WWYD re:kids weight

[AnnaFloridaLover]

I didn't insinuate anything. I said your opinion is not any more valid than anyone else's here and IMO it's not. Like the rest of us the OP will have to filter the good from the bad and make the decisions that are right for her lifestyle and her family. IMO if she's going to see a professional it should be someone with a degree, that's a dietitian.

Please tell us what degree you have decided the person should have a degree in. Thanks in advance.

 

[aprilgail]

Completely agree. My 8 year old is 90lbs (however she is tall for her age and always has been). She has a little tummy, but otherwise is just solid.
Her school sends the physical evaluation every year which indicates her BMI is high and she is technically overweight. I just shake my head at it. The doctor is beyond unconcerned with it. She is a very active child. She takes 4 45 minute dance classes from Sept - June, and just requested that I sign her up for cheer this year (which I have). She rarely eats meat (very few types she likes), and would spend her entire day eating fruit and veggies if she could (nothing I had to ever push on her, just always her preference). And drinks? I could offer soda, chocolate milk and water, and she picks water every time.

She has growing to do, and her belly is just storing what she needs as she continues to shoot up. Here she is a couple of weeks ago at her recital:

View attachment 247116

FYI: her Musical Theater dance was "Step in Time".

How tall is your daughter? My 17 year old weighs 86 pounds- I think a lot is genetic, my daughters fathers side are all thin and she takes after their side thank goodness! Her father was telling me in college he was 105 pounds- he said he was still shopping in the childrens dept in college and that is my daughters fate too LOL. She can still wear clothes that Justice sells (though she wouldn't be caught dead in those!).
OP I would get your daughter into more activities, when my daughter was young she played racquetball at a local racquetball club and in that same club they had a kids gym- same type machines in adult gyms but kid sized with very light weights and she loved going there working out on the machines. Even though she did not need it for weight control it was still good to get the exercise in.

 

[wenrob]

Oh lord, I feel like I did when I mixed up psychiatrist with psychologist, not realizing there was a difference.

Oh well... at least I did say she should ask her doctor for a referral. Presumably s/he'll direct her to the right kind of expert!

(Don't ask me the difference between optician and optometrist, either. My eye doctor has a degree, and that's all I know.)

People use the words interchangeably but there's a difference.
http://www.nutritioned.org/dietitian-vs-nutritionist.html

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

Her dr may not be a nutritionist but her dr can tell her what, if anything, she can do. Everyone is assuming the child is overweight without even seeing the child. We have no idea if she is truly overweight. If the dr says yes she needs to get some weight off then he/she can recommend who she see next.

What she certainly does not need to do is make some extreme changes all at one time. That will backfire.

Adding activity and making it family activity is easy and doesn't make the child feel like she is being punished. And that may be all she needs to do.

The Op has clearly stated that the doctor has not given her any advice on the the child's apparent "overweightness".

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

People use the words interchangeably but there's a difference.
http://www.nutritioned.org/dietitian-vs-nutritionist.html

Really? Who knew but you?

 

[wenrob]

Really? Who knew but you?

You sure are fired up just because I disagree with you.

 

[georgina]

I agree also with the pp that said 'moderation'! My Mom used to tell us that - I 'still' live by that and keep a healthy weight! I will never tell myself I 'can't' have any particular food, because then that's what I'll crave! I 'will' have my chocolate, but in moderation! LOL That's how we raised our children also - no over weights there!

How fortunate for you! There are some foods I am unable to stop eating, so know not to bring into the house. Others I can eat in moderation. I also have 3 non-overweight adult children. My DS does not like things like cake and candy at all, not sure how he got like that, but it was good because his favorite activity is playing video games, even now as an adult.

As for the OP, I think it is good she is concerned, and would not just do nothing and expect her DD to grow out of it. There is a lot of advice here, they may need to experiment to see what works best for her family.

 

[Klayfish]

How tall is your daughter? My 17 year old weighs 86 pounds-

17 years old and 86 lbs? Holy smokes! Feed that poor girl. My DD9 weighs more that now.

I will throw in that a lot of the discussion is centered around the number that shows up on the scale. Weight on a scale SHOULD NOT be the ultimate judge of obesity or "thin". There are unquestionably different body types (though I don't believe that morbid obesity has anything to do with body type), and that can effect the number on the scale. Some people are just tall and lanky by their genetics. They will likely weigh less than someone else who is the same height as them but is very broad shouldered and/or chested....even if they have the same BMI or body fat %. Also, muscle is much heavier than fat (per sq inch), so weight lifters weigh more than cardio bunnies. I realize not many kids that age are into lifting, but my point is the same. My kids all play sports. My boys are both football players. DS13 is on the defensive line. Poor kid only weighs 130lbs...which is an improvement from last years 110. He plays against kids who are 160 lbs, but his height and aren't obese, they're just larger. DS9 is 110lbs but is just a tank. DW weighs...ahhh...I know better than to actually disclose that.......but I will tell you that the number on the scale is much higher than you'd think. However, she's more muscular than pretty much any woman you will ever see, and her body fat is incredibly low.

