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Eating and Exercise
One of the changes my family and I have made is trying to buy the right foods. We all do it; I have two other children, and we’re all trying to eat healthily. I also try to motivate the kids to use the community center near our house as a place to exercise, but they don’t really use it as much as they should. I’m constantly reminding them after school, “Go to the community center!” They have all types of activities there to keep them busy, and exercise is the thing that I’m working on with the children. If I could motivate them to get more exercise, that would help out a lot.
It is hard to deny my daughter things. I was rewarding her with food and she liked that. But that stopped when we started the [weight loss] program. We had to keep in mind that this is for her health. We have increased her exercise. She dances, swims every day, takes karate classes, and attends a children’s gym. This fitness center in particular is wonderful, and I highly recommend the classes. She also does gymnastics and we try to take daily family walks. My daughter has chosen activities that she likes and enjoys.
Because my daughter is so young, I have not wanted to make a huge deal about her weight. We call the program our “food plan,” not a diet. I try to lead by example every day by eating healthfully, and we try to exercise together.
Mostly, one-on-one talking helps her set goals; we have to work together on this. For example, she will ask me, “Can you give me a ride there?” and I’ll say, “Why don’t you get your friend and go for a walk?” So I know that she has been active.
Today my son mentioned that there hasn’t been any teasing at school, but we do remember a time when there was teasing. He would come home and be upset but just be quiet and not say anything. We’d say, “What’s the matter?” and he’d say, “Nothing.” Then we’d have to wait, and eventually he’d come out and tell us what was wrong: “Someone was bothering me today,” or “I wasn’t picked,” or “I was the last one picked for basketball.” That was one of the things that was hard for him. So we had to help him to find other activities at which he could excel. We have a sports-oriented town— 90% of the kids play sports and are very athletic— so we had to find other things for him to do and other avenues that would allow him to feel successful.
I told the school nurse about Kaitlyn’s weight issues, because she needed to get weighed and the scale at home didn’t seem to be working. I had the school nurse weigh her, and I also had the homeroom teacher monitor what she was eating, because even though I packed her healthy stuff, she could still find ways to get other things. It’s so that she becomes more responsible for her weight. You know, they’re young, and it’s hard; she feels different from the other kids. Also, our doctor gave us a really nice pedometer, but the exercise is difficult; it’s like pulling teeth. I signed her up for a running group they have down here, where they teach the kids how to run— five year-olds do it! It’s really a nice program. I would suggest getting the kids involved in athletics at a younger age. Just say, “This is what you have to do, whether you have the desire to do it or not.” They just have to participate in these things so that it becomes more of a habit.
I’ve started working out recently, and Sandy seems inspired by that. We’re doing it together. She was always looking at her sister, who’s extremely thin, so I think she feels like she’s got a best friend in it now that I’m doing it. She looks at her sister, who will sit and eat a bag of potato chips and still weighs seventy pounds; she’s over five and a half feet, and she’s nine and a half. Sandy just feels totally foreign to the family sometimes.
We’ve made changes like getting more exercise as a family and getting a pool membership. And we provide more activities for her after school to keep her busy so she doesn’t just watch TV. There are at least two sports she does, but we also chose one musical activity so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by all the sports that she had to do. We want to make sure she knows that she still has to live a balanced life. Helping her to be successful in other ways has been helpful, like with her voice and her musical ability.
I help her by providing encouragement about how much healthier she is and how she breathes better now. And if she continues, it’s all going to be beneficial for her; everything she encounters is going to be a lot easier. She’s asthmatic too, so she couldn’t go up a flight of stairs without coughing and coughing before.
It’s really hard for children with weight issues, and basically I’ve learned not to bring the bad food into the house. If foods that are no good for them are out of the house, it’s less tempting.
