Overweight Children/Daughters

The best way I have been able to encourage my daughters with weight issues is I say I need to and then I have each of us do some research and decide which is best way for us and after we go over the ideas and pick one we kind of work together. Do up a list together listing ideas to work at. On Oprah's site you can print off contracts and each sign one. Make up a special folder and so on. Make it mostly about getting healthier and less about the weight. Also, it has been fun when we start out to do a weigh in and measurements that we can compare once a week or month. I think the best approach is make it a team effort. And the focus being getting Healthier. By getting healthier, one of the goals would be a healthier weight for each ones age, height and weight. Also, by researching together, my girls have seemed more interested in info they find. I wish you and yours a very healthier year ahead which is what we are going to work at. Good luck.

If my daughter was overweight I would Always make sure she has a Good Breakfast. Never let her out the door without a good breakfast. Make sure she has her lunch with her (or can get one at school. She needs a lettuce sandwich for lunch and a glass of water to drink. NO POP! none, Zilch!No Pototo chips. For dinner she can eat with the Family. A healthy helping of potatoes and meat, vegetables, raw fruit and milk to drink. No prepared food, no POP, no cookies, make sure she has a good healthy dinner. NO snacks before bed, no potato chips NO POP! All the water she wants to drink, and Tomorrow is another day! Yes kids need exercise every day. Swimming lessons are great, Yoga classes are wonderful, play basketball or field hockey.

I've seen a healthy, NOT fat 4-year-old look at herself in a mirror and say that she needs to lose weight because she has a tummy. She picked that crap up from her stepmother, who had a lot of self-esteem issues and was constantly harping on EVERYBODY's weight. I was not overweight as a child, but I was way ahead of my peers in reaching my adult height and starting to develop a figure. My parents responded by harping on my weight. I ended up with an eating disorder that ruined my metabolism. Toss out the BMI and charts and so on. Is your child active? If not, help her find something she enjoys doing. My daughter started dancing when she was about 3, and while she also tried softball, cheerleading, and soccer, that's still her preferred way to get exercise. She loves it, so it isn't work. Different kids make different choices, so give each of them a chance to try different things 'til they find what's right for them. Don't even consider putting a child on a "diet." Serve healthy, tasty food to the whole family. Make sure everybody knows what reasonable portions/servings are, and serve food by those guidelines. Don't keep soda in the house, and if you must have juice around, serve it highly diluted with water. Kids need a lot of calcium, so milk is good, but so are cheese and yogurt and other sources of it. Don't go low fat with kids, either--they need a reasonable amount of fat in their diets. Whole milk is good for them. Keep healthy stuff available and easily edible, like sliced veggies and fruit. Don't keep cookies, ice cream, or candy in the house. I can't stress enough that your kids have to see YOU eating healthily and being active for this to work. Don't talk about weight. Do talk about how good it feels to get moving. Cut off the cable/satellite television. Put the TV in a cabinet, only opening it when you have some specific DVD or the like to watch. There's a direct negative correlation between how much TV kids watch and how active they are. There's also a significant connection between media exposure and negative self-images, especially for girls, but we're starting to see more and more of it in boys, too. Limit any other screen time, too - computers, game consoles, etc. It's good for them to know how to use the internet, and to be able to use it for homework assignments and staying in touch with real-life friends and family. It is NOT good for them to "live" on it. Now that the screens are gone, be engaged as a family. Go out for a walk. Set up a badminton/volleyball net and play. Play frisbee. Walk the dog together. Go swimming. Play games as a family. Read something together and talk about it. Learn to make something together. Try geocaching or letterboxing. Have fun. Your kids will be more likely to pay more attention to you than to peer pressure if you're having fun together on a regular basis. Check out Dads & Daughters for more good ideas - http://dadsanddaughters.org/ . New Moon Media is wonderful, too - http://newmoongirlmedia.com/ . Good luck!

Well after ruling out any health problems the best is not just a well-balanced diet, but to make sure the food is as live as can be. Live means organic and the vegetables cooked as little as possible, (no microwaving), and lots of water and exercise. Don't completely eliminate something the child really likes, like sweets, but allow an occasional treat. Because if completely eliminated, she will crave it to the point of binging when she does get some. Also, check with her doctor to see how many calories she needs, and slowly cut them if she is getting too many. If she gets hungry between meals, allow her to eat, fruits vegetables, or even a glass of water can stop the hunger pangs.. And most important, think of this as a lifestyle, not a diet and support her, go along with her and exercise and eat like she does. When she sees you trying to get healthy, it will encourage her to also to continue to care for herself and her self-esteem will rise as she starts feeling better about herself..:) I hope that helps, deajolin..

