What to Do if Your Child Says, "I'm So Fat."

Learn where the thoughts about feeling fat came from. Did a friend or classmate tease your child about weight? Did another relative mention the size of your child's belly or thighs? Is your child feeling embarrassed from having snug-fitting clothes? Was there something on television or online about overweight kids? Maybe some sports are difficult for your child, or perhaps they are chosen last for teams. These frustrating and painful issues are common among children of all sizes.

If another child or an adult is bullying your child, confront the situation directly and as soon as possible. If your child's weight, eating and activity are normal and age-appropriate, reassure your child and don't focus on weight.

If Your Child is "Overweight"

Weight loss among children can interfere with their growth and negatively impact their body image and relationship with food, so it's important to work with your pediatrician and a registered dietitian nutritionist. Choose a few specific changes that you can make in your family's eating and activity habits, then set realistic goals.

Be mindful that every family is different and change occurs slowly, so be patient and remember there is much more to health than weight.

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Ways to Encourage Your Child Who Is Overweight

Written by Katy Hebebrand

Childhood obesity is on the rise in the U. S. Children who are overweight face more health risks than children who maintain a healthy weight based on their height. Learn how you can encourage a child who is overweight.

Skip the Diet

You may be tempted to put your child who is overweight on a diet to lose weight. This is not a good idea unless the diet is recommended and monitored by your child’s pediatrician. Diets can lead to restrictive eating and hinder your child’s growth and development. A diet may make your child feel self-conscious and discouraged.‌

Healthy food choices. Instead of introducing diet foods, you can encourage your child who is overweight to prioritize healthy foods. When you establish a foundation of healthy eating, there is less emphasis on foods full of fat and sugar. Encourage your child to eat:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Whole grains 
• Low-fat or non-fat dairy like milk, yogurt, and cheese
• Lean meat like chicken and fish
• Other proteins like beans and lentils‌

Hydration. Trade out juice and soda for water. Sugar hiding in fruit juice and soda can add up quickly and lead to weight gain. Encourage your child to drink enough water each day so they're hydrated. This aids in digestion and helps promote better overall health.

Focus on the Positive

If you worry about your child’s weight, you may be tempted to focus on the negatives. Examples of harmful weight-related comments include:

• Saying no to all sweets or fatty foods
• Talking about how much your child is eating
• Commenting on weight gain‌
• Pointing out a lack of activity‌

A place and time for treats. It’s possible to turn these negative comments into positive encouragement. Instead of saying no to sweets and fatty foods, offer healthy alternatives. Offer your child a sense of control over their diet. Involve them in deciding how treats and fatty foods are incorporated into your lifestyle. For example, you may have pizza night on Mondays or a sweet treat on Fridays after school.

Portion sizes. Don’t just tell your child they are eating too much. Talk about portions and measure food together so you can both learn about serving sizes. Make it fun to try and get enough healthy foods in your meals and snacks each day.‌

Avoid weight talk. Your child’s health is more than a number on the scale. Try not to talk about weight gain or loss because this can lead to body image issues. Your child may hit a natural growth spurt and gain weight. They may make healthy changes and not see the scale move. Save these conversations for doctor visits. Instead, encourage your child by praising healthy choices.‌

Getting physical. Exercise is a great way to improve your child’s health and aid in weight loss. But exercise should not be treated as a punishment. For example, don’t tell your child they have to exercise because they ate something unhealthy. Similarly, don’t offer a treat to your child “only if” they complete a certain amount of physical activity. ‌

If your child is overweight, it may take time to build up endurance for exercise. Start slow and encourage your child by participating in activities with them. Ideas include:

• Throwing a Frisbee in the backyard
• Walking around the neighborhood
• Hiking a nearby trail
• Riding bicycles‌
• Playing on a playground

Making a Lifestyle Change

Encouraging your child who is overweight is about more than losing weight. You want to help build a foundation of healthy lifestyle habits for your child. They can learn to see the bigger picture of their health and make smart decisions.‌

Other health benefits. Your child needs to learn that eating healthy and staying active is about more than how much they weigh. Other important health benefits include:

• Building stronger bones
• Lowering blood pressure
• Having less stress and anxiety‌
• Improving self-esteem‌

Prioritizing sleep. Your child needs the right amount of sleep to be healthy. If your child isn’t well-rested, it’s more difficult for them to eat right and exercise. Sleep allows your child’s body to rest and reset each day.‌

Set an example. You can help your child by making healthy choices with them. You can start small and gradually introduce new healthy habits. Get everyone in your home on board, so your child who is overweight doesn’t feel singled out.‌

If you have concerns about a child’s weight, talk to their pediatrician. Ask how you can help encourage your child to make healthy choices. Your pediatrician may refer you to a dietician or other specialized medical professional for additional help.