I’m overweight myself, so I know how hard it is for my children. I know how hard it is when you go out to eat. And when we have an appointment here at the hospital, they cannot eat anything; they have to fast because they get blood work done. On those days, I try to pack them a lunch with sandwiches, apples, and water; I try to stay away from things like fast food. I love certain foods, so I try not to put the kids in a situation where they’re hungry and the first thing we see is a fast food place, so we go to a fast food place. Basically, I’m trying to teach the kids that I’m trying, so I want them to try too. Since I have the same problem, I don’t think it would be fair if I pushed them to do this and to do that when I’m not trying myself. I’m trying to be a role model. I want them to look up to me and say, “Okay, she’s doing it, so I can do it too.”
Dinnertime is usually when we talk about weight issues such as planning the meals we’re going to eat. I try to give them choices, and one good thing about my children is that they love vegetables. But it can be so tough. For example, they went to a birthday party and everyone was eating junk; it’s tough when they are surrounded by poor food choices. I try to tell them, “Okay, you know you’re going to this party, so you can have one thing.” You can’t just cut out everything. Try to get them to incorporate this into their daily lives. Even at school— before, my daughter would always have juice, but ever since we saw the nutritionist, she’s been buying water or milk instead. So I tell her, “That’s good.” Just try to encourage them.
If you can, you should definitely talk to a nutritionist. Inform yourself about what is healthy and what is not, because I think a lot of people have the wrong ideas. Try to keep healthy food around and not junk food, because having junk in the house makes it much harder on the child and it’s not fair to them. Besides, it’s a good idea for the whole family to eat healthily. I carry a lot of guilt, and I think it’s easier for me to say to somebody else, “Don’t do that” and “Don’t give up.” Weight loss plans can be very frustrating for you and for the child— it’s hard!
Her brother is fifteen and he does not pay much attention to any of this. He has complained that there is never anything good to eat in the house, but I explain to him that even though he is at a point where he doesn’t have to worry about the number of calories he consumes, he should still strive towards eating healthily. Just because he doesn’t need to lose weight doesn’t mean that he should be allowed to eat only junk food.
When my daughter is with her friends, or when she’s out of the house with other people, I don’t restrict her. I tell her friends’ parents to try to stay away from juices and sodas, but if the kids are having a sugary snack, then she’s allowed to have it. If they’re going out to a movie and they’re having popcorn or candy, that’s fine, but she should have water with it. I try not to make her feel different, but it’s hard, because I don’t want her to completely undo what we’ve done in one day.
One of the greatest stressors is when my daughter goes out with her friends on Friday and Saturday nights, like when she goes to the movies. I don’t want her to buy popcorn or the same snacks as her friends. I’m just trying to modify her food choices for her. Really, that is the biggest obstacle.
He likes to cook, so we decided to involve him more in the cooking and food preparation process, so that he can appreciate the effort that goes into making food and also help to make food choices. We want to get him involved in those choices as much as possible.
We meet with resistance when he comes home from school and he’s hungry. They eat so early in the morning, especially in high school, and then they don’t have lunch until eleven or twelve o’clock. By lunchtime they’re ravenous, but they don’t have enough time to eat. So he gets home from school, and if there wasn’t anything he liked at lunch or he didn’t bring enough to eat, he’s very hungry by that time. So the issue is snacking. We try to be better about eating. He’ll bring a meal bar and a piece of fruit to school, and then have a yogurt after school instead of something that doesn’t fill you up like crackers or cereal. We’re trying to set him on a course, but a lot of it has to come from him; we can only do so much. He has to decide if he wants to do it.
My son is very athletic and loves sports, so it’s easy for me to make exercise fun. But if a child is not athletic, I think the best thing you can do as a parent is to get excited about exercise. That makes a huge difference. Ask them what they want to do. If they love running, then run with them. At a young age, you need to show them rather than tell them; be a role model. If you’re going around moaning, “Oh, I’ve got to exercise today,” they’re going to pick up that attitude. But if you act like it’s fun and it’s just something that you do, that makes a huge difference. As far as eating goes, again, it’s more about your habits. I think a lot of my son’s overeating was caused by the quick, “Oh, we’ve got to get to hockey practice; let’s just run through a fast food place and grab a hamburger.” And of course that includes the fries and the soda. One thing that’s huge is sitting down for meals at suppertime; you should plan your meals. People don’t realize that it’s not only a family thing, but it also makes everyone less focused on food. Having a set dinnertime is also good, and my kids love it.
