First of all, I am NOT a parent, so I can only speak from opinion and observation, and not experience. I know raising a child is probably the hardest thing to do, and each family's situation needs to be handled individually. I am not passing judgement on anybody.
Whew, anyways...we all know that overweight and obese children is an issue these days. They talk about it on the news all the time, and you just have to drive by a park or community pool to see a surprising amount of more-than-babyfat chubby kids. Whether it's a result of crappy food served in schools, parents bad influence, the fast food companies, etc...it's a problem.
Well I was just wondering how all you moms (and dads...and non-parents, maybe those of you who were overweight kids have an opinion) would feel about putting your kids on a diet. On one hand, of course you want your kids to be healthy, and you want to protect them from teasing, etc. Many of us were overweight youngsters and know how it feels to grow up with low self esteem because of our weight. However, how would you approach the situation? Would you explain to your kids that they're fat and they need to do this this and this to get down to this weight?
This is just kind of a discussion thread on the topic. I started because I just found out one of my good childhood friends has been hospitalized or anorexia. When we were about 10 years old, I was snacking on some Teddy Grahms or something, and she looked at me horrified and said "don't you know how many carbs are in that!?" Whenever I went to her house, her mom was always talking about her weight, asked if she'd weighed that morning, what she'd eaten, etc. She was a loving mom, and was trying to do it in a fun way with gold star stickers and such, but I don't think she realized how much damage she was doing to her daughter. When I ate at their house, the rest of the family and myself ate "normal" food, while she ate a bit of grilled chicken and salad. Sure, she lost weight, was a skinny girl all through high school, but she had incredibly low self esteem. And now she's in the hospital for anorexia.
I personally think that if I had an overweight child (again, not a parent, so not speaking with experience), I would NOT put them on a real diet. I would not tell them they were on a diet or that they needed to lose weight or anything of the sort. I'd emphasize healthy eating. I'd have them help me plan meals to make sure we got all the food groups, take them grocery shopping and teach them how to read labels, show them portion sizes (2 tbsp of peanutbutter is about the size of a golfball, I'd ask them if they had a golfball or a tennisball of PB...stuff like that). I'd also encourage them to be active and make darn sure that I provided outlets for activity. It would never about "you're eating less because you're overweight" it would be "we all need to eat right and be active to live a healthy happy life."
Anyways, thoughts on the subject?