Eight Tips for Talking to Your Kids About Their Weight

Talking to our children about drugs and sex (but never rock and roll because our tastes are just too out of the times with the current generation’s tastes) has added a new dimension lately—talking to your kids about their weight. Dr. David Katz, an expert on weight management, nutrition and disease warns us that today’s younger generation will not live as long or as healthfully as their parents. He believes that one of the ways to counter this trend is for parents to start talking to their children about weight management and healthy lifestyle choices.

Weight loss and children

The following are eight tips for talking to your kids about their weight printed in its entirety courtesy of Dr. Katz and MindStream Academy - a full-service boarding school for teens and tweens who want to get healthy, fit, lose weight, take control of their lives, build self-esteem, and pursue a personal passion.

1. Put the focus squarely on health and off weight. Whether by default or by design, each family has a health and wellness “culture.” This includes the types of food that are kept in the house, how heavily physical activity is emphasized, what sleep patterns are encouraged, how much health information is available, and more. As a parent, you should emphasize each aspect of this health culture, not just your child’s weight. Remember, healthy weight follows good lifestyle behaviors, but good lifestyle behaviors typically don’t follow weight-loss diets.

2. Recognize that you spend too much time focusing on weight. Most people don’t realize how much they use weight as a yardstick to measure their overall quality of life as well as their worth. For example, how many times have you asked about a piece of clothing, “Does this make me look fat?”—with the understanding that if the answer is “yes,” you’ve somehow failed? That’s why, when broaching the subject of weight with your child (and in your own life), it’s important to stop talking about weight—and even, to some extent, appearance—and emphasize other characteristics. For example, talk about how an unhealthy lifestyle influences your child’s self-esteem and thus demeanor, as well as how he expresses himself and the impression he makes on other people.

3. Ask your child what would help. Yes, you’re the authority figure in this relationship, but it can be a mistake to assume that you know the best way to help your child become healthier. One of the problems with giving support from a position of experience is that you tend to think that your child’s situation is the same as yours, and therefore, the things that worked for you will work for her. That’s not necessarily the case. Instead, it’s always a great idea to ask what your child thinks the best course of action would be. This, Dr. Katz says, is a main talking point when working with the families of MindStream students.

4. Focus on change, even if you run into resistance. The purpose of any discussion about losing weight and living a healthier lifestyle is to bring about change. In other words, talking to your teen about his weight angst for an hour might have some value because it allows him to vent, but try not to leave the discussion there. Try to take one step forward, too, even if your child is resistant to change.

According to Dr. Katz, an effective way to overcome resistance (or even cut the conversation short if things are getting heated) is to get a commitment to make just one change in the next week. That might be anything from drinking fewer sodas and more water to walking three days a week. Dr. Katz adds that focusing on one simple change a week seems manageable (as opposed to dropping 30 pounds, which is overwhelming), and is a very constructive way to move the conversation forward without getting too bogged down.

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