Parenting Advice From Your Physicians at Kaiser Permanente

If your child has extra body weight, you may feel conflicted about how to approach it. We want to help our kids be their healthiest, but we also don’t want to hurt their self-esteem. It’s important that they feel good about themselves and have a healthy body image. So how does a parent help a child make changes  without causing harm?

Talk With Kids About Health, Not Weight

Grade school and preteen children are intellectual sponges, eager to learn about their bodies and health. Instead of talking to your children about weight and appearance, focus on how to be healthy. Emphasize healthy eating and exercise. Weight loss should not be the end goal.

Also, be sure to talk about food in a positive manner, rather than labeling some foods “good” or “bad.” For example, instead of saying that a certain food has too many calories and shouldn’t be eaten, try introducing the concept of “sometimes foods” and “all-the-time foods.” Lots of foods are so good for our body that we can eat them every day and in larger quantities. Other foods should be eaten less frequently or in small portions.

Make Changes as a Family

It’s hard for a child to make changes in the way they eat or exercise if their family doesn’t also change. For example, if will help your child to avoid drinking juice, you might stop buying it for the family. If your child likes to be competitive, you could create some type of family health challenge. Just be sure to praise effort over outcome.

Eat Meals Together

Try to eat meals together as a family and focus on these as times to talk and connect. Eating meals with your family is good for kids’ health because:

• Young children and teens who regularly eat the evening meal with their families are less likely to be overweight.
• Eating as a family teaches kids healthier eating habits and better food choices.

It’s also helpful to include your kids in grocery shopping and cooking meals when possible. Doing so can be a fun way to talk about healthy eating.

Be an Active Family

We know that active kids are healthier and feel better about their bodies – no matter what their weight is. So it’s helpful to encourage your child to exercise more. The best way to do that is to be active with them! Have fun with more trips to the park, basketball games, after-dinner walks as a family whenever possible.

Model Positive Behaviors and Attitude

Kids this age still very much look up to their parents and view them as role models. Even if they’ve started acting a little too cool for school around home, they’re still carefully watching what you do and listening to what you say. So, be sure to take care of yourself as well as you would like your kids to take care of themselves.

It’s important for you as a parent to avoid negative statements about your own weight and body. Instead of talking about restricting calories or how much you weigh, you might try talking about how good it feels to exercise and how delicious your healthy meal was. Consider not having a scale in your house.

Talk About How Media Influences Your Kids

Our society, and particularly the media, can have a negative effect on kids’ body image and overall health. On one hand there are constant images of high-calorie, low-nutrition foods; on the other there are unrealistic images of too-thin women and over-buff men. Not to mention, most of the images of people kids see are altered with photo editing software. These unattainable “ideals” can be very damaging to our children’s understanding of what it means to be healthy and strong. Take the time to talk about this with your kids. Actively limit and monitor their access to social media. If they are allowed media time, talk about what they see online and how it affects them.

Supporting Your Child Emotionally

Sometimes, a child realizes they’re overweight and comes to their parents feeling concerned about it. I worked with Dr. Robert Black, a clinical psychologist who specializes in pediatric behavioral medicine, to help parents respond effectively in this situation. He suggested you follow these 3 steps:

1. Start by Listening. Often this first step is the hardest for parents. We tend to jump in with lots of advice and questions, which can make a kid feel pressured and cause them to shut down.  Instead, try “reflective listening” to keep your kid talking. With this technique, you reflect back what you think they’re saying so they can explain further. Perhaps your son says he thinks he’s overweight. You can help him continue to talk with you by summarizing with “It sounds like you’re worried that you weigh too much, is that right?” Or say, “I’m hearing that you’re not feeling very happy with your body right now.” Then to explore further you can also try some “I wonder” statements. “I wonder if you are thinking about this more now because something happened, or someone said something to you.” During this conversation try to be patient and comfortable with a few quiet pauses – it may take a moment for your child to come up with the next thing they want to say.
2. Reassure Them. Next, let your child know how much you love them, and that this love isn’t contingent on how much they weigh or how they look. Reassure them that you’ll support them no matter what, and remind them that what defines them is what they do, how they act and how they treat others – not how they look. All of this can feel obvious to us, but kids benefit when their parents state this clearly.
3. Pivot to Helping Them Problem-Solve. At this point, resist jumping in to tell your child what to do. Instead, help them come up with their own solutions first. You could say to them “Sounds like you are concerned about your weight. If you want to try something to change it, let’s do it together.”

These steps will help your child navigate this challenge with your help and love. Just keep letting them know what matters most is what’s inside them, and how much you value the healthy, smart and kind person they are.