How to lose weight without giving your kids body image issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Or just don't day any of these things. Just eat without making statements or judgements. Please god don't teach a child about calories and logging them.

This is so misguided I'm wondering if the satire went over my head.

[Anonymous]

People with food issues think/talk a lot about food.

Don't talk about food with kids. It's in one ear and out the next.

Show them by living a healthy life and having good things to eat.

[Anonymous]

Just eat less. Don’t make a huge deal out of it.

[Anonymous]

You are obviously talking about it to your child or where your child can hear you. Lose weight if you want but be quiet about it.

[Anonymous]

Why does your son know you are trying to lose weight? What are you saying about it to him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

Don’t talk about calories or pounds, talk about health. Instead of talking about losing weight, talk about vitamins and minerals. Go to the farmer’s market or just find a new vegetable to try, or maybe new spices, a new recipe, etc.. Even the strictest diets generally let you eat as many vegetables as you want and they actually are healthier for everyone.

Don’t let the focus be on how you look, some people can be different sizes and still be healthy. (From my personal my mother and I are the same height, but she has a very delicate bone structure. While I would probably be healthier if I lost a few pounds, being her weight would be too thin for me to be healthy). Don’t let the focus be on deprivation. It’s certainly not healthy for your growing child, and it’s probably unhealthy and/or counterproductive for you.

[Anonymous]

Do you criticize yourself when trying on clothes etc? That is one thing the women I know have a hard time with.

I focus on health, and that is honestly my driver, though I wouldn’t mind losing my belly! We have high cholesterol in my family, so I only eat a little of junk food - ice cream etc.

When talking with the kids, I tell them that junk food is fine sometimes but they need to get used to liking vegetables etc. With their family background (heart disease one side and diabetes the other), they don’t want to get to eat NO fun foods when they’re older. So everything in moderation but no mention of weight or how I look ever. Never ever.

If there aren’t health reasons for you to lose weight, I think you should stop. With your family history of ED, there is too much risk for your child. And maybe you too.

[Anonymous]

We don't talk about diet or weight specifically but we talk about food and how it makes us feel (tired or energetic) and how fitness and food impact our mental health. So I would talk about how I need to eat healthier because my poor food choices / sedentary life have led to me feeling less healthy and less strong and my clothes not fitting well. I wouldn't talk about a number on a scale or calories or a diet.

[Anonymous]

I do WW and my teens don't even know. Sometimes I have my taco meat on a salad instead of the tortillas they are eating. I'll measure things if they aren't around but if they are, I estimate and do my best. I would rather lose slower than have my kids see the diet mentality. If they ask why I don't get boba when we all go out, I say "I don't always feel well after a ton of sugar" or "wheat makes me tired so I only eat a bit of it."

[Anonymous]

You're definitely talking about it too much.

[Anonymous]

Just do your diet and keep your mouth shut

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

This. I just lost 20 lbs and my children (11, 8) don’t talk about it at all. I also don’t ever discuss “dieting” or that I’m longing for foods I “can’t have”. But even for myself, I don’t frame what I’m doing as dieting, what I’m doing is living more healthfully and eating good foods that make me feel good. What my children do notice is that running and strength training are as routine in my life as showering and my 8-yr old will comment how she wants to be strong like mommy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you criticize yourself when trying on clothes etc? That is one thing the women I know have a hard time with.

I focus on health, and that is honestly my driver, though I wouldn’t mind losing my belly! We have high cholesterol in my family, so I only eat a little of junk food - ice cream etc.

When talking with the kids, I tell them that junk food is fine sometimes but they need to get used to liking vegetables etc. With their family background (heart disease one side and diabetes the other), they don’t want to get to eat NO fun foods when they’re older. So everything in moderation but no mention of weight or how I look ever. Never ever.

If there aren’t health reasons for you to lose weight, I think you should stop. With your family history of ED, there is too much risk for your child. And maybe you too.

It must be that you are eating different foods and/or going to meetings and talking about that? Can you go to meetings when kids are not around and not mention? Can you prepare the same foods and just eat less of it? After all, if what you are making for the kids or DH is not healthy, don't you want them to shift toward more healthy food too?

I am also trying to lose weight (and have lost about 12 lbs so far) and no one knows, not even my husband, because I never talk about it to anyone except my best friend on the phone - when I am out for a walk with no one else around. But my 6 year old is sensitive to weight talk - I have never, ever engaged in it, but I know she hears it at school because she has told me that her friends sometimes say they are fat, which is so sad (and untrue). (By contrast my 9 year old boy seems totally oblivious to these issues; for him "fat" is a joke insult like "stupid" or "smelly.") For my family, I think it helps that I have always cooked healthy food from scratch and we all eat the same thing. For example, I make chicken, salad, and pasta for all. If I take less pasta the kids usually don't notice; or if they say "why aren't you eating much pasta?" I say "I had a big lunch today so I'm not very hungry" and they are young enough to take that at face value. We serve a small dessert every day (like 2 squares of chocolate or a very small bowl of ice cream) and sometimes I eat it with them and sometimes I don't, and if they ask why not, I say "I wasn't in the mood for dessert today."

Of course I don't know how it will all turn out and we do talk about making healthy choices because our bodies need more fruits and vegetables and unprocessed foods and less sugar and chemicals, to be healthy. But we try not to connect healthy with weight, for the kids' sake - even though of course for adults they are often one and the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

False, this is a 💯 false read on the causes of eating disorders. JFC, if you haven’t read the latest research, you shouldn’t speak about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You gross me out OP

Why would a woman trying to properly manage her weight gross you out?