I’ve cut down on buying soda, and I’ve tried to buy healthier snacks. My kids will eat vegetables and fruits, and since I work I buy those pre-cut vegetables. They’re more apt to snack on them if they’re there and already prepared. But my family has been affected. My son is very frustrated, very attitude-y. That is what has affected us most, and it carries over into his whole life. He’s constantly down on himself; he doesn’t think he’s good at anything because of the way he looks. And it’s affected my other kids too. They don’t mind not having soda around, but when we go to buy clothes and we can’t find anything to fit him, it bothers them. Those are the most difficult things for me as a mother— finding clothes that are “cool” but also fit well.
We set a goal about limiting how much soda he drinks, and he’s done very well with that. I try not to nag. And if he says, “Oh, mom, I messed up; I had two sodas today,” I’ll say, “Let’s just try to do better next time.” I try not to make him feel like he’s a failure just because he failed one time— that’s a big thing. You’ve got to let them know that they should just try harder next time. We're also trying to make portions smaller.
We haven’t been affected badly by the changes, because a lot of us here are overweight. We just look at it more as healthy eating— eating the way we all should eat. It’s educational for us. And we’re all making the change together, because that’s the only way it works. I actually dragged my husband here, making him take a personal day, and told him, “You explain to the dietician why you can’t go on a diet with me.” Until he did that, it really wasn’t helpful for any of us. Now we all come in together, and we all get weighed— that’s the whole key. My son [who is not in the OWL program] thinks he’s not overweight, and he’s right, but his body is changing. I tell him, “This is the way you’re supposed to eat, not the way just one of us has to eat because she’s overweight.”
His siblings have been very supportive, but junk food is a big issue. Our nutritionist tells us specifically what to eat as a treat. We found this ice cream that’s eighty calories, and we go out once a week for it. We try not to have junk in the house, because if you don’t have the bad food around, you don’t eat it as much. We also got a treadmill and the whole family uses it.
Stay away from juices. And make sure the family exercises together; make it part of your daily routine to do something active. Try to incorporate it early in the day, so you don’t feel like you’re catching up to do it. It’s pretty easy in the summer— it can be as simple as a family walk or a family bike ride. That’s what we’ve been trying to do lately. And always allow at least one “down day,” when if they don’t feel like doing it they don’t have to. Don’t push them.
Eating out has been affected. When my daughter goes to a restaurant, she doesn’t order French fries; she orders a salad instead, even though she’s seven and a half. It’s hard to see restaurants say no. We’ve seen restaurants tell her no, or ask her, “Will your mom pay an extra dollar?” That’s hard to see. We’ve had fast food places say, “No free toy” when she ordered a salad because she didn't order one of those bad-for-you kids’ meals that they offer. We said, “We have two kids, so we’d like two toys.” And they said, “That’ll be an extra dollar for a toy for her,” even though the salad that she got actually costs more than the kid’s meal. That’s been hard to see, and it’s still something that hurts. But on the positive side, it’s really nice to see her go and order the salad. It makes her proud, that she knows enough to do that, and she enjoys the salad. That’s the best thing— to know that she does it, and does it almost without thinking, at this point. I’m still mad at those fast food places. I’m like, “How much does a toy cost? Why can’t they put a salad in a kid’s meal?” Because that’s the hardest thing that we find when we’re going places: we have to be aware and set more time aside so that she can eat healthily.
