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The U.S. government estimates that in this
country about six million young people are sufficiently overweight
to endanger their health. Another five million are borderline,
and the problem grows larger every year. Why? Lots of reasons.
Families no longer eat regular meals together.
Home cooking is no longer the primary source of meals for many
people. Greasy and sugar-laden fast food is cheap, tasty, and
available everywhere. Time spent in front of a TV or computer
steals time from sports and other activities that burn calories.
Manufacturers of snack food and soft drinks advertise their empty
calories directly to children. Schools eliminate or cut back
physical education classes. Because of concerns about community
and neighborhood safety, parents keep their children from participating
in informal, spontaneous playground activities.
What is the result of children taking in
more calories and being less active than they were a decade ago?
Dr. Naomi Neufeld, a pediatric endocrinologist says, “The
children we see today are thirty percent heavier than the ones
who were referred to us in 1990.”
Obese children are at risk physically and
emotionally. Many become obese teens and then obese adults. They
suffer low self-esteem and are candidates for diabetes, heart
disease, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and many
cancers. Diabetes alone can lead to damaged blood vessels, kidney
failure, blindness, amputations, heart attacks, and strokes.
The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture predicts that obesity will
soon rival smoking as a cause of preventable death. (Newsweek,
July 23, 2000; page 42)
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- What to do if your child is overweight
or obese
- If your child is still a baby, don’t panic.
Baby fat is normal.
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- If your child is still growing, don’t
panic. Weight gain precedes growth spurts. It is not unusual
for a child to gain thirty or forty pounds and then shoot up
ten or twelve inches.
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- Limit couch potato time. A Stanford University
pediatrician found that children who watched TV for one hour
or less per day were measurably leaner than those who watched
as much as they wanted to.
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- Don’t nag about food or weight. Your child
will resent you and withdraw, probably to a hidden stash of food.
If you try to police what your child eats, you may inadvertently
create depression, shame, feelings of abandonment, anxiety, or
even a life-threatening eating disorder.
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- Be especially careful if your child is
a preteen daughter. Our culture teaches young women to base their
self-esteem on the shape and size of their bodies. If your daughter
thinks you are criticizing her appearance, she may believe that
you find her unacceptable too. She may deal with her crushed
feelings by becoming anorexic in an heroic effort to please you,
or she may rebel and become even fatter as an expression of anger
and defiance.
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- Instead of nagging, set a healthy example.
Don’t give one child a diet plate while everyone else dives into
fried chicken and chocolate cake. Make family meals healthy for
everyone. Instead of collapsing in front of the TV after dinner,
go for a walk or bike ride with the kids. On weekends take them
hiking or introduce them to your favorite sport — but make sure
you participate in it and don’t just watch it on TV.
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- In order to avoid rebellion and crushed
feelings, when you talk to your children, focus on health, not
appearance. Emphasize more activity, not less food. Diets create
feelings of deprivation. For that reason they don’t work for
adults, and they won’t work for kids either.
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- Be realistic about your child’s weight.
Genes do make a difference. If a child is chubby but eats healthy
foods in reasonable amounts, and if s/he is active and has self-control,
s/he may be genetically predisposed to be heavier than average.
Research suggests that this kind of extra weight is not as much
of a health risk as the kind acquired via too many snack foods
and too many hours on the Internet. Genetically pudgy children
may be healthier chubby than if they are forced to diet to fit
in with slim peers. Just make sure they understand that personal
worth depends on character, not on appearance.
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- Find out if emotional stress or unhappiness
is contributing to your child’s weight gain. Children may substitute
food for friends when they are lonely. They also can overeat
when they are bored, angry, depressed, anxious, or otherwise
stressed. If you suspect your child is eating in an attempt to
numb painful feelings or escape stress, talk to a qualified counselor
about how to attack the underlying cause of the problem, not
just the symptom of eating.
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- If you find yourself frantic or at your
wits end, work with your child’s pediatrician and a therapist
who is trained to work with young people to generate new ways
of approaching the situation. Your child’s present and future
health are worth an investment of time and money that can pay
significant dividends down the road.
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