Reply to How to talk to 9yo about overeating

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]According to the BMI child calculator those stats for a child 9 1/2 years old place her squarely in the overweight category. It’s confusing that you said she has always had these percentiles but has gotten chubby in the last two years. I’m not sure which it is. In any case we seem to have a problem as a culture talking about healthy eating with children. There is far too much panic over causing an eating disorder in my opinion. I think it’s OK to tell children that healthy choices make healthy bodies and that when our bodies get too big they don’t work as well.  Simple and factual and not repeated ad nauseam. It is so much more difficult to lose weight as an adult. The only answer is focusing on healthy meals as an entire family and not keeping any junk in the house. Make sure she is being active and participates in 60 minutes of physical activity every day.[/quote]

Agree.  Some kids and adults have poor impulse control with food.  It just is a fact.  It is ok to help them with what a portion size is.  My kids love to snack on pistachios. One is fine with a handful, another wants several handfuls.  If more kids learned about the nutrients different foodS provide and what a reasonable portion is, what foods you can have “as much you want” and what foods are an indulgence and should be kept to a smaller set amount- they would be in a much better place as adults[/quote]

But the thing with high calorie foods is that if you listen to your body, it will level out. If you eat an entire bag of nuts, you probably won’t be hungry for dinner. If you are still hungry, then yes, your body needs those calories. Some teenage boys really do need multiple handfuls of pistachios!
Also, portion size isn’t really about education. We can all see it clearly in the package - a serving of Oreos is two Oreos. But honestly, what does that have to do with any individual person? Someone just made up what a serving is. It’s not like nature has “serving sizes.” There’s nothing biological about serving sizes. It’s honestly just another tool of restriction.[/quote]

The problem is that some people don't listen to their bodies. I am one of them. My daughter is another. My mother is one too. We eat until it hurts. You can literally see my daughter move left and right in her chair when she is full, but she will eat some more. We joke that she is trying to find room for more.

Some would argue that it is general impulse control issue, but I disagree. My mother is one of the most disciplined people in the world. But she still will not stop eating when she is full.

There is something about the taste of food that is so irresistible for us that we will take the pain before we stop. And it's not the additives in the American diet because my mother and I grew up abroad. I was exactly like my daughter at her age. I was in love with food.

If you watch my mother drink even water, you'd be so confused. You'd think she was drinking water from the gods. Everything that touches her tongue is divine( except for too much salt- she hates very salty foods).

For us, your idea of balance does not work. We have to fill up on veggies and soups first so that the pain from fullness comes quick and becomes unbearable before we have consumed 2000 calories in one meal.

I think it's genetic, either faulty wiring or some nutrient deficiency that we cannot seem to figure out. We do well with techniques and strategies. My mother's entire family is like this. But most of them are a healthy weight because they mostly eat healthy. You can only get so big if you pack on veggies and soups before anything else. But they are addicted to the taste of food and can keep going even when it hurts. It has to really hurt before they stop.

My younger and older sisters are not like this, and my father's family is not like this. We grew up in the same house on the same diet but I got the short end of the genetic stick in this regard. I am not complaining though, because I got some great genes in other areas that they didn't.

It's not that big of a deal once you've accepted that you are wired to keep eating beyond satiety. I love my body and I love my life. But I think pretending that I can just listen to my body is not going to work. It will not work for my daughter either.

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