How to talk to a child about weight so as not to grow complexes

August 14, 2019 A life

Obsession with thinness can be more dangerous than obesity.

Why obesity hysteria is harmful

The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm about the increase in childhood obesity and even created a commission to eliminate it. According to its data for 2016, overweight is found in 41 million children under the age of five years and in more than 340 million children and adolescents 5-19years. Obesity threatens with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and emotional problems.

But there is a huge and frightening but here. Obesity is a medical diagnosis. And overweight is not so easy, especially when it comes to children. In addition, even a healthy body weight has little to do with glossy standards.

Girls are at particular risk, as the requirements for a woman's appearance are generally higher than for a man's. nine0003

Research shows that even at preschool age, children are dissatisfied with their bodies. Girls begin to perceive thinness as something good even before the age of three, and at five, a third of them refuse food to be slimmer.

The imposition of unnatural thinness increases the risk of erratic and malnutrition, provokes body dissatisfaction and depression, and these disorders begin already at the age of 7–11 years.

Childhood obesity is dangerous, but more children suffer from eating disorders than type 2 diabetes. In every third high school student and sixth high school student, these disorders are quite serious and require the intervention of doctors. nine0003

Why kilograms are not superfluous at all

The problem of obesity is so widely spread that parents are ready to fight for the physical health of their children to the detriment of the psychological. But thinness is not synonymous with health, and excessive weight does not necessarily mean illness. Moreover, it is not always so superfluous.

To determine the norm of weight in adults, use the body mass index, which is calculated by the formula:

BMI = weight (kg) / height² (m)

Ideally, it should be equal to 18.5–24.9. This means that for a person with a height of 170 centimeters and 54 kilograms, and 71 kilograms is the norm. True, there are nuances that Lifehacker has already talked about.

It's even more difficult with children. In addition to BMI, weight standards for height and gender, the history of the development of the child and the physique of family members are important.

In some cases, we can talk about the age distribution of fat, which remains within the normal range. Or the child may be larger than their peers, simply because they develop at a different pace. nine0003

So don't build complexes for children from scratch, if you just can't cope with anxiety. And even if there is a problem, still don't do it, because replacing potential obesity-related diseases with real-life disorders is so-so a concern.

Better think about this: research shows that not obsessing over weight prevents weight gain. This is because people give up diets and unhealthy eating habits that lead to relapses and other problems that contribute to weight gain. nine0003

How to discuss weight with your child

Don't comment on your children's weight

Even if your child really needs to lose weight, it's not constructive to talk about it directly. If someone notes how you got better, you hardly take it as relevant advice filled with care. Children are not some special kind of people to whom you can say whatever you want.

The child already knows that harmony is an important ideal. Television, books, films, environment repeat this. The constant imposition of the importance of thinness can make even thin children shy, lower self-esteem, and increase the risk of depression. Criticism of weight and encouragement of its reduction provoke negative self-image and lead to malnutrition. nine0003

If you are worried about your child's health, it is not necessary to build a conversation around weight and even more so arrange a gastronomic ghetto for him while his relatives eat fatty and high-calorie foods.

Do not shift the responsibility to the children, it is all on the parents. To normalize weight, think over a balanced menu for the whole family, take care of the presence of vegetables in the house, arrange general walks. If all this is done for the sake of health, then say so. And good health does not hurt any of you. nine0003

Pay more attention to the functionality of the body, rather than appearance

The constant enumeration of the child's external qualities conveys that these qualities are the most valuable. This leads to obsession with preserving such an important asset. But it’s not possible to completely avoid talking about appearance. The body exists, and it can do a lot of useful things: run fast, dance, draw. In general, a person has a lot of value, everything is not limited to appearance.

