Myths About Overweight Kids and What You Can Do
The first step is to understand the truth behind the myths we hear. Then, we can take steps to helping our children get – or stay – fit and healthy.
The Myths
Myth #1: I can’t help it that my kid’s overweight.
Children who need to lose weight receive very little understanding and even less support. Our society teaches on television and in diet ads that people who are overweight are lazy, weak, or self-indulgent. Kids who are overweight are usually seen as the extreme personification of all that’s wrong with youth …
The truth is that children gain weight for a number of reasons. Some may tend to gain excess pounds because it runs in their family, or others haven’t learned how to make good choices about types or portion sizes of food.
Where does this start? With parents and other adults. As an adult, I do the grocery shopping. I choose the types of foods that will fill the cupboards and fridge. As a parent, I tell my daughter what she can and can’t eat – but generally, there isn’t a selection of fattening sweets for her to overindulge on. Portion sizes are no different – many adults put too much food on a child’s plate and expect that the meal gets eaten in full.
Fixing Myth #1
Most parents understand that their children need to get enough exercise. What many parents fail to see is that their children can’t play enough to work off the calories of a McDonald’s diet.
Overeating is so easy to do. No matter where I turn, it seems like my daughter is offered food and drinks that are way too big for her 6-yr-old stomach. And being a kid, she’s much more interested in the huge 32 ounce bottle of soda than a small container of milk.
Pay attention to what goes in the cart at the store. Seriously consider what you will have to say if you find that the kids have dug around and found that box of super-fattening brownies and are munching away on them everyday after school. If it’s not available, you won’t have to deal with it.
Beyond healthy foods, working with size portions is vital. It’s also simple. Here are a few tips to help keep your kids – and the rest of your family – from overeating.
- Buy single serving or bite-size snacks that are packaged individually. 100 calories seems like a lot more food when it’s served in a bag rather than thinly sliced off a huge cake.
- Repackage snacks into single serving sizes. Labels on all food packages state how much a single serving is. A bag of cookies might say that a single serving is 4 cookies – place 4 cookies in sandwich bags as a single snack.
- Get rid of bags and boxes. Eating right out of the bag of chips means that you – and the kids – are more likely to eat too much than if the snack is packaged in a single serving.
- When eating at a restaurant, save a bit of cash by ordering an adult meal to split between yourself and your child. Most restaurants will bring an extra plate for your kid, and both of you will have less to eat – plus you won’t have to mess with a doggie bag.
Myth #2: My kids will grow into their weight.
This is a hard myth to get many parents to understand. Gaining weight is an essential part of growing up – you have to have some mass for your body to grow into. It’s even harder to understand because as babies, our children were little balls of fat that worked off as they grew and became more active.
The truth is that children are just as likely to continue gaining extra pounds as they grow taller, not losing a single pound. It’s a mistake to think that children will outgrow their weight – it can happen, but it doesn’t happen often. There’s a reason behind why they’re overweight to begin with, whether it’s that they’re not active enough or they’re eating poorly. If you don’t fix the underlying problem, they will continue being overweight regardless of their height.
Fixing Myth #2
Activity levels are a huge factor in how our kids convert weight into growth. Studies performed over the last decade have shown that there’s an almost continuous drop in activity levels for children into their teens – a drop that ends with less than 25% of teens exercising.
It gets worse. Being overweight as a child can be more harmful than having jokes played at their expense – it can lead to Type 2 diabetes and other life-threatening consequences.
The problem is after school hours. Most children (experts estimate 2/3) do no physical activity after school’s out. There are so many ways for kids to be active, and adults can spend some quality time with their children to encourage that activity. It doesn’t even have to be difficult – the following activities will burn a lot of calories for a kid 100 pounds just by doing them for one hour:
- Dancing: 160 calories
- Jump Rope: 500 calories
- Hiking: 265 calories
- Softball: 185 calories
- Bicycling: 160 calories
- Walking (3 mph): 215 calories
Childhood obesity is a huge problem, and because we’re the parents, we must shoulder most of the blame. It’s our responsibility to teach our kids about eating right, getting exercise, and motivating them to keep it going. If that means hitting the hills and hiking beside our children, well … what’s wrong with that?
