Dieting a no-go area for your kids

As a parent, you’ve tried all the usual advice, but your children are still overweight. There’s no junk food in the house, the kids eat healthy, home-cooked meals, fruit and veges go down no problem and they are active, regularly playing outside.

So what should you do if your kids are still on the chubby side?

Nutritionist Jennifer Bowden says the best thing is to not worry about it.

‘‘The main thing is that we don’t put children on diets because there’s an increased risk of eating disorders and also of them becoming more overweight,’’ she said.

‘‘You need to focus on creating a healthy lifestyle for your child within your own home and family. If you’ve done that, don’t worry about their weight, leave them alone and respect the fact that different children will be different sizes.’’

And children’s weight will often fluctuate as they grow and develop, she said.

‘‘As they develop, they may go through through a stage – especially before puberty. This is when they store a lot more body fat in preparation for puberty. Then they tend to lean out again. That’s normal.’’

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ clinical guidelines recommended children were never put on diets, she said. ‘‘If you think they