Messages about food & weight

[Megan200]

Hi everyone,
I'm wondering if any of you have revised the messages you're giving to your children about food and weight. I'm struggling with which approach to take. Up until I started l/c'ing last year, I always thought I would teach:
1) everything is OK in moderation
2) obesity is caused by genetic factors (i.e. there is not much overweight people can do about their situation)
These would be in conjuntion with things I already do (i.e. model healthy eating, not diet or talk about people wanting to lose weight in front of the kids)

Now I'm wondering if I want to teach some messages that I would have considered negative before I started l/c'ing

3) Sugar and starch are addictive.
4) You aren't stuck with genetics, if you eat in a l/c way,
4) Fast food, cereal and snack food companies (possibly inadvertently) make tons of money off this addiction; they prey on kids with toy give-aways and clhild friendly advertising
5) Protien and vegatables help keep your weight down (so far I've only talked about them tasting good & making people healthy- but this doesn't seem to be enough to get my daughter to eat them).

My 2 concerns are:
1) I'm not sure that I want to teach my kids that being overweight is a bad thing. If they end up being overweight, I don't want them beating themselves up about it, & I also don't want them to ever think less of people who are. I don't want them focused on external standards of beauty, although this is hard to escape in our society.
2) I don't want to be a nutcase mom, who tries to keep them from fitting in with the rest of the kids at school who may be drinking pop and eating high-carb snack food.

I'm worried, because my 4 year old is already overweight for her height & eats virtually nothing except carbs. I've never made any negative comments about this & we do keep cereal & occasionally cookies in the house (dh says he doesn't have the willpower to do l/c). I'm a little worried about making cookies with artificial sweetners for the kids, so don't do it very often.

Anyway I'm wondering if others of you have any comments or ideas about what to teach kids about food in light of this new information we have about l/c.

Thank you

[JeannieF]

I know what you mean. It's really hard to send the "right" signals to kids.

My dad beat us up (mentally) about being fat and I live with the scars to this day. I don't ever want to do that to my kids.

On the other hand, there are many reasons to avoid being fat that have nothing to do with looks. Diabetes, heart disease (even in kids) and most recently, I watched a program about kids having to have joints replaced and repaired due to being over weight!!! :eek:

I have two normal sized kids and one over weight kid. They all eat basically the same, so, yes, it is in the genes. That poses a whole new problem. How to have the one lose the excess weight...?

I try to explain healthy eating to them. I try to set a good example. I avoid the sugary stuff in the house as much as I can and beyond that, they have to make their own decisions. My older son (the heavy one) is starting to realize he is embarassed by his physical appearance and this may be all he needs to self motivate. Here's hoping.

My only advice is, don't go overboard with it so as to set up a power struggle with your young ones. That never works.

I wish us all luck in the fast food, sugary cereal based society we live in.

Jeannie

[atiaran]

What I decided to do after discussing with dh was to explain to them about smart choices. There was resistance at first, but after sticking with it for a week they got with the program. I sat down with them both and explained that most things are ok to eat in moderation. That if they were eaten without limit, there were problems that would happen. (I stayed away from the cosmetic aspect of it, and stuck with body health issues). ANd then I told them our plan for eating was all meals would be at home except for twice a week we would eat out. THey could have whatever they wanted eating out. At home, there would not be a sugary dessert after lunch and dinner. They could have some icecream or other dessert of reasonable quantity after one of the meals. But once they had it, the next dessert had to be healthy - fruit, or jello or yogurt, or a low carb mousse that I make.

I've been doing that for almost a year now, and they have both adapted to the point where they don't have dubious looks on their faces over the home cooked meals, and even prefer it to going out. I hope that eventually they can make the smart choices on their own especially once they start college.

[Megan200]

Thank you for the advice you two. It's a good reminder to remember my main worry should be health and not cosmetic. (Guess what kind of scary messages I grew up with? ;) My poor mom is still starving herself, because she's afraid to eat fat).

Atiaran - I really your approach with your kids. If you are reading this, can I ask if you make any rules for when you're out visiting friends? My dd goes wild eating crackers, cookies, cake etc. when we visit anyone who has them (which is just about everybody).

Do you have any policies on candy? My parents used to let us have one item of candy a week on Saturdays when I was a kid, but we never had dessert other than fruit. I used to wonder if that was what made me value it so much? It's hard to say though. My sugar cravings disappeared on my 2nd day of l/c'ing, so it's possible the desire for sweets was purely physiological.

Thanks again for your help.

[atiaran]

Well, we rarely go over to eat at friends but the same rules apply generally. If they were pigging out on something earlier, then they know they should limit their intake of certain things. Of course, they are usually playing with other kids, so we tend not to be as strict about it. Who would enjoy themselves, lol?

Believe it or not, I have all but eliminated candy from the house! Except for birthdays and Halloween. I'm working on getting rid of the icecream except for rare occasions too, but it's a little tough to replace it with sf jello and yogurt. :)

I too had a mother that picked on me about weight and 'needing to be skinny to get a good man'. She had eating issues as she weighed less than 100 lbs (5 ft 8 in tall) when she got pregnant with me, and didn't put on much weight during. But she's since had help and no longer picks on me. I hated the way it felt though and I really try to avoid that with these kids, especially since they deal with it from people at school. They shouldn't have to come home and be told they're fat!

[JeannieF]

Well, if we're airing dirty laundry, I'll air some of mine. My dad was fanatical about losing weight and getting into shape and he had 5 kids who all delt with weight issues. What a shame for him!Being fat was taught to be about the worst kind of failure.

We didn't have much money and sweets were almost never in our house. We didn't have pop, chocolate or ice cream. Fozen juice pops and pretzels was about as good as it got for snacking.
(Boring!!!)