For example, your daughter dreams of becoming a model. You can discuss this in the context of thinness and beauty. And we can talk about the importance of knowledge of foreign languages, endurance and communication skills. nine0003

Be kind to your body

You can be gentle with your child, but constantly turn around in front of the mirror and scold yourself for curvy hips, insufficiently thin waist, hanging belly. Only, you will probably use more harsh vocabulary. Children hear this and learn that there may be something wrong with their bodies.

Maria Yelets

Clinical psychologist-consultant.

The atmosphere in which children grow up is very important. If you tell your daughter that she is beautiful in any weight and this is not the main thing, but you yourself are constantly on diets and worry that you cannot fit into a “pre-pregnant” dress, then the child will read the duality in this matter and focus on your actions, and not words. Work with the feeling of your body, accept it. If you can do this in relation to yourself, then for the younger generation it will be the best example to follow. nine0003

Talk about the diversity of bodies

Not discussing the problem of physique with children is like sticking your head in the sand when a lion approaches. Not the best tactic. Much depends on what position you take in the conversation.

Explain that bodies are different and this is normal. That society overestimates thinness, and manipulations on this topic are often aimed at enriching organizations that promise to solve a non-existent problem. Of course, be guided by the age of the interlocutor and dose the information so that everything is clear. nine0003

Such conversations are also useful for children who do not have any problems with weight. It will be easier for them to evaluate a person not by the shape of his body.

Read also 👪

• 11 useful books that will help you better understand your child
• How to survive in school: tips for students and their parents
• What mistakes prevent you from losing weight, even if you go to the gym

Handsome - ugly: how to talk to a child about appearance and weight

Children ask questions about everything, including appearance, their own or someone else's. They can point a finger in the street, they themselves can suffer because someone on the playground called “fatty” or “fat”. .. When talking about this difficult topic, it is important for parents to show delicacy, carefully select words. Psychotherapist Ekaterina Sigitova talks about how to talk about weight, appearance in the book “How would I explain to you. We find the right words to talk with children”, we publish an excerpt. nine0003

A very multi-layered conversation, because you need to somehow manage to fit and combine messages that are contradictory in meaning:

• The fact that obesity in most cases is harmful to health, but fat people are no worse than thin people and worthy of respect and love .
• The fact that we can influence our appearance and have the right to change it, but at the same time we are good the way we are.

At the same time, it is important not to hang labels, but to give tools for an adequate assessment of oneself. It turns out to be a rather difficult task, especially since we ourselves are products of our culture and are subject to various intricate stereotypes in this regard. nine0003

Well, let's unravel.

This section can be applied both to children and adolescents who have problems with weight or other external features, and to those who look quite ordinary. In fact, it is usually very difficult to look, there will always be something that distinguishes a particular person from others.

But this is more of a philosophy, and we need practice.

Necessary introductions

1. It is desirable to conduct this conversation with that adult whose words cause the most calm reaction in a child. This is especially true if the child already has some problems (or he / she thinks that there are problems).

It is also desirable that the talking adult himself be at peace and in harmony with his body and weight, but this is rare, so here it goes. The gender of the parent does not really matter, it can be either mom or dad (there is a myth that mom should talk to girls, and dad should talk to boys, but it is not based on anything).

2. The overall focus should ALWAYS be not on weight, appearance, or form, but on the health and functioning of the body. This will not be easy to achieve, because our culture is very evaluative and we unconsciously try to comment on appearance, even without wanting to. But please try to clean out all the usual labels from your speech as much as you can. This is important so that the child develops a slightly less rigid attitude towards this topic than you do, and so that he / she has fewer risks of unhealthy eating behavior (it has been proven for a couple of decades that the content of family conversations and the number of labels attached households, directly affects this). Examples of how you can say the same phrases differently, without focusing on weight and appearance, will be below. nine0003

3. If your child, for example, is overweight, do not create conditions in which the topic of weight and appearance is completely ignored . This can create anxiety and shame, because, as a rule, all children with special needs feel very well that they are different. They compare themselves to other children (including those they see in advertisements and on TV). Maybe someone has already told them about it, and not at all in a delicate way. So there is no need to make it taboo that a child has something that distinguishes him from other children. He already knows this, your task is to teach him to live with it calmly or to mark the boundaries of changes, if these changes are even possible. nine0003

When to speak?

