Quote:
Originally Posted by
mamazee
....at the same time she knows it will be easily corrected now and will be harder the longer she ignores it, and looking back as an adult she feels like she wishes she had thought to start watching how much she ate earlier.
My feeling is that there is no good way to have this conversation, and all you can do is have more active family time - like play tennis instead of go to a movie - and buy better food to keep in the house.
I think that the advice to not have a conversation is misguided. Obesity is an growing concern -- 18% of teens are obese, and 30% are overweight. The stats just get higher with age, and they increase every year. I think while the potential for this conversation to go terribly wrong is huge, that we as mothers have an obligation to figure out how to talk to our children. All of our children are at risk for becoming obese because the rates just keep going up and up (if the rates of obesity continue to increase they way they currently are, all Americans will be overweight by 2048)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/08/28/will-all-americans-be-fat-in-40-years.aspx
The notion that we shouldn't talk to our children/teens because it is difficult to figure out how to do so seems like a cop out when this is, for most of our kids, this is the most likely cause of health problems for many, many years for them.
I talk to my daughters about weight, food, theories about obesity, body image, etc. It's a topic I'm interested in and I share with my children what I learn. We talk about what kind of nutrients are in different foods, and what kinds us foods leave us feeling hungry sooner (carbs) and what foods help us stay full longer (protein and fat). I don't believe the food pyramid is a healthy way to eat, and my kids know why. (Basing a diet on grains is a recipe to get fat and have blood sugar problems).
I think the big thing to avoid in a mother/daughter conversation is any notion that one should have a particular body type to be attractive, acceptable, or loved. None of that is true. However, we need to eat right so we can be healthy and feel good, and the way we treat our bodies - even in our teens -- has an impact on our adult bodies. I also think it is helpful to find ways to be active that we all truly enjoy -- not exercising to look at certain way, but enjoying being in our bodies and using them to do fun things. I personally find it helpful to stay away from talking about what
you should do, and instead focus on overall trends in the US and around the world. Making it less personal, staying away from "should", and moving toward looking at the actual studies keeps things low key.
I think that the line that to loose weight one should "eat less and move more" is bogus because there is so, so, so much evidence that it does not work. Eating less causes people to be hungry and eat more later, and moving move causes people to be hungry and eat more later. Most people who loose weight on reduced calorie diets regain it.
We need to eat *differently.*
I think there is far more pressure on teens to eat junk food than there is on adults, and I therefore feel it is very important to make it extremely easy to eat healthy at home. I don't think the burden should be on an 11 year old to "watch what they eat," but rather on the parents to watch what they bring home, what they prepare, what habits they model. I also think that "watch what you eat" is very, very vague and therefore not helpful. The daughter won't get anything helpful from that, but may start feeling self conscious about eating in front of others, especially her mother.
There is no consensus of what is "healthy," and the FDA recommendations we've been taught were designed to be helpful to farmers, not to our health.
On the other hand, learning about the changes in our food supply (wheat belly is a fascinating book) and learning what recent studies show (there are several interesting lectures on YouTube, such as this one on "why we get fat"
BTW, we eat Paleo at home, but my kids eat all kinds of stuff when they are out of the house, which I am fine with. I don't have any desire to be controlling with the kids about food, but I do feel the need to balance the pizza and sodas they have out of the house with grass-raised meats, deep green leafy vegies, and healthy fats at home.