This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 9:52am and is filed under Parenting, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I think that it is important, amidst all the brouhaha over genetically modified food, to remember that even if a child is eating homegrown vegetables and all natural meats, eating habits are what will really make a difference in the child’s life. In today’s world, where childhood obesity is, to use the popular vernacular, an epidemic, parents need to stop worrying so much about the pros and cons of cloned cattle and start questioning that second serving of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia that little Jimmy is having after dinner.
The blame for childhood obesity, of course, cannot be place completely on the shoulders of the parents of obese children; society is at fault to some extent here. If a child is brought up to be skewed away from looking at the long term benefits of eating a serving of broccoli with dinner, he will be driven in the opposite direction: to seek and crave sugar. It is here that parents needs to come in and help “un-skew” the judgment of their child. While childhood obesity may be genetic to some extent, healthy eating and exercise habits can make all the difference.
A recent article in TIME magazine poses the questions:
How do you effectively control another person’s eating behavior? How do you motivate someone–especially a young, impulsive, pleasure-driven someone–to make smart food choices, to get up off the couch, to turn off the television? And how do you accomplish that without making that young person feel deprived, coerced or–worse yet–judged and found wanting?
Lead by example. (More on the importance of this in the blog Life in Your Years.) Eat healthy, home-cooked meals, and if that isn’t a possibility then do your best to avoid fast food. Take your child out to play in a park or a pool. If your child is a teenager, get Dad to work up an excercise routine with him. For mothers and daughters, the all-female gym, Curves, is instituting a bring-your-daughter-to-the-gym policy. Above all, please don’t let your child adopt the TV as an older sibling/added parent. If you lay down ground rules on food and activity, they will listen.
And why not make it fun? Christine at Our Bodies Our Blog took a stab at it, and found some suggestions for us too.
If you have something special that you do with/for your kids to keep them moving or eating healthy, please comment and share!
June 25th, 2008 at 10:07am
When we made a rare visit to the municipal pool this week, I was appalled to discover that as an early-40s Mom, my flabby tummy was significantly smaller than at least a third of the teens and preteens!
In researching our earlier post on beef and early puberty, I discovered that obesity is thought to be the leading contributing factor to early puberty.
What do I do for my own kids to get them moving and eating right? The garden is probably the best. They are much more enthusiastic about eating veggies they grow themselves, and we sure get our exercise!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:19pm
My friends used to joke about the fact that an invitation to my parents’ house for dinner was to look forward to a banquet of pork - there would always be several pork dishes on the table, with maybe one dish of stir-fried vegetables. This kind of meal is typical in Chinese families. Today, my parents are nearing eighty, and both are reasonably healthy and spend their days touring the globe or bouncing between their apartment in Virginia and their apartment in China. Despite their terribly imbalanced diet their whole lives, their health today is probably attributable to good genes, yes, but also to the fact they NEVER ate prepared foods, except for an occasional bowl of instant noodles. My whole childhood, every meal was home-cooked and used fresh ingredients. But I wonder, if my parents had attempted to eat just a bit better (more fruits and vegetables) perhaps they’d be playing tennis or basket ball today and more available to chase my kids?
June 28th, 2008 at 6:21pm
Thanks, Gloria and Sara. Despite my post, I have a wee confession to make. CANDY. My boys are very active, but they can “cute” candy out of me and any of their other relatives at the drop of a hat. And have you seen the grotesque stuff they call candy these days? In GIANT portions? Liquid Sweet Tarts in squirt bottles, for example? A friend once remarked that you know you’re getting old when the fashions of the young were not only unappealing but were down right repulsive. Who knew this extended to food? But I cave in and give it to them anyway…. Even if it’s after karate or swim team practice (or maybe especially after…).
July 1st, 2008 at 4:00am
Instead of focusing on weight loss, childhood obesity treatment programs aim to slow or halt weight gain so the child will grow into his or her body weight over a period of months to years.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:37am
Addison–good point. I’m a firm believer in lifestyle, not weight is the issue. If kids are eating healthy foods, have healthy attitudes about eating (i.e for nutrition, not comfort or boredom) and are active, I believe most will be within healthy weight range.
I do believe it is much harder to establish healthy food habits when most food consumed is processed and/or prepared outside the home. Here, organic or natural don’t make a difference: Organic cheese puffs are still junk food!