Weight is a Family Affair

Seven ways to treat and prevent childhood weight problems

BY LYNNE GOLDKLANG, MA, MFT

Diets don't work. But developing positive values and good habits lead to a healthy weight during childhood and beyond. Here are some powerful suggestions:

Do all you can to be a good role model.

Get support for resolving your issues with eating and body image so that your kids see you eating zestfully and healthfully. Avoid insulting yourself. You might look in the mirror and bemoan your thighs but your kids don't need to be a witness to your dismay. Let them see you enjoying the body house you live in and observe you treating your body with respect.

Keep a healthy perspective about size.

Remember that there is genetic variation in size just as there is in height. Some children are going to be heavier even when they eat in healthy ways. If your child's weight (or your own) is not in an unhealthy zone, don't push for an unattainable thinness that hurts the body and maims the spirit.

Promote an active family.

Make movement part of the fabric of family life. Go on walks, camp, swim; involve the kids in sports that are fun for them. If you all veg out in front of the TV eating snacks every night, then it is highly likely that someone in the family will end up with weight problems.

Don't set up gruesome twosomes.

This is where children learn very young to pair food with non-mealtime activities. Eating and watching TV would be a typical example. Other common ones are eating in the car, eating while reading or doing homework, eating while on the computer.

Make healthy low fat eating a family affair.

If you have an overweight child in the family, expecting that child to munch on carrots while siblings are eating junk food is unrealistic and cruel. It will set up more problems than it will cure. A bowl of cut up veggies is a good snack for everyone. Limiting but not eliminating sweets, chips, ice cream, etc. is a good practice for the whole family. Do all you can to promote eating a hearty breakfast. It doesn't have to be fancy—cereal with fruit is fine. Let kids help prepare healthy food and make their own school lunches. If you can, have a vegetable garden or visit local farmer's market. Make healthy food gathering fun.

Get help and support.

If your lifestyle and family habits include mainly sedentary activities, eating on the run, junk food eating and lots of gruesome twosomes; don't expect yourself to magically change. Get support from counselors, doctors, nutritionists, internet sites, books, tapes, classes, gyms, local inexpensive sporting programs for kids, weight loss organizations—depending on your time and financial resources. Seeking help is a show of strength. If you don't know where to turn ask your doctor or someone at your child's school.

Don't overwhelm yourself and feel heavy with guilt.

Just make one small change at a time. For example, start by making one food change such as having more cut up vegetables around. Add one family physical outing such as a family walk or outing at a local playground. The fact that you are reading this is a small but important step toward reaching your goals.

Lynn is a breast cancer survivor, a licensed therapist, public speaker, contributor to the book Chocolate for a Woman's Soul : 77 Stories to Feed Your Spirit and Warm Your Heart (Chocolate) and co-author of Count It as A Vegetable . . . and Move On: Ending the Food-Abuse/Self-Abuse of the Typical Dieter.

A New Way to Weigh Less

BY JILL PLACE, MA, RD

Are you dieting at this very moment? Or are you still tussling with those eight pounds that most of us gain during the holidays? And it's eight months later and you just can't bring yourself to diet, right? And cookies keep caaaaalling to you. Can you hear them call your name? Did'ya also know that diet has the word "die" in it?

Here's some statistics about how well diets are working for us:

Over 50% of us are now overweight.

And the diet industry, which takes in $45 billion a year to help us get lighter, has a 5% success rate.

On top of that, 2/3 of us who actually lose weight regain it within one year.

And virtually all of us who lose weight regain it—and then some—within 5 years.

Diets aren't helping us get lighter. Actually, they're helping us get heavier. So how can you Get Lighter? See The Diet I Never Give Everyone.

Count It As a Vegetable and Move On

The following is an excerpt of the first chapter of Count It as A Vegetable ... and Move On: Ending the Food-Abuse/Self-Abuse of the Typical Dieter. by Dolly Cowen, M.A. and Lynne Goldklang, M.A. and reprinted with permission. The concept presented here is for everyone even though the subject matter is centered around weight issues.

"Count it as a vegetable and move on" started at one of my Weight Watcher's meetings. Annie, one of my most dedicated members, was very upset because she had gained two pounds after six months of consistent weight loss. She was desperate.

"Dolly, I want to quit. I binged all weekend after all these months of being good. I even ate a whole cheesecake. How can I fix this? How can I count it? I feel like a failure."

I understood her frustration and longing to fix. That used to be me. I would go on a deprivation diet in an attempt to punish myself and undo the damage quickly. This kind of "fixing" led to self-contempt and giving up. I didn't want this to happen to Annie and struggled to find the words that would reach her.

"Look Annie, you're human. So you ate a whole cheesecake. There is no way to fix it and no way to count it unless you want to count it as all your fats for a year Why don't you just pretend that the whole binge, cheesecake and all, was vegetables. Just count it as a vegetable and move on."

She laughed and agreed to ease up on herself and get back on the program that worked so well for her. She went into the meeting room and told the rest of the group about her new mantra. By the time I came in to start the lecture, it was a hot topic of discussion.

It didn't end with that meeting. People kept coming back week after week with examples of how they were using "Count it as a vegetable" to live with themselves in a better way.

I believe it touched so many people because we are longing for a way to stop our continual character assassination. We want to be more compassionate with ourselves but don't know how.

"Count it as a vegetable" goes way beyond food issues. It is more than a technique to deal with minor incidents in life. There is always an
underlying deeper issue when we turn against ourselves.

You can r ead the rest of this chapter from Count It as A Vegetable ... and Move On. If you have any questions or comments, you can call Lynne at 323-874-5097. If you wish to order the book, call Dolly at 818-725-3235 or order it from Amazon.com.