messages through the filter I give her. I won't tell her my biases. Just that I am right. 0 -
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I had a wake up call 5/6 years ago when I read that cereal ingredients on the boxes used different types of sugar , so sugar will not be the main ingredient. I used to eat Almond Delight for breakfast. Blew me away when I realized they have 5 different kinds of sugar so that none of them would be high on the ingredients list. The funny things is - I really knew that Almond Delight was sweet because I could taste it. Once I realized how much sugar it really had, I completely stopped buying it. Makes me angry that food business are out to trick us.
I would only try to get your daughter to notice sugar, corn syrup, and white flour. Those are all most teens need to be concerned about. Slurpies and sodas are the worst. And of course fruit juices are also a problem, but I sure would not be concerned about eating fruit for young people.0 -
Age 12 is difficult enough, but she ASKED you to help her. Keep it simple, talk about what we grow to eat, how meat is raised and about how that's all changed when we add stuff to it. She's smart, she will get it. Then you and her can try going to the market and cooking together. Great way of her learning to eat healthy and great bonding time for you both.0
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My 12 year old like documentries. Something like A Perfect Human Diet or Fathead might be helpful.
I would double your snacks and leave them ready for her to eat, If she is anything like my boys she will grab the easiest things to eat so I have to make healthy easy.0 -
Maybe help her find some cookbooks geared to more lc, but at her age level. There has to be some options out there to give her choices in things she likes, and isn't always "dad's suggestion". The fact that she came to you is awesome though!0
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I think cooking together is a great way to teach her about real food and a healthy diet! It will help her feel like she has control over what she is eating and will give her the choice to make what she likes... at that age, nobody wants to be told what to do. But you can definitely empower her to make informed decisions!0
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So the Kid wants an after-school snack. And she asks "what do you eat for snacks?" I offer her about a dozen choices -- nuts, cheese, guacamole, pickles, etc. All rejected.
She settled on carrots and hummus. Not my first choice, but not bad. 0 -
My thoughts: Up to a certain age, kids LOVE to do stuff with their parents. Until everything parents do or say become «lame»
I second the suggestion above to cook stuff together. You have a small window to establish the bonds now. She enjoyed running together with you in the summer, right? Use the momentum that she sought your guidance on this issue.
Make homemade protein bars or fat bombs? If she likes almonds, they're a great snack. My fav is smoked, tastes bacon-y. You could even try make them yourself. Only need an iron wok or grill.
She asked bout «healthy», give her an opportunity to research, break it down into small concrete questions. Let her find out on her own. Teach her to be source critical. Show her 3 different articles about a topic that have different views. And that's it's our own job to have enough knowledge to be able to choose what to believe or be fooled.
In the training companion course they taught us a specific technique: They told us to do a Motivating Conversation: Asking open questions, find out what they want first. Then continue ask more questions to make it clearer for participant that there's a cognitive gap between «abstract goal and desire» vs what they're actually willing to «do». Make it into a puzzle, a game, problem solving etc It will hopefully make her realize later down the road that it's her responsibility to work for her goals. You can only plant the seeds and encourage her. 0 -
As a teacher, I'm HIGHLY impressed with the advice you've received, especially giving her the opportunity to research and critically evaluate different points of view. Even if what she chooses to prepare might not be on your diet, but is healthy for her, bless it! It is an opportunity to be together and form healthy habits. Those habits will change over the years, but THINKING about what we consume and why = priceless.0
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Awesome that you were viewed as successful!
People often listen to those that do more than those that only say.
My daughter is now in her mid 20's with 4 kids and a great husband.
Her mom is bowling ball physique and a carb addict that emotionally eats. I'm athletic and have decent body composition.
My daughter was around 11-13 and dealing with the prospect she would look like her mom. No way to say it nicely, she was horrified.
She did decide to not binge eat or emotionally eat a bag of cookies when sad. She also joined a few teams in junior high.
We tried to eat real food. Something that was a plant or animal previously. No processed meat or cheese products or pasta.
That worked for her.
Over the years we still talk nutrition. We both favor elements of low carb, paleo, and moderate saturated fat diets.
She has determined her kids don't need all the mystery components in most sausages. They drink water and sometimes a squirt of lemon.
She also started cooking with me when she was young. That was also helpful. We figured out the nutritional content of the meal before cooking.
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Just wanted to add that my daughter has dealt with the gaining and losing baby weight a few times now.
Learning exercise and nutrition in her youth paid dividends to her and her kids.
Taking that time with her was a joy. We bonded and it helped us both.
Nothing makes me quite as happy as seeing my daughter being a great mom.
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