Review the materials that the clinicians give you at your own pace. Don’t forget to refer to them. The nutritionist gives out a lot of good menus that you can look at if you get stuck. She also plays a game where half of your plate is supposed to be salad, and the other half is broken down into thirds. We usually keep that as a reference for how our plates should look— how much protein we need etc. If we’re having a bad day, we go back to that so that we can gain some control over a day that’s gone out of control in terms of eating and making healthy choices.
I have two things that I would recommend. The first one we discovered early on, because the first time we came to the program was one week before Halloween. We live in a big neighborhood, so a lot of candy comes out on Halloween. What we did was we traded in a certain number of pieces of candy for something else, like a prize. For instance, thirty pieces of candy would allow our daughter to get a CD that she wanted. But we tried not to make it all material; a lot of the prizes were time with mom or time with dad. She wanted to spend time shooting hoops with her father, so that was worth 10 pieces of candy. We also went to the movies together, just the two of us— a mom and daughter night at the movies. And we went hiking and collected pinecones for Christmas ornaments. We did things like that, so that there were some activity-based rewards rather then all material rewards. The second thing that was hard was that she’s a great protein-eater and loves her carbs, but she doesn’t eat fruits and vegetables. So our big thing was making a chart, and we set up a prize as our goal. What she chose was a basket for her bike, so that at the beach she could put her towel and things in it and ride around. We thought that was a great prize. She’s tried about six vegetables and likes four of them, so we have gotten her eating things that she hasn’t eaten since she was a baby. We just try to do fun, activity-based things, but we don’t hound her. If she doesn’t want to try the vegetable that night, then she doesn’t have to try it that night; it has been very much my daughter’s choice.
It’s been an inspiration to see her commit to something. We all completely support and encourage her all the time. It’s a big event when she tries a vegetable; here we all cheer at the table. We also learned a lot of things from the nutritionist. For example, we always used to drink skim milk, but we learned that skim milk isn’t really what we should be drinking; we should be drinking one percent milk because you’re not getting all of the nutrients and Vitamin D with skim milk. So now we are all drinking one percent milk instead of skim. And if you are watching television, which you are not supposed to do because it is so sedentary, you should also be doing something else, like playing solitaire or knitting. For example, when my son is watching television, I’ll put blocks out so that he will build; you actually burn more calories that way because you are using your mind, which I never realized. I think all of this has just raised the awareness of everybody in the family about what we eat, what we need to eat, and what we should and shouldn’t be eating. I think it has been a good thing for all of us.
The biggest things that we cut back on were the beverages that we were drinking. No more juices, and sodas have been really limited. Sarah almost never drinks soda, and if she does, it’s a diet soda on a special occasion. My five year-old is drinking either milk or water, and that is a change that I don’t think he really realized was happening; I just stopped giving juices to him. My fourteen year old encourages her sister, but she is not necessarily herself taking on as many of the good habits as we would like for her to take on. But she is very positive, upbeat and helpful, and she is slowly making some of the changes. Certainly, Sarah’s father encourages her in a big way. But I can’t really say that it has affected the household as a whole in any huge way; there have just been mild changes.
Initially I didn’t talk about my daughter’s weight with anyone because it was her business. Then as she became more comfortable and more vocal, she was the one to say things to people. At that point I felt more comfortable talking to good friends about it. I still don’t go around talking about her situation, where she is going and what she is doing with everybody. But I have friends whose children are in situations similar to my daughter’s, and I have recommended to them that they see a nutritionist. Not necessarily at the program we’re in, because you don’t need the whole program. But a nutritionist is a good place to start so you can learn the really simple, little things you can change in your life. For instance, I think most of my daughter’s success is because of what she drinks; she drinks water and milk now, and she doesn’t drink juice anymore. I thought that giving her orange juice in the morning was a wonderful thing. But I learned that she should be drinking milk instead, and it made an immediate difference in her. I also used to pack her a juice box at lunch, but now she buys milk at school too. But I held off on talking about all of this until I knew she and I were both comfortable to a certain extent with sharing what we’re doing, because it’s her business and I wouldn’t ever want to violate her privacy.
