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Weight Issues are Complicated
These are confusing times when it comes to weight. It’s
very clear kids (as well as adults) are getting heavier, but
the solutions—both for prevention and treatment-- are
not that simple. Depending on your sources for health information,
you have certainly heard that the weight problem in America
stems from too much unhealthy food and too little exercise...true
to some extent. It seems like we should all just be more active
and sensibly choose leaner foods and smaller portions, and
we’ll be leaner and smaller.
But sometimes we run into trouble implementing these reasonable
concepts. You might remember your chubby niece who started
by cutting back sensibly and then developed an eating disorder.
Or your friend whose 4-year old son stormed away from the
table yelling, “Well then you don’t love me!!,”
when his parents told him he couldn’t have seconds on
the gravy because it wasn’t healthy. Or your neighbor
joking about the kid who eats about a dozen oreos every time
he comes over to play because they’re never to be found
at his house. Or the endless complaints you overheard at the
high school volleyball tournament about the bad “high
fat” potluck the parents had brought—as some players
opted for a lunch of low-fat granola bars and sports drinks
instead. Or all the families you know who feel guilty about
their cooking (or lack thereof) but can’t seem to find
the time and are tired of fighting with kids who don’t
want anything but mac ’n’ cheese anyway—so
why bother with “real” family meals? In other words,
we’re having problems with a national epidemic of imbalance,
kids and adults who no longer know how to eat, never mind
what to eat—and it’s getting people into more trouble
than just showing up as weight gain. Clearly, there’s
more to these problems than simple energy balance. Did you
also know that research shows connections between childhood
obesity and dieting behavior in parents, stress, neglect and
poverty? Why don’t we hear as much about these other
factors related to childhood weight problems? How do good
intentions go bad? How do we address the issues of weight
and eating without causing harm—both in families and
in communities?
So, whom are you concerned about? Clearly, you have some interest
in the topic, perhaps for several reasons. What is your personal
connection to this issue? You may want to—feel like you
have to— take some action on some sort of problem...
If you’re an adult, do you remember that when you were
a kid, there were hardly any overfat kids? There were maybe
one or two in a classroom—or maybe in a whole school.
They usually weren’t treated very nicely, maybe were
brutally teased. Back then, there was little emphasis on “respecting
diversity” and teachers or busdrivers or coaches may
have looked the other way when kids were taunted. Maybe you’ve
always been naturally thin and you couldn’t understand
then and cannot understand now how in the world a favorite
child you know—your niece or nephew, the kid down the
street—has gotten so big. Or why so many kids have gotten
so big. You’d like to help...
On the other hand, maybe that kid being teased was you. And
now you’re a parent, still struggling with weight, and,
sure enough, your child is chubby, too. Some things may have
changed—with more chubby kids around there’s bound
to be less stigmatization, teasing is less tolerated, and
getting nice clothes is easier—but perhaps your pediatrician
or the public health nurse has begun to give you gloomy warnings.
The words “obesity” and “epidemic” are
often linked. There are frightening reports of type 2 (formerly
called adult!) diabetes in very heavy kids—with discussions
of gastric surgery as a solution. You may feel like you’ve
failed somehow for not keeping your child thinner. You may
feel very conflicted—you’re very worried about your
child’s health and you absolutely do not want your child
to experience the torture you went through—yet dieting,
a potential solution, was part of the torture....
Or maybe you’re a teacher and you’re supposed to
be teaching about healthy foods—but you feel very uncomfortable
when you get to the section on “junk” foods that
can make kids get fat because there are six big kids in your
class and you don’t quite know what to say to keep the
other 18 kids from looking at them. And, you, yourself, actually
happen to like most of the “junk” foods on that
list—as you suspect your students do. Or maybe you’re
a daycare provider and you work hard to feed the kids healthy
meals and all seems to be going well except for the one chubby
little girl who can’t seem to get enough to eat—
and you only want the best for her. What should you do in
any of these situations?
For whatever reason you’re here, know that you’re
in the right place...and that you can help that child you’re
concerned about. You’ll learn some new things on our
website that go beyond saying that we eat too much fat, drink
too much pop and watch too much TV (all of which may or may
not be true). We’ll explore in detail how it is that
kids stop growing in the way they’re supposed to—and
get much heavier that they ever were intended to be. We’ll
learn about when high weight indicates a problem—and
when it is normal. And we’ll learn about what we can
do about childhood eating and growth problems that can help
instead of making the problem worse. Upcoming web article
topics include:
* Childhood
weight classifications: looking beyond the numbers
* When growth (too much, too little) becomes a problem
* Three big reasons kids’ growth gets off track
* When to get professional help for childhood eating and weight
problems
* Psychosocial factors related to excess weight gain in children
* Internal regulation of eating—does it really work?
* “Baby fat”—real or scapegoat?
* Poverty and obesity—what’s the connection?
* Super obesity in kids—reason for drastic intervention?
* Role of movement and sedentary activities in weight regulation
* Division of responsibility in feeding—who does what
* The picky eater
* Sit-down meals—outdated relic or essential family cornerstone?
* Reviving the family meal without cooking lessons
* Easy ways to “power up” your meals
* Should parents diet with kids?
* Dieting and eating disorders—what’s the connection?
* Blended or split families—negotiating different food
rules in different homes
* Eating disordered parents—how to feed kids when you,
yourself, are scared to eat and so on
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