Your child is bullied at school, hates what she sees when looking in the mirror or is skipping meals or turning to food for comfort. Watching from the sidelines, worried parents may feel paralyzed with fear on how to help their kids battling weight woes or obesity.
But experts say parents – and the family as a whole – hold the key to helping their kids forge healthier, happy lives. They need to strike the right balance though: teaching your kids the wrong concepts could create negative relationships with diet and exercise that linger into adulthood.
Dr. Elizabeth Dettmer, a Hospital for Sick Children psychologist in Toronto, said she understands it isn’t easy for parents.
“It is really hard, even as a mental health provider. Because of the way society is so negative about weight, people experience so much judgement. Even if parents don’t feel judgemental, it can be tricky on how to word things,” she told Global News.
“I’ve had parents come up and say, ‘How do I even approach this with my child?’” she said. Dettmer is the mental health lead at SickKids’ obesity management program.
She, along with Dr. Natasha Johnson, a McMaster University pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine, work with families with kids struggling with weight issues, from being severely obese to anorexia.
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They share their tips on how parents can help their kids grappling with weight bodies, unhealthy relationships with food and poor body image.
Make this a family conversation: No child can be singled out, even if she or she is the sole person grappling with weight problems or self-esteem issues stemming from their appearance. Getting healthy and creating better habits have to be a family commitment, Dettmer said.
“Sometimes families don’t like this message because it means adults have to alter their behaviour, too. We find this whole approach more effective, though,” Dettmer said.
If teens are self-conscious, they may not want to go to the gym or even for a walk without family members to accompany them. Eating salad alone at the table is demoralizing, too.
Sit your child down, explain your thoughts and ask them if they’d like to contribute to the discussion.
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“Parents can say something like, ‘I’ve been reading a lot about health and I’m thinking as a family, what we could do to improve our health. What do you think from your perspective?” Dettmer offered.
You could suggest taking a hike on Sunday mornings as a family, or daily walks after dinner. You could even create a challenge that would have family members swap their 3 p.m. snack for fruit on weekdays.
Don’t focus on weight – yours or your child’s: Kids are like sponges, and if you’re constantly nitpicking your appearance, your child is watching your behaviour.
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Kids could take up skipping meals, barely eating or avoiding entire food groups out of fear of weight gain. In other instances, experts have worried about teens relying on vomiting, laxatives and diuretics to try to control what the scale reads.
READ MORE: Here’s how to approach teen obesity, eating disorders, according to new guidelines
“Mothers who talk about their own bodies and weights can inadvertently encourage their kids to have body dissatisfaction, which we see in half of teens and a quarter of boys,” Dr. Neville Golden, a paediatrics professor at Stanford University, said.
This month, the university published a new set of approaches that parents can use to address obesity and eating disorders in their teenage kids. Among them: not talking about weight, or teasing about weight or size.
Don’t go on a diet: Creating a list of forbidden foods and drawing a line between good and bad meals spells trouble for your kids.
“You want to avoid drastic dieting. We always think of a quick fix, a drastic diet, but what we know is usually what happens is people lose it and regain it quickly and they cause yo-yo dieting. This causes a metabolism problem and makes you feel trapped,” Dettmer warned.
Johnson, who has two kids who are 8 and 12, won’t categorize snacks as “healthy” and “unhealthy.”
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“The kids I see in my office are dangerously ill from eating ‘healthy foods,” she said.
“I think the message about healthy lifestyle should be one of balance. It’s equally unhealthy to eat only chips as it is to eat only apples…it just presents with different physical problems,” she explained.
Kids could create unhealthy relationships with their favourite treats deemed as “gluttonous” if you tell them they’re banned from the house. Some teens become obsessed with calorie-counting, skipping meals, or bingeing and purging after starving all day.
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You’re better off focusing on foods your family will be eating more. The Canada Food Guide calls for at least five servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables – if you’re making that a priority, you won’t need to emphasize cutting processed food out of your kids’ diets.
Promote exercise for better health, not weight loss: If your family is committing to visiting the gym three times a week, or going for bike rides or runs after school, they’re doing this to reap the health benefits.
Your kids shouldn’t feel like they’re working out to fit into a bikini – they’re bettering their heart health, their physical strength and endurance and feeding their mental health, too.
“You’re promoting exercise to be healthy rather than to achieve a healthy look,” Johnson said.
Start small and build up: Your family could be excited to get a new plan going, but to make these changes sustainable, you need to chip away at your habits. Pick one area you want to work on first, such as healthy eating. Try to stick to cooking at home at least four times a week and once your family is comfortable with this new lifestyle habit, take on another step.
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“We talk about small goals and building up. So you pick one thing, make it a habit and then move on,” Dettmer explained.
Get your kids to throw some skin into the game, too. They can look up recipes they may want to try, or research hiking trails or community sports teams they may want to join.
Teach acceptance and reassurance: Dettmer has counselled teens who are scared to eat in public or feel worthless because of comments from their peers and even adults.
In one case, a teen was asked if she should be eating a granola bar because of her weight.
Teach your kids not to judge someone based solely on their appearance. Society often assumes a person is overweight because they eat poorly or don’t take care of themselves, Dettmer said.
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“Be honest with your kids. Tell them about when you may have been bullied in the past – maybe it was weight, too. It’s really hard when you’re a teenager but it gets better,” she offered.
Tell your kids it is really hurtful, but that things will get easier and that you’re there for them.
Pay attention to the warning signs: There are some tell-tale signs that your child is struggling with an eating disorder or is grappling with serious body image troubles. Some kids will skip meals at school and come home only to binge uncontrollably; in other cases, food could be missing from the pantry and empty wrappers and boxes could be stashed in kids’ bedrooms. Some kids take up emotional eating right in front of their parents.
Dettmer said kids could be stressed getting ready for school more so than what’s typical.
“They could be in tears, or ask to stop going to school,” she warned.
Get professional help: If parents are concerned and don’t know what to do or where to start, visit your family doctor. A primary care doctor could do a quick assessment on your child to confirm if weight issues are of concern, if underlying medication concerns are at play, or if your child is simply going through a growth spurt.
“They may be in a healthy weight range, and this could provide reassurance,” Johnson said.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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