Part One: Weight advice

“I started saying, ‘You know Sara, maybe you shouldn’t be eating that ice cream, it looks like you’ve gained a little weight,’ or ‘Can you get off the couch and go exercise?’ And that just wasn’t working.”

– Linda Citron, Mother

Encouraging your kids to lose weight can be frustrating. Some parents nag their children…. which produces resentment and little else. But what does work?

A few years ago, 17-year-old Sara Citron noticed she was gaining weight. Sara says, “I ate my lunch that I brought to school with me in second period, so I ended up buying like cookies at lunch.”

She spent her evenings on the couch, watching TV. Sara’s mom Linda says, “I started saying, ‘You know Sara, maybe you shouldn’t be eating that ice cream, it looks like you’ve gained a little weight,’ or ‘Can you get off the couch and go exercise?’ And that just wasn’t working.” Sara says, “It just annoyed me, and it didn’t make me want to go work out.”

But then, Linda stopped nagging and decided to focus on health—not weight. Linda says, “No, we do not focus on the scale or a number on the scale, we focus on feeling good, and having energy.”

Linda brought Sara to the grocery store, and let her choose which healthy foods the family would eat. Sara says, “Cause sometimes she would make a healthy dinner that I didn’t like, so when I got to go with her, I got to say, ‘Oh that looks really good.’”

Sara didn’t work out until her mom arranged a class at the gym, for all Sara’s friends.

Sara Price, a personal trainer with Formwell Personal Training in metro-Atlanta says, “The number one thing that I recommend is to get a group of friends together and do more of a group setting class.”

Dr. Byron C. Cotton, a primary care physician with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta says, “Adults can go and run on the treadmill three days a week and they are fine. But with kids you have to make it fun.”

Sara lost seven pounds. She makes smarter food choices…most of the time.

Dr. Cotton says, “Be good six days a week, choose one day to be bad. On that one day that you like to be bad, choose whatever it is that you really have a taste for.”

“It’s just a world of difference, she has so much more energy, she feels great about herself,” says Linda.

Should parents put their slightly overweight teens on a diet? Could even suggesting a diet result in an obsession with weight and lead to an eating disorder? These are tough questions to answer, but some studies suggest that dieting may do more harm than good.

A national survey of more than 11,000 high school students, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed the following statistics about teens and diets:

• More than one-third of girls considered themselves “overweight,” compared with less than 15 percent of boys .
• More than 43 percent of girls reported they were on a diet, and a quarter of these dieters didn’t even think they were overweight.
• The most common dieting methods teens tried were skipping meals, taking diet pills and inducing vomiting after eating.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that fad dieting can keep teens from getting the calories and nutrients they need in order to foster healthy growth. Stringent dieting may cause girls to stop menstruating and will prevent boys from developing muscles. And some diets can even be dangerous for teens. The Nutrition Society of Malaysia lists the following “dieting dangers”:

• Following a crash diet – A crash diet includes cutting down food intake drastically. A teen who uses this dieting method will lose out on the nutrients that his or her body needs.
• Slimming foods and beverages – Eating and drinking foods and beverages in place of regular meals will prevent a teen from taking in the nutrients of various food groups.
• Using fat blockers – Fat blockers supposedly prevent a person’s body from absorbing fat from the foods he or she eats.
• Yo-yo dieting – This type of diet includes alternately starving and/or binging. It tends to make a teen overeat because he or she is too hungry after starving.
• Following a very low-calorie diet (VLCD) – This type of diet should only be used if recommended by a physician because it is very extreme and provides a teen with fewer calories than he or she usually needs each day.

If you and your teen decide that weight loss is necessary, the FDA suggests making a few simple changes in your child’s eating habits to “emphasize healthy foods and exercise – good advice even if you don’t need to lose weight:”

• Refer to the USDA’s Food Pyramid. Guidelines suggest eating six to 11 servings a day of grains (bread, cereal, rice and pasta).
• Eat three to five servings of vegetables daily.
• Eat two to four servings of fruit.
• Each day, eat two to three servings of dairy (milk, cheese and yogurt) and protein-rich foods (meat, eggs, poultry, fish, dry beans and nuts).
• Also, limit the amount of high-fat foods that your child eats. Encourage your child to eat a variety of foods so that he or she doesn’t get bored.
• Keep your child’s mealtime portion sizes reasonable.
• Make sure your child gets regular exercise (three times a week).

One of the greatest struggles for parents is trying to help their children eat healthy foods. Parents play a big role in shaping children’s eating habits. For instance, when parents eat a variety of foods that are low in fat and sugar and high in fiber, children learn to like these foods as well. Don’t give up if your child does not like a new food right away. It may take a little while. With many parents working outside the home, childcare providers also help shape children’s eating and snacking habits. Make sure your childcare provider offers well-balanced meals and snacks, as well as plenty of active play time. If your child is in school, find out more about the school’s breakfast and lunch programs and ask to have input into menu choices, or help your child pack a lunch that includes a variety of foods. According to experts at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), there are options available for parents to help their children eat better:

• Give your child a snack or two in addition to his or her three daily meals.
• Offer your child a wide variety of foods, such as grains, vegetables and fruits, low-fat dairy products, and lean meat or beans.
• Serve snacks like dried fruit, low-fat yogurt and air-popped popcorn.
• Let your child decide whether and how much to eat. Keep serving new foods even if your child does not eat them at first.
• Cook with less fat – bake, roast or poach foods instead of frying.
• Limit the amount of added sugar in your child’s diet. Choose cereals with low or no added sugar. Serve water or low-fat milk more often than sugar-sweetened sodas and fruit-flavored drinks.
• Choose and prepare foods with less salt. Keep the saltshaker off the table. Have fruits and vegetables on hand for snacks instead of salty snack foods.
• Involve your child in planning and preparing meals. Children may be more willing to eat the dishes they help prepare.
• Have family meals together and serve everyone the same thing.
• Do not be too strict. In small amounts, sweets or food from fast-food restaurants still can have a place in a healthy diet.
• Make sure your child eats breakfast. Breakfast provides children with the energy they need to listen and learn in school

Experts at the NIDDK recommend the following selection for healthy snack choices:

• Dried fruit and nut mix
• Fresh, frozen or canned vegetables or fruit served plain or with low-fat yogurt
• Rice cakes, whole grain crackers or whole grain bread served with low-fat cheese, fruit spread, peanut butter, almond butter or soy nut butter
• Pretzels or air-popped popcorn sprinkled with salt-free seasoning mix
• Homemade fruit smoothie made with low-fat milk or yogurt and frozen or fresh fruit
• Dry cereals served plain or with low-fat or non-fat milk

Keep in mind that children of preschool age and younger can easily choke on foods that are hard to chew, small and round, or sticky, such as hard vegetables, whole grapes, hard chunks of cheese, raisins, nuts and seeds, and popcorn. Carefully select snacks for children in this age group.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Nutrition Society of Malaysia
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Food and Nutrition Information Center
National Institutes of Health
Child Care Aware