Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieMcC
Starting tomorrow, my MRC is starting a weightloss program for kids! My younger son who is 7 already weighs 90 lbs and I MAY concider checking in to this...info gathering mostly and talking talking to his ped. He is very active. He swims for an hour 3-4 days a week, always outside playing ball, riding a bike, ect. I know we weren't good about always choosing the healthiest food through his 6th bday, but over the last year we have really changed the foods he eats and have cut back on the junk food...he still continue to gain weight. We may actually change his ped to a different one because the last doctor was kinda crappy towards me for having an overweight son. I do want to make sure there is nothing else going on with him before I do anything drastic. My son, unfortunately knows hes overweight, but doesn't really have a complex about it. I always talk about being healthy tho. He even will pick the healthier foods whenever he has a chance. I do feel so bad for the little guy. I just keep thinking I was never that big at his age but I turned out to be morbidly obese as an adult, I don't want him to have my future!
Hey Bonnie,
I find this very interesting - it is a very difficult thing to consider managing weight in a child - biggest reason - they need calories, protein, milk, fat etc. for growth and bone health and for that reason most MD's shy away from the idea of weight loss in peds. Most Physicians recommend maintaining the child's weight where it is as best as possible and avoiding further gains allowing them to grow into their weight. So, I would be very intersted to see how they plan to tackle this.
As for your son, I can completely understand your concern and how you're feeling. I have an 11 year old daughter who was underweight as a young child age 4-5, the Ped and I fought to get her weight up and now we've gone the other way. She started to put on weight around age 7 and it started as a just a cute little tummy and then just progressed over the years. She has always been super busy, active child involved in sports and plays outside. When we moved to another state at age 8, she had no friends per say, felt out of place at school, had no children in the neighborhood to play with and our schedule was so hectic we couldn't do much as far as extra-curricular activities. This went on for about 1 year and she started packing on the pounds. We enrolled her in Tae-kwon-do and got her back into horse riding about 1 year later and she initially stabilized. She injured her achilles tendon and heel and had to stop Tae-kwon-do and started to put the weight on again. She is still active in horse riding but hasn't been doing alot of on foot exercise other than walking the dogs. I've been very concerned because like you, I have been overweight the majority of my life starting in childhood and I just hate to see her suffer that way. It's bad enough she has watched me struggle with my weight - my worst nightmare. I remember when I had her, I worked so hard to get back to my pre-baby weight and succeeded because i didn't want my kid to have the same food issues I did and to have a mom that was overweight and out of control. Unfortunately life caught up to me and I gained it all back and then some.
As for my daughter, she is now 11 and weighs about 150, 5' 3" tall. We have cut out alot of junk in her diet and have purchased the Wii Fit and we LOVE IT!! She is doing so great with this. My husband who has pretty much 5 lbs to lose (seriously - and he really didn't even have to lose that), has rallied around us both but is really encouraging her to start exercising regularly and is a great example as he uses the Wii fit daily. It has the greatest kid friendly exercises and games - alot of fun - doesn't even feel like exercise. In addition to this, it has a yoga and strength training part that is phenomenal - it really relieves the tension in you shoulders and back. It keeps track of you weight, BMI, how often you exercise, measures your age based on balance tests etc. It's awesome!
Anyways, I am trying to walk the fine line between these two with her - if she loses a few lbs I think she will feel better about herself but at the same time we are not restricting calories or good nutrition - only cutting out the processed, junk and extra non-nutritive snacks she really doesn't need anyway! When I joined MRC, I took her with me to the food class and she absorbed everything they said like a little sponge, came home and told my husband everything she learned about cutting out fat, weighing, measuring etc. Very helpful :0) While we were there she tasted the Lemonade HNS and was in love with it. Now she begs me for some everytime I mix one up. Darn things are expensive though but I did allow her 1 tonight. She was in heaven. Well, let me know how things go for your son and MRC. Very curious. Have a great night! Karen