Don't be a slave to the number on the scale. Proper health, nutrition, exercise and the number will be what it will be.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Nobody on this forum is your child's doctor. You should talk to your child's doctor.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Really? Who knew but you?

I know there's a difference between a psychiatrist and psychologist but not between dietitian and nutritionist. But it figures that they don't mean the same thing

 

[Wishing on a star]

Okay, guys....
arguing and throwing shade at everyone who might not offer the exact same knowledge or advice as you is not helping here.
With a couple of exceptions, I have not seen any 'scary' or 'dangerous' suggestions here.
Mostly a lot of good info about eating healthier, more unprocessed foods, and moderation.

What I have found to be scary is any suggestion that totally fake toxic foods like pop-tarts or so-called 'meat' snacks are okay.
While other normal foods are not available. Meats and veggies are 'limited'.
This type of diet, IMHO, is scary, and borders on child endangerment.

But, that is my opinion and my thoughts.... I will offer my advice. That is what a chat-board is all about.
I don't need to, and won't, argue this personally with anyone here.
That is just not helpful to anyone.

 

[Klayfish]

Okay, guys....
arguing and throwing shade at everyone who might not offer the exact same knowledge or advice as you is not helping here.
With a couple of exceptions, I have not seen any 'scary' or 'dangerous' suggestions here.
Mostly a lot of good info about eating healthier, more unprocessed foods, and moderation.

What I have found to be scary is any suggestion that totally fake toxic foods like pop-tarts or so-called 'meat' snacks are okay.
While other normal foods are not available. Meats and veggies are 'limited'.
This type of diet, IMHO, is scary, and borders on child endangerment.

But, that is my opinion and my thoughts.... I will offer my advice. That is what a chat-board is all about.
I don't need to, and won't, argue this personally with anyone here.
That is just not helpful to anyone.

The only thing I'd say about that is that I don't think "toxic" foods like pop-tarts and such should be totally forbidden for kids. As I've mentioned in a lot of threads, we're very health conscious, to an extreme for DW and I. We make the kids eat healthy foods, no doubt, and a lot of them. But they are 13, 9 and 9. I see nothing wrong with eating a pop tart sometimes, or some Cheeze-Itz or ice cream. If we teach them smart habits and that junk food is a treat, not a staple food, I have no issues with it.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

To my knowledge there is only one Registered Dietician (RD) on this thread and that is Monakayln, who posted at the bottom of page 1. You cannot compare the knowledge of an RD, which comes from getting a degree in Nutrition and involves many years worth of courses in the various sciences, to anything less. There is a difference between a "nutritionist" and a Registered Dietician. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, whereas not every nutritionist is an RD. (Although sometimes RDs are sometimes called nutritionists. It can be a little confusing but there it is.)

I work collaboratively with Registered Dieticians in a hospital and they are fully versed in things like physiology and chemistry and pharmacology and putting it altogether for any given patient in order to make recommendations for improved nutritional status so the patient can heal. This is why people mistakenly believe "doctors don't know anything about nutrition". It's not that; it's just that they recognize the RD's expertise and defer to them when it comes to matters of nutrition. Real nutritional knowledge, not junk science. That also doesn't mean that your own doctor doesn't know much about nutrition, necessarily. They study it as well, have the latest information at their fingertips, and regularly attend seminars to stay up to date on latest matters of nutrition.

Here is how seriously Harvard Medical School takes it:
http://nutrition.med.harvard.edu/

And since we're on the subject, nurses' education (RN), too, requires a college course in Nutrition (along with all the other sciences, humanities and putting it all together courses which are fall under Nursing), because in my job, for instance, I'm responsible for teaching patients about dietary guidelines for their disease, and educating them on other matters pertinent to their health, etc. The RD also sees the same patients as well. We work together. We all have the latest information for patients at our fingertips and are required to take continuing education courses and required courses in-hospital, as well. Matters in nutrition, obesity, anorexia, cachexia, malnutrition, cholesterol reduction, etc., often come up. So I think the myth that "doctors don't know anything about nutrition" can be put to rest.

