No I don't have a family, but I used to be an obese child.

[ZachAcid]

So you ever heard the saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  Well this doesn't apply to your kids!!!  As a formerly obese child/teenager with serious self confidence and depression issues, let me tell you, you can change this!  These are tips to keep your children healthy, and self-confident:

 

Restrict Gameplay: Yup, sucks to think that's the case, but it needs to be done.

 

Encourage Physical Activities: Don't "But he/she's gonna get hurt." your kid, that's part of being young, recuperating faster physically is what they do.

 

Encourage Self Expression: Have your kid dress how they feel comfortable, even if it's a bit shocking to you.  Sometimes these small moments of self esteem can be beneficial for a lifetime. 

 

Workout with your kid; and MAKE IT FUN!!!!!:  I can't think of how many overweight parents I've seen never participate physically in a sport with their children.  The encouraging notion that your parent is there doing it with you, struggling too, or even help nurture the idea they want to be like you, is invaluable.

 

Parents of the world, take responsibility, your kid only knows what you've taught them.  The sooner you start correcting their behavior, the sooner your children will live happier, healthier lives.

 

(This is not meant to be a blast at any parents, nor meant to offend, I'm merely trying to prevent the lifestyle that I was given for any other kid.)

[AnnleaArtsy]

Thanks for this. it's awesome to see a person who isn't a parent understand it more then people who ARE parents. My oldest is 6 and I am just now getting it. 6 is young but I feel like it is 6 years too late because I should have had this knowledge before having him. But all the things you have listed are reasons why I go and play catch with them or almost kill myself skateboarding. Or trying to...I hate things that roll but slowly getting into it.

[ZachAcid]

I'm with yah, not too long ago I took the longboard here to the store and ate it coming down a pretty nice hill (rock, lol.)  Way to be though, your son won't even have to thank you for it, cause he won't even know he was overweight.

[AnnleaArtsy]

Thanks. He isn't obese though. He is one of those kids who can eat anything and not gain an ounce. But that doesn't make it okay to let him keep eating tons of candy. I'm not saying I am some control freak about health...I just don't want him to develop health problems that run in both my family and his dads. And I figure if I just show him how your supposed to eat and to go outside and have fun then he will keep up with the good habits. I would rather him have his good health all his life. When he is an adult and chooses otherwise then thats his problem. 

[ZachAcid]

Right, and by the time he grows up those activities and food choices will be so ingrained in him, that it won't even be a difficult choice to be healthy.  I just wish my parents had been taught as I've taught myself over the years. 

[Adipaw]

This is a topic that has been on mind a lot lately.  I would say it's the number one reason that finaly pushed me to get involved with NF. 

 

I grew up always being the 'fat kid'.  Now I have a 7 week-old at home and I do not what him to face some of the same struggles that I faced. 

 

Working on changing my lifestyle so I can pass on what I learn!

[AKLulu]

My mom tried to do all of those things. It didn't work with me. I am the youngest of six (the oldest is 17 years older than me) and the rest are boys (who are easy to motivate because they're SO competitive). I think I was afraid of getting hurt, so I didn't want to join in the games. My mom's encouraging me to eat healthy and exercise (either with or without her) became huge points of contention between us. I think it's good to encourage, but if we're not motivated in and of ourselves, it can just become nagging. My mom didn't understand why I had issues with my weight. She's 5'4" and has never weighed over 140 lbs. I'm 5'6" and have never weighed under 210 lbs. since reaching my full height. The thing is, I take after my dad's side of the family and there's a natural propensity for heaviness there. I'm not trying to make excuses. I know that only part of it is genetic, but sometimes no matter how hard a parent tries, he/she can't understand a child's struggle.

 

I didn't want to be the fat kid. I didn't want to be overweight. On some level I was afraid that my mom would stop loving me if I didn't show I was trying to be healthy (which is completely ridiculous). So I played sports (swimming, basketball, volleyball) and I ate what I was supposed to eat most of the time, but I had a sweet tooth and would sneak cans of frosting or candy to my room sometimes because I was afraid to let my mom see me eat sweets. I turned the TV off promptly at 7 pm like I was supposed to because I was a good kid. I was always running around playing with my friends and cousins outside. My mom did fun art projects with us and I wore crazy colors all I wanted (my mom loves crazy colors). There was no end of imagination and self-expression (which might be why I'm still such a daydreamer). My mom really tried, but despite her best efforts, I still ended up in the obese category. The thing is though, that even if the scale and bodyfat calculators don't say I'm healthy, I'm active and HAPPY. I've always been loved, treasured, and encouraged. In the end, I think the reason that I've never been super motivated to lose weight is because I love me. Sure, I'd like to be more like a mermaid than a manatee, but I've always been active and haven't really let my weight hold me back. Sometimes it comes down to a child's natural inclinations, no matter how hard mom tries. I appreciate now how much my mom wanted me to be healthy and I'm glad she kept me in sports, but there are things that I think could have been different.

 

It's funny now though, because I have a 16-year-old niece who is very much like me in both body type and temperament. Her mom takes the opposite approach though and lets G-girl eat how she wants, exercise how she wants, and watch as much TV as she pleases. You know what? She was chubby like me for a while, but she decided independently to start working out and eating better with the help of her brother and her best friend. Sometimes I wonder if I would have gotten on the fitness kick a little earlier if I hadn't felt so much pressure. There's no telling now. Either way, I'm proud of her. And I think it goes to show - different types need different approaches.

[Lyra Rigby]

I think that preventing obesity in children is important....but I am a realist.

