It's has been scientifically proven that everything makes kids fat nowadays, and that this epidemic is really, really bad. The only problem is that if
you pressure them or control them or restrict them, you might end up, um, making them fat. Uh oh. As one dietician and therapist says, all the parental food anxiety and rigid control has made children "weight- and food-preoccupied,
desperate to eat and strongly prone to eat as much as they could,
whenever they could." By keeping strict controls on diet, overtly pushing exercise, and badmouthing weight gain, we aren't helping our children develop healthy habits. In fact, we are making the whole situation that much worse.
Gotta say, I'm glad to see this article. Why do kids need to be pressured to exercise? I think when we were kids we called it playing, and our parents didn't have to tell us twice to do it. And check this: another dietician reports: "Anything that makes a child feel like he's being singled out because
of his weight is a huge mistake - denying the child dessert when
everyone else is having it, fixing special food just for him, saying
'You don't need that extra piece,' letting it be known that you're
bringing healthy food into the household because of him." Wow, ya think? If anyone made me a special healthy meal, or told me I couldn't have dessert while everyone else chowed down, for any reason short of a life-threatening allergy, I wouldn't know whether to pop them in the eye first or make off with the tube of Tollhouse cookie dough. As annoying as it is to constantly hear how we should do better with our kids' diets, and then hear "well, not like that," I do think this is a worthy discussion.
