How to lose weight without giving your kids body image issues

[Anonymous]

I am 43 years old and over the course of the last 3 years, I have put on about 18 lbs (Just shy of the Covid 19!). In the beginning of the year I was making a big effort to lose the weight and was doing weight watchers, including going to meetings.

After I was on WW for about a month and a half, my oldest son started saying he wants to lose weight and asked me how he can lose weight. He is a normal weight for his height so I expressed to him that he is perfect as he is, that he is only 9 years old and is growing, that he does not need to worry about losing weight and that he is at a perfectly normal and healthy weight for his age and height, etc. etc. When this happened I stopped going to weight watchers and made a big effort to stop talking about weight. (Not that I talked about it much, or at least I don't think I did).

Anyway I still have this weight to lose so over the past few weeks I have again been focusing on losing weight. I've been very mindful about not talking about dieting, and I have been eating the same dinners as I make for my kids, but just yesterday my son again said that he wants to lose weight and asked me how he can lose weight. He said he is fat and he wants to be skinny.

It seems that he is picking this up from me because both times he has brought this up while I am actively dieting. I want to be mindful of not influencing him or causing him to have body image issues, but I really do need to lose this weight. My body has been hurting a lot more over the past few years, and I really think it has to do with the weight gain.

Is there a way to have this conversation with him so he understands that the fact that I need to lose some weight does not mean he needs to lose weight?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have managed to do WW for several years and our 11 year old daughter is still clueless about it. We never, ever talk about losing weight in front of her, talk about being fat, talk about other people’s bodies, etc. There has to be something you are saying or doing here that he is picking up on. You have to really figure this out.

[Anonymous]

You're definitely doing something or saying something around him that he's picking up on. Is there someone else in the house who can notice what you're saying?

[Anonymous]

Just tell him bluntly, OP. I've always been direct with my curious kids. Your son probably just wants to bond, because he can see you're invested in this and he loves you and wants to join in. Maybe he can participate by helping you shop for food while you educate him on what's healthy and what's not, but he doesn't need to actually eat less.

I'm not American, and reading these boards, I feel as if some posters are overly concerned with giving their kids eating disorders. It's OK for an adult or a teen to seek to influence their body shape and cardiac health with nutrition changes. Anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses that mostly appear with genetic predisposition, so if you or a close relative suffer from that, then you need to be careful. But other families can be a lot more open and relaxed about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Just tell him bluntly, OP. I've always been direct with my curious kids. Your son probably just wants to bond, because he can see you're invested in this and he loves you and wants to join in. Maybe he can participate by helping you shop for food while you educate him on what's healthy and what's not, but he doesn't need to actually eat less.

I'm not American, and reading these boards, I feel as if some posters are overly concerned with giving their kids eating disorders. It's OK for an adult or a teen to seek to influence their body shape and cardiac health with nutrition changes. Anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses that mostly appear with genetic predisposition, so if you or a close relative suffer from that, then you need to be careful. But other families can be a lot more open and relaxed about it.

OP here - thanks for this. I should have mentioned that EDs are very common in my family. I struggled with disordered eating as a teenager, as did my mother and my sister and my niece (niece had to get in person treatment) so I am very aware of and nervous about eating disorders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just tell him bluntly, OP. I've always been direct with my curious kids. Your son probably just wants to bond, because he can see you're invested in this and he loves you and wants to join in. Maybe he can participate by helping you shop for food while you educate him on what's healthy and what's not, but he doesn't need to actually eat less.

I'm not American, and reading these boards, I feel as if some posters are overly concerned with giving their kids eating disorders. It's OK for an adult or a teen to seek to influence their body shape and cardiac health with nutrition changes. Anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses that mostly appear with genetic predisposition, so if you or a close relative suffer from that, then you need to be careful. But other families can be a lot more open and relaxed about it.

OP here - thanks for this. I should have mentioned that EDs are very common in my family. I struggled with disordered eating as a teenager, as did my mother and my sister and my niece (niece had to get in person treatment) so I am very aware of and nervous about eating disorders.

Then you know that eating disorders are a response to feeling overwhelmed and deeply anxious, and it's a way for the patient to control what little they can in their environment. So you need to monitor anxiety in your child, and you need to provide outlets for him to express control that are outside of the food sphere. Give him a choice on things that are important to him, and regularly verbalize that he has choices and options. Foster a bond of trust, so he feels he can come to you for anything. High school is crunch-time for kids, and they're all in some state or other of pressure and stress, so the background work on trust and control need to be done prior to high school.

[Anonymous]

I would really encourage you to read “Fat Talk” by Virginia Sole-Smith for how to talk to kids about these issues.

Also he could be picking this up at school.

[Anonymous]

What a PP said, he is trying to bond with you, wants to be like you. Try IF (you can skip breakfast), smaller portions, or a lot more activity vs. an in your face diet.

Also, what’s your BMI? Are these vanity pounds? If you have a healthy BMI, look healthy your kid is more likely to be confused.

[Anonymous]

Focus on HEALTH and not looks. "I am eating a salad tonight because it makes me feel energized so we can play tonight". Everyone's eating ice cream "Is ice cream healthy? No. Should we never eat it? NO!" and have a small bite. You can also teach them what calories mean on boxes and how you log it in your app.

[Anonymous]

My mom DIDN'T lose weight and her weight gave me body image issues (and later anorexia). I was so fearful of becoming obese. I wish she would have showed me how to eat, how to eat healthfully and to keep desserts for special occasions. I didn't know how to lose weight by doing anything other than just not eating. When I went off to college the weight just flew off and I've never had trouble maintaining or losing weight since.

Long story short- it doesn't matter what you do, you can give your kids body image issues. It's important to teach your children about nutrition, healthy eating and being an active family..

[Anonymous]

My mom was calorie / weight obsessed, weighed herself multiple times a day and said things like “I hate myself” or “I’m a bad person” when she’d eat ice cream. As a teen that made me really sad to be around. Last year I used Noom to lose about 15 lbs. I told my girls (5 and 9 at the time) that I wanted to be able to be more fit to play with them, or that I had more energy, or that I hoped it would make my knee hurt less (all true). I also told them how strong I feel work out or how calm I feel when I get a nice walk. So I made it about health rather than the weight loss alone.

[Anonymous]

FWIW my beanpole DS also comes home saying things like "I'm fat." The first time was a record scratch moment where my brain needed a minute to process what he said. I think they are definitely picking things up at school and may not even really know what level of "fat" we are talking about.

His pediatrician gives us a summary sheet after his yearly visit, and it has height and weight on it, so I was able to show it to him as a more quantifiable way to say "you are at the 50% mark for kids your age." I think he was better able to understand that than "you have a big butt."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're definitely doing something or saying something around him that he's picking up on. Is there someone else in the house who can notice what you're saying?

+1

[Anonymous]

The problem probably isn’t that you’re losing weight, it’s what you’re saying about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem probably isn’t that you’re losing weight, it’s what you’re saying about it.

Like how you said “about 18 pounds” is a big red flag. It suggests you weight yourself a lot and are really aware of what you weigh at all times. I mean “about 18 pounds?” That’s like saying “it’s roughly 231 miles away” or something.