This has been on my mind a lot lately, and another mom just made a post about contributing to her daughter's weight issue, so I decided to post my own thread to see if anyone can relate!
I am the mama of two beautiful little people. My son just turned 3 and my daughter is 1. Neither of them are overweight. I was overweight probably by the age of 10. My parents are not overweight and I really don't think they contributed to any food issues I have. That being said, I'm really paranoid about giving my own children issues. My son is a human garbage disposal. He wants to eat all day long. He'll literally cry, "My belly's not full... I need something to eat" two minutes after finishing his previous snack. I just figured that he was a growing boy and really was hungry, but we just had his 3 year well-check and his weight percentile has jumped up a lot in the last year. I'm trying to explain to him in a way that he'll understand that our bellies don't need to be full all of the time, we need to let our bellies settle, etc. It's hard, but I've started telling him "No, it's not time for a snack right now. We'll get an apple in an hour." We also talk about healthy and unhealthy foods and we don't have any junk food in our house (which is nothing new).
I'm torn because obviously I don't want to over-feed him and contribute to a weight issue, but I also don't want him to grow up feeling like I always denied him food, or was overly restrictive.
There are some things that I think I'm doing right...
-They very rarely get fast food (maybe once every couple months, fruit instead of french fries), for the most part we avoid fatty and sugary foods and eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies on a daily basis.
-I never make them feel like they need to "clean their plates"
-They're active and see exercise as a normal part of life. We go to the gym most mornings and they love playing in the child-watch area while mommy works out.
I'm just wondering what other parents make an effort to do (or NOT do) in order to help their children avoid the weight issue that we've all dealt with.
Two of my best friends have also struggled with weight... One has a mom who "loved" her with food growing up, and the other has a mom who always made her feel like she wasn't thin enough and pressured her into diets from a very young age. I want to try to foster and HEALTHY relationship with food and eating.