Reply to How to lose weight without giving your kids body image issues

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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