There is no particular age at which children learn these topics best. The general rule is the sooner the better. Already at the age of two, children are able to understand and calmly digest the idea that all people are different . So that they assimilate information without tension, it would be good to tie the beginning of the conversation to some situation. For example, if a movie or cartoon character is ridiculed because of its weight or other features. Or if you and your child see a very fat person on the street. Something like that. nine0003

What are you talking about?

People come in all colors, sizes and shapes, that's okay because we're all different, just like animals. Some people look very unusual, there are few of them, most people look more or less the same: two arms, two legs, a head with ears and hair, a nose, a mouth and two eyes.

Character and attitude to life in general are more important than appearance , and it is more pleasant for a kind, calm person to live than an angry and nervous one. And they both can look like anything. nine0003

Beauty is subjective, i.e. each person decides for himself what is beautiful for him . We grow up in society, so unfortunately we are influenced by what society thinks. And society now thinks that only thin people or only people with regular features are beautiful. But ideas about what is beautiful can change over time, so it’s probably not worth relying on them.

How you feel is more important than how you look . The body has many parameters: strength, endurance, reliability, flexibility. People with different external features and overweight may feel good, and people who, according to society, are beautiful (for example, thin) may feel bad. If you feel good, this is important, and then you should not rush to change something in your body. nine0003

All people are equally good and deserve our respect, no matter how they look or what body they have . Sometimes the appearance of some people can be frightening, especially if we have not seen such people before. But the appearance does not tell us about the character, about whether this person is good or not, whether it is worth being friends with him or not, whether he will let you down or not. Therefore, you should not immediately think that fat people or any other people with a non-standard appearance are bad, this may turn out to be a mistake. There are bad people in all groups, including beautiful and thin ones. nine0003

Sometimes we really need to change something in our body . For example, put on braces on your teeth, or change your hairstyle, or lose weight, or gain weight, or something else. It happens that we feel bad and it’s hard for us because of excess weight, but it happens that everything is in order. If you want to change something, then the main thing to focus on is how we will feel, and not how we will look and what others will think about it. Because if you change your appearance and influence the opinions of other people, but do not pay attention to your feelings, bad feelings can persist. nine0003

It's great when the body works so well that it allows us to do everything or almost everything we want. If some feature of the body interferes with this, you need to think about how much it can be changed and how much we want to improve the functioning of the body, because changing may not be so easy and fast. And not everything can be changed: you can lose weight or dye your hair, but you can hardly grow a new leg. So sometimes people have to live with the body they got . Or they choose not to change anything, because they are calmer, and this is normal. nine0003

If a person looks unusual, it can be difficult to get used to . Sometimes you even want to move away from it. This is normal, but it’s better to try to get used to it, because unusual people are not to blame for being like that, and they can be very offended that they are moving away from them.

But after you get used to it, you can easily communicate, like with everyone else, and their unusualness will no longer be evident.

What to avoid?

Try to replace evaluative phrases with neutral ones. Here are a few options using the topic of weight as an example. nine0003

Phrase 1: “This man is fat. You are fat. I am fat".

Neutral replacement: "This person (I, you) is bigger and wider than many other people."

Phrase 2: “Being fat is bad. It's unhealthy."

Neutral replacement for : “Measuring weight and body fat is one way to learn about a person's health. Other ways are to measure blood pressure, check appetite and sleep, study how internal organs work. Sometimes, in large and heavy people, the internal organs work worse, because they have more stress on them. nine0003

Phrase 3: “People are fat and thin.”

Neutral replacement: “Bodies come in different shapes and weights, some are more like a ball, and some are elongated. Both can be heavy or light.”

Phrase 4: "Fat people have a hard life."

Neutral replacement: "Heavy and big people often have a hard time doing many things: running, climbing stairs, and so on, because they have to carry more weight and it's harder for their heart to bleed." nine0003

Interesting read. Ekaterina Sigitova “How can I explain to you. find the right words to talk to children”

Now, if every child’s question could be answered with a standard correct answer! Convenient, but not realistic. Usually everything is more complicated: all children are different, all parents too, as well as life situations, experiences, circumstances .

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