 

[Magpie]

The only thing I'd say about that is that I don't think "toxic" foods like pop-tarts and such should be totally forbidden for kids. As I've mentioned in a lot of threads, we're very health conscious, to an extreme for DW and I. We make the kids eat healthy foods, no doubt, and a lot of them. But they are 13, 9 and 9. I see nothing wrong with eating a pop tart sometimes, or some Cheeze-Itz or ice cream. If we teach them smart habits and that junk food is a treat, not a staple food, I have no issues with it.

I'm with you on that, but at the same time, I don't see a need to keep these things in the house.

(Correction: Monorailsilver) mentions that she'll come home and find "wrappers all over the house". Meaning, she's keeping the place stocked up with junk food and the kids are helping themselves.

I compare that to how I handled my kids. Cookies weren't forbidden. I just never bought them. When the kids were little, they truly thought that the only way to get a cookie was to have the nice cashier ladies at the grocery store give you one for being good. My son, in particular, got very clever about this at about age three, and would walk up to the older ladies and say, "You're pretty!" and smile widely, anticipating a cookie reward.

I've never in my life bought a box of pop tarts. They're not forbidden either, but I'm the one who buys the groceries and they're just not on my list.

Junk food is what you get when you go out to eat, not what you eat at home. As my kids got older, they would use some of their money to purchase it for themselves, but they quickly learned that once it's eaten, it's gone and so's their money. So, they learned to budget and only treat themselves occasionally.

Also, not to sound like an over-controlling ogre or anything, but as the primary cook in this household I do maintain a certain amount of control over my kitchen and I expect other family members to ask before grabbing food. Just a simple, "I'm getting myself some carrots, is that okay?" is fine. Most of the time I'll say yes. I just need to know, in case I might have been planning to use them in tonight's casserole. I don't want to start cooking at five pm and discover I'm missing an essential ingredient because someone binged on it.

 

[wenrob]

I'm with you on that, but at the same time, I don't see a need to keep these things in the house.

The OP mentions that she'll come home and find "wrappers all over the house". Meaning, she's keeping the place stocked up with junk food and the kids are helping themselves.

I compare that to how I handled my kids. Cookies weren't forbidden. I just never bought them. When the kids were little, they truly thought that the only way to get a cookie was to have the nice cashier ladies at the grocery store give you one for being good. My son, in particular, got very clever about this at about age three, and would walk up to the older ladies and say, "You're pretty!" and smile widely, anticipating a cookie reward.

I've never in my life bought a box of pop tarts. They're not forbidden either, but I'm the one who buys the groceries and they're just not on my list.

Junk food is what you get when you go out to eat, not what you eat at home. As my kids got older, they would use some of their money to purchase it for themselves, but they quickly learned that once it's eaten, it's gone and so's their money. So, they learned to budget and only treat themselves occasionally.

Also, not to sound like an over-controlling ogre or anything, but as the primary cook in this household I do maintain a certain amount of control over my kitchen and I expect other family members to ask before grabbing food. Just a simple, "I'm getting myself some carrots, is that okay?" is fine. Most of the time I'll say yes. I just need to know, in case I might have been planning to use them in tonight's casserole. I don't want to start cooking at five pm and discover I'm missing an essential ingredient because someone binged on it.

For the record the poster who mentioned Pop Tarts and wrappers all over the house is not the OP.

 

[Magpie]

For the record the poster who mentioned Pop Tarts and wrappers all over the house is not the OP.

You're right! Thank you, I've corrected that in my post.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What I started to say earlier and never made it to post is that age seven is around the age where kids start to venture away from home on play dates and with school and activities, etc. Even, say, if they've had a "perfect" diet at home, this is when the exposure starts to things like hot dogs, chips, sodas, ice cream, and candy. And let's face it, those things "taste good", often come with fun social times, and, bottom line, are part of our culture. It's unrealistic to think they're not going to have some. So it does help when parents start off by teaching them early on about good nutrition so they can enjoy some of these things now and then, but not make a steady diet of them. An RD I know called them "vacation foods", meaning just every once in a while. I found that phrase to be handy with my own kids, but I wouldn't tell them they could never have them (and like many, they probably ate too many of them at times) because kids want to be like everyone else. Imagine a kid being at a birthday party and saying, "No, I can't have cake". That would draw a lot of attention and probably ultimately ridicule in school and that's something that can create eating and other problems. So I agree that "mainstreaming" within reason is a good way to handle things.