If my child was overweight, I would wait until he/she is at least 13 years old to take any action. I don't want them to start a strict diet/workout routine when they're still so young. By the time they turn 13, I will make them eat more healthy foods. Instead of eating snacks with high calories and fat, I will make them subsitute them with healthy snacks such as fruits and wheat treats. Instead of making them drink soda, which contains very high amounts of sodium, sugar, and caffeine, I will make them drink more water, juice, or fruit drinks instead. Also, I will make them go jogging for at least 20-30 mins everyday. I wouldn't put them on a serious workout routine just yet. At what age does a girl start to "think she's not thin enough"? Well that varies among individuals. I beleive PEER PRESSURE has a lot to do with this. Some children might realize this after getting into high school and some children realize it even before middle school starts. If the child is constantly made fun on because of his/her weight, then he/she will feel self-doubt. They will begin to feel more insecure about themselves. So there is no specific "age" related to when children feel they aren't thin enough. It's all about peer pressure and wanting to fit in.

Eating isn't the only cause of obesity. Lack of exercise isn't the only cause of obesity. Sometimes there are chemicals in the brain that cause people to gain weight. Sometimes a stressfull home environement leads to comfort eating. Sometimes it is metabolism. I know a teen girl (13), who is very active. I mean very very active. She plays basketball on league teams and at school so she is practicing all the time. She also plays volleyball. She is not a lazy child. She also doesn't overeat at meal time. She is in a very stressfull environment with her mother. I also think, although it hasn't been checked out, that she may have inherited high blood pressure from her father. Our society has been really bad about trying to fit everyone into this "Ideal Size". There is no such thing. I was chunky in high school. Not overweight really, 5'6" 140 pounds, but I felt fat. As an adult, I dropped to 90 pounds due to stress. Funny thing was, I ate all the time. High calorie, high fat foods and didn't gain an ounce. I found out that I digested my food very slowly. I would also eat throughout the day. That did have a tendency to reduce the amount of food I ate at regular meal time because I just wasn't as hungry. While it's good for kids to be active, a regular workout routine is something that should be discussed with the child's doctor. There have been some studies done that show that if a person breaks their meals into several small portions throughout the day, they process the calories better. They also develop less desire to overeat at regular meal time. My two sons have been complete opposites growing up. My oldest, while he weighed 8 lbs 5 oz at birth, was a scrawny, skinny little thing all through school until his junior year, when he started doing weights and buffed himself out. He was always active, and outside, roping the practice dummy or the goats. He always had to be doing something. My youngest weighed 5 lbs 13 oz (he was 3 weeks early) at birth. He just kept going and going and by the time he was 2, his brother was 4 1/2 and people thought they were twins. My younger one has always been stocky built like his father. He is active, rides his bicycle sometimes 8-10 miles a day. He does get a little chunkier in the winter, but in the summer, he doesn't really carry fat, he's just built stocky. I am stating this to demonstrate that some of this is inherited. My side of the family is full of skinny people. My grandmother never wore over a size 4, and was an inch taller than me until she started to shrink from old age. My grandfather was tall and skinny. The father of my boys (my ex husband) has a mix of both. While his dad's family was all skinny people, his mother's side were all very large, overweight people. He is stocky built but can put on extra pounds easy. His sisters are both fat. I watched his mother and older sister try all the diets, phenphen all that stuff, and they couldn't lose any weight. Some is inherited and some is what you do with what you got. Don't use the Strict diet, try using a healthy diet. Limit snacking to healthy foods. (Fruits and raw veggies). Take family walks. But always check with your doctor if you think a child's weight is out fo controll.

Hi deajolin, If the problem is not related to any diseases like thyroid or genetic where we can do very little that too under the advise of the doctor, you have to put your daughter under strict diet and also vigorous exercise. However, since she is a girl it is better to visit a doctor and find out what was the cause for her obesity and then get in to treatment. Good Luck.