Amazingly, all of us managed to get fat when we hit puberty. I would raid the baking cupboard and eat the chocolate chips. Whatever it took to get sweets into my body.

I'm still screwed up about these self images I was taught and the lack of snacks as a child. Generally, I'm a good caring person, but when it comes to chocolate bars, to this day I hide mine so I don't have to share them. Geeze, how sick.

You can see why I'm so careful to not say negative things about my kids fat issues. Instead, I try to be a good example of healthy eating, I keep most sweets out of the house and encourage their good eating habits. If we are at someone else's house, I let them enjoy their life. It's not like we eat at other's houses every day. If they have cookies, go at it, kids!

Like everything else we teach our kids, they'll either get it, or they won't. We can only try our best.

Jeannie :wave:

[redawn]

Originally posted by atiaran
I too had a mother that picked on me about weight and 'needing to be skinny to get a good man'. She had eating issues as she weighed less than 100 lbs (5 ft 8 in tall) when she got pregnant with me, and didn't put on much weight during.

Oh my are we sisters?! My mother fav story (5'7" 90lbs soaking wet) is that she wore the same size 5 (she was a little bigger back then) pants til her 5th month. As a woman who relished 'showing' I found that comment highly distasteful. . .also since I was born with a congenital heart defect (which has since been corrected 100% with surgery) I have always wondered if it wasn't lack of food combined with cigerettes. redawn

[LadyBelle]

What works with my son is slowly replacing alot of his fav snacks with l/c ones. He loves string cheese, so I keep lots of that around for both of us. Instead of PB samwiches he has soem on cheese. I get him to eat more eggs in the morning now, although he still has multigrain cheerios once in a while. I also found he loves nitrate free chicken hotdogs. I also be sure to have alot of fresh fruit around for him. It's easy to say no to cookies when there is none in the house.

The rules for him are simple (he's only 3).
#1. He can have one treat a day, this way he doesn't feel deprived and will try to sneak some later. I got blue bunny icecream bars sweatened with splenda. He much prefers those to his left over easter candy and will ask for that as his treat instead.

#2 He can only have something once a day, twice if it is healthy. This is so he doesn't make himself sick eating a ton of one thing. The first time he tried string cheese I think he ate 5 of them and ended up vomiting later that night.

We also negotiate. If he is asking for an unhealthy treat I'll offer one of his favorite healthy ones such as an orange, he'll usualy change his mind and jump at the suggestion. Although I have to suggest 10 different things some days. Also when he sees me cooking for myself he'll want some. Mom's food always tastes better then his.

Then every other weekend he goes off to his dad's and eats Lucky Charms for dinner and popcicles all day :P

[SaturnStar]

My children are little 3.5 & 1.5 and I already see sugar addict patterns in them. My husband is an admitted sugar addict though he is fit and trim and tall. I worry that his eating habits will set the pattern in out family. My oldest is big, but NOT heavy she's just a big girl, tall - big features. My youngest is skinny, and has tiny features (one weighed over 10lbs at birth, the other 9 lbs.). Anyway, in my house I try to teach that we need to eat healthy, delicious foods to keep our bodies strong and our minds strong. I am trying to send the message that protien is the foundation of our meals. We also promote physical activity reminding them of the same reasons. I do not deprive them of tasty kid friendly foods, I give them low carb peanut butter with a 1/2 teaspoon of jam on whole wheat bread, I give them oatmeal (not processed) with half & half and a dash vanilla extract - things like that. They eat nuts, string cheese and turkey pepperoni. I do not keep cookies, cakes, candies, or chips in the house. I do however let them eat cheerios, and sometimes waffles.
My parents always tried to feed us healthy foods and my sister and I admittidley (sp?) went a little crazy when we were old enough to make our own food decisions, but nutrition was not something that was clearly explained in our house. My mother has weight issues, my father does not. My sister still eats horribly (junk, junk, and more junk) and allows her children (who I adore) to eat that way too - I love her and I do not criticize her, but when my children go over there - they get a little crazy with the sweets and that is something that I have to discuss with my sister since we are so close and our children are all close. Her kids are very skinny even though they eat lots of sugars are processed foods.
Anyway, I try not to be fanatical and I try to make eating healthy fun - I make faces, animals, scenery out of certain foods, I allow my oldest to help prepare foods. My one rule that I stick to all the time, is to not make them finish everything on their plate. When my daughter says she's done I ask her to listen to her body for a second and see if it's telling her it's full. It's cute, she actually sticks her ear out waits a second and says "yep, it tells me I'm full".
Saturn

[JeannieF]

The "clean plate club" is a thing of the '50s and is very harmful to our eating.

My husband is a real testament to this as he can't leave food on his plate. He was raised with 7 bros and sisters and no money. When food is available, he eats like a pig (because it was never in great supply when he was growing up.) He learned that the faster you ate, the more you got and he ingrained it. Now at 230 lbs (5'7") he's really suffering the consequences of his upbringing. He's been lo carbing for a few weeks now and has dropped about 8 lbs. Go hubby~!

I will never, ever make my kids eat everything on their plate. What a stupid idea. I too say, "what's your body telling you?" and let them decide if they've had enough.

Jeannie

[LadyBelle]

When I was a kid it was the same way. Clean your plate. If I was at grandparents they would check to see if I was sick if I didn't have seconds.

We were also poor, so things like pies or sweet things were rare. If you didn't eat it fast, then someone else would and you wouldn't get any. It wasn't until just a couple years ago I could have something sweet in the fridge and just have a little at a time. It also helpes when you live alone or with people to young to steal it from you *g*