I think what's gone by the wayside in our culture is remembering to eat a varied diet with each meal. Few eat the recommended daily amounts of vegetables and fruit. Water has become Gatorade for sports and things like Life Water, which has sugar and calories. And a pp mentioned serving sizes. I saw a great illustration years ago and I kick myself for not saving it. It showed the difference between an American meal in the 1950s and one today. Portion sizes have almost doubled. A muffin used to be small-ish; now it's huge. "Super Size" was a great marketing tool, but it hasn't done us much good as a society. Years ago people also used to walk places and now we drive. Modernization has been a mixed bag: On the one hand it's helped our lives become easier; on the other it's taken away the need for a lot of our regular exercise.

My daughter had to do a paper for her college Nutrition class this year and she chose to focus on Nutrition in Schools. She started it off with a discussion of how the Obesity epidemic started in the U.S. It was an interesting paper. One bit of research stood out, and I'll share it here:

"CONCLUSION

The lifestyle changes of the 20th century affected the four groups under study somewhat differently. Identifying the deep causes of the long-run trends is outside of the scope of this study, but the “creeping” nature of the epidemic, as well as its persistence, does suggest that its roots are embedded deep in the social fabric and are nourished by a network of disparate slowly changing sources as the 20th-century US population responded to a vast array of irresistible and impersonal socio-economic and technological forces.

The most obviously persistent among these were:

the major labour-saving technological changes of the 20th century,

the industrial processing of food and with it the spread of fast-food eateries (To illustrate the spread of fast food culture, consider that White Castle, the first drive-in restaurant, was founded in 1921. McDonald started operation in the late 1940s, Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952, Burger King in 1954, Pizza Hut in 1958, Taco Bell in 1962, and Subway in 1962.),

the associated culture of consumption,

the rise of an automobile-based way of life,

the introduction of radio and television broadcasting,

the increasing participation of women in the work force, and

the IT revolution.

These elements – taken together – virtually defined American society in the 20th century (Chou et al. 2008, Cutler et al. 2003, Hamermesh 2010, Lakdawalla and Philipson 2009, Offer 2006, Philipson and Posner 2003, Popkin, 2004).

Noteworthy in this regard is that the timing of the first accelerating phase after World War I among whites coincided with the spread of radios and automobiles, while the timing of the second accelerating phase of the 1950s cohorts among both blacks and whites coincided perfectly with the spread of television viewing and the spread of fast food consumption."

I think as parents who may have been affected by all of this we now have a better understanding of how to overcome some of the nutritional and health challenges we live with in today's society. For our own kids, we have to bring back some of the things we lost. Exercise, smaller portion sizes, a varied diet, limiting junk. It sounds to me like a lot of people are getting it. As far as the child in the OP I agree that Mom should just concentrate on getting back to basics. I think seeing an RD would be great for her. They'll analyze her diet now (not to criticize, but to educate) and make recommendations for improvement. This referral will come from your doctor, who will be thrilled at the suggestion.

 

[cabanafrau]

Some doctors do take it upon themselves to learn more about nutrition and other matters associated with health even long after they're a full fledged MD and practicing for many years as well. The practice my PCP is in has become a wellness centered practice over the years and now offers many free classes in the area of diet and nutrition on an ongoing basis. My own doc is quite a tall and burly guy and 15 years ago had more around the middle than he has for the last seven years or so. He has taken it upon himself to learn more about fitness and nutrition than his MD studies, yet there are times we are discussing things and he will defer to asking his PA or the nurse in the practice because they have different training regarding that than he does.

IMO there's nothing wrong with trying to structure your home and your childrens' lives to be based largely around a balanced diet of non-processed foods as much as possible. Keep trying a variety of different activities as a family and it's liable to spark many different interests in all of your children. They don't all have to be physical either. Something that is well thought of in terms of getting your children into the lifelong habit of healthy eating and healthy lifestyle is getting them involved in the cooking. A great family night might look like all of you working together to prepare a great meal from fresh ingredients, followed with everyone cleaning up the kitchen and having a game night, either indoors or something more active out on the lawn or at your nearby park. Getting your kids used to a healthy lifestyle will benefit them their whole lives. Making a tasty and healthy dinner together and playing a fun game of Frisbee in the yard or at the park won't add anything to anybody's budget.

 

[Magpie]

I saw a great illustration years ago and I kick myself for not saving it. It showed the difference between an American meal in the 1950s and one today.

Any chance it's this one from the CDC?

 

[Christine]

Any chance it's this one from the CDC?

That's a cool chart.

I remember going to McDonald's in the 1960s and all of us getting the meal. This was our meal for our "treat" dinner. It was the size of today's child's meal at McDonald's. But adults then thought it was enough for dinner!