 

It's hard to limit screen time nowadays, at least compared to when I was a kid. Sure, we had tv....but kids shows only came on for an hour or 2 after school and on Saturday mornings. There was Snick and Disney movies at night when I was a kid, but getting to watch those meant staying up late...which was only allowed on weekends.

 

We didn't have internet or even a computer until I was in middle school....no Nintendo either unless I went to a friend's house and even then, it wasn't the focal point of my time there. Gameboys were analog, black and white....and I had a whopping 5 games in my collection.

 

Now? We have Netflix, YouTube, OnDemand, Xbox Live, several stations that play nothing but kid-friendly programming 24-7, the internet, smartphones, Wii.

 

Not only do kids have more access to screen time, but some parents have totally passed on their 80s/90s eating habits to their kids. A lot of my generation still eats fast food, frozen pizzas, sugary cereal, pop tarts, mac and cheese, ramen, chips, soda, and other crap foods. We grew up eating it, we like it, it's easy and cheap, kids like it, most of the time the crap has characters on the box, kids beg for it at the store.....blah blah.

 

School lunches are big collection of crap too. Breaded chicken by 10 different names, hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, burritos, potatoes by 10 different names, Trix yogurt (they actually serve this as a dessert at my nephew's school), cookies, cakes, brownies, skim milk, soft pretzels....yeah, most of it is crap.

 

Add stranger danger and parental paranoia to the modern junk food diet and unlimited screen time and you've got a sure recipe for childhood obesity. But what are many parents going to do? In many cases, there's just one parent at home. That's not an excuse for making your kids fat BUT it is a reason why some kids end up that way. One person simply cannot oversee the food intake, supervise screen time, and make sure that their kids are getting 30 min-1 hr of exercise a day. In other cases, both parents are working, sometimes more than one job....and they are human, they are tired, and things get pushed to the wayside. Some parents just don't care what their kids eat, as long as they eating. Some parents don't feel like doing battle over the amount of Johnny's Xbox time. Some parents are a-ok with their kids watching tv and playing video games 24/7.

 

And I've just accepted that is how it is. I don't like seeing overweight kids, especially girls, because I know what it is like to always be bigger, not to be able to wear cute clothes, to not getting invited out on dates, to be teased and laughed at because you can't run the mile, etc. But I honestly believe that it's not the kids' fault, it's the parents. Either they don't discipline their kids and reward with food like dogs to keep them from crying or fighting or whatever or they just don't give a damn and figure that as long as their kid is skinny or not too fat, they can keep swigging Sunny D with their Nutella covered white bread toast until the cows come home.

[Zhaneh]

My husband said something similar to me. He feels cheated slightly that his parents didn't take the time or effort to show him good eating habits. They ate, and still eat, what would be unhealthy by even normal American standards. Variety in the food they had when my husband was growing up was very limited even by most people's standards and my husband was even pickier than them as a child/young adult. When he and I started dating he ate like maybe a dozen different things which included stuff like Kraft mac and cheese, corn, lipton's chicken noddle soup with additional noddles added, and cookie dough. All of which his mother would make special for him outside of what they ate and in great quantity.

 

I had never been picky like that as a child and vegetables in particular were always a part of any meal. In fact I refused to eat meat at all until I was about five, so a diet like the one my then future husband was eating was completely a foreign concept to me.

 

It took my husband years to branch out in his eating habits and a couple more until he liked eating things like vegetables. I had to constantly introduce him to new foods over and over again but eventually he did acquire a taste for different and healthier foods. We starting eating really paleo/primal here in the last year and he is really grabbed onto cleaning up his diet.

 

He started losing weight, as did I, and we had already started exercising. As of now he has lost almost 80 pounds! Never in a million years did I think he had 80 pounds to lose. I mean we both had some weight we had put on to get rid of but I never thought he was obese by any means. 80 pounds later and he looks like a different person, and a happier person. He told me even as a child he was never this weight at this height.

 

Fast forward to after all these lifestyle changes and he tells me he feels cheated a little and somewhat upset that frankly he never had a choice growing up as to what he ate. He was never given the opportunity to try new foods and healthy foods to even see if he liked them. He just was catered to when it came to his picky habits and even if he had wanted something healthier there never were those choices in their house. He knows he had the potential to be happy eating healthy, and even liking eating healthy even then, and yet was never given a chance to try. 

 

The moral I think is that we all have great potential to do a lot of stuff whether that is exercising, eating healthy, or becoming president. Don't pigeon-hole your kids too young because you have already decided what you want out of life, or because you as parents have given up trying to change. Kids only know how to live by how their parents live so try to be the best example you can be and try to at least give them the opportunity to be different even if you as a parent don't want to.

[shredder]

I agree that its important to be the best example you can be to your kids. I'm glad your husband was able to change his lifestyle and improve his health after those years. He didn't have a choice then, but he has one now.

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[WeldingMommy]

My parents tried to help me out, but the motivational part was, I think, wrong.

 

My mom would pinchmy belly and say "More than an inch, you're fat" I was 12 and growing...in High school I wanted to dress nicely like the other girls "You're not a model so don't even try"(14) In the dressing room "If it doesn't fit I'm not getting it, maybe you should lose some weight" (16)

 

Then my dad, You're never gonna lose the weight if you keep sitting there..but my dad would piss me off enough that I did get up, my mom just hurt my feelings

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

 

Encourage Physical Activities: Don't "But he/she's gonna get hurt." your kid, that's part of being young, recuperating faster physically is what they do.

 

 

Generally, yes. But if the overweight kid hardly has any friends and routinely gets bullied to begin with, then please, please don't register them for contact team sports. Odds are they will get hurt, only to be told that "it's all part of the game!" or "that's life!"

 

It's also hard to monitor all the extra bullying (both physical and psychological) that might occur in dressing rooms.