I think that, as a parent, the most important thing is for you to get on board with your child’s plan. Don’t tell them they can’t have ice cream and then sit down and have a bowl of ice cream yourself. Also, I don’t think you should ever tell them that they can’t have something, because it is all about moderation. We still go out for ice cream, so it’s not like she is never again going to have ice cream, but we don’t go out for ice cream every week. I drink water and milk rather than juice and soda because I am on board with her. Getting on the program with them is not going to hurt anybody, because it’s completely healthy and it’s not a diet; it’s just healthful living. So there is no reason that everyone shouldn’t get involved. Just be there for them.
I think what really helped were the meal bars, because we can buy them in bulk, and he has one a day. He gets special permission— a note from the doctor saying that he can have one at mid-morning. Kids have breakfast so early— I mean they’re on the bus going to school at like 7 in the morning, so they don’t have much time to eat a balanced breakfast. So he got special permission, since you’re not supposed to eat until lunchtime. The morning snack allows him to have a light lunch, and them he comes home and has another snack. I think it was an important factor in him losing weight. I think they really helped in his success, because speaking from personal experience, sometimes the overpowering desire for a candy bar can make you fall off of your diet. But with the meal bar you know they are not that bad for you. If you’re out somewhere, you can get one anywhere, and you can subdue your desire to eat a real candy bar.
The nice thing is that my son’s dietary needs and my dietary needs are largely similar. We got foods that were generally lower in carbs and we arranged meals that were lower in carbs, so instead of doing a meal with three carb dishes we arranged meals that only had one. For example, tonight for dinner we had macaroni and cheese, but we also had hot dogs. In the past we always used hot dog buns, but we don’t do that anymore— we just have the hot dogs. Greg is also involved in swimming and karate at the YMCA. My wife and I have a gotten a family membership at the YMCA and we try to work out on a regular basis, between two and three times a week.
We try not to bring weight up. We make Greg aware that he is in the Optimal Weight for Life clinic. He has been very accepting of that program. We say, “You can’t have that, but you can have this.” He might ask to have a cookie or chips, and we’ll say, "You know Greg, why don’t you have some watermelon instead?” Instead of ice cream I make smoothies for myself. What I do is mix some artificial sweetener with some yogurt, some frozen fruit, and some milk in a blender and serve it. It is actually pretty thick, so it comes out looking like soft serve ice cream. It’s quite delicious, and he likes it a lot too. There will be times when he’ll want to eat something unhealthy and we will have to say no. But as far as goals go, we really don’t set rigid goals; we just do our best. We aim to make sure that he is eating properly and in a way that will serve him well.
On pizza day at school, when the classrooms orders pizza, the nutritionist suggested we give Greg cracker bread with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on it. He really liked it, so I sent him into school with it for pizza day, but now he says that he wants to be able to eat the same pizza that everyone else gets to eat. So that worked for a while, but now he doesn’t want to do it anymore. So now he’s allowed to eat one slice of pizza along with a salad that I send in. Before, we were eating macaroni and cheese like it was a whole meal, but now we just do the macaroni and cheese as a side serving, and we get the healthier kind. We also make sure that we have it with hot dogs or meat so that we are fuller afterwards.
Smaller Meals and Physical Activity Learning what makes you feel full was a really important concept for us to grasp. They also told us to eat frequent meals— about six small meals a day. We used to do three meals a day and really discourage snacking; we used to think snacking was bad because we would know that he had eaten a lot for lunch so we would not want him to snack. But now we encourage eating less at meals and snacking more. Now everywhere we go we bring snacks with us— even in the car. That way when he asks for something and he can’t have what he wants to have, we have an alternative. Also, they recommended that we get more physically active, so we got a family membership at the YMCA. He now goes to swimming lessons and karate lessons once a week, and we also try to get him in during the weekends. |
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. July 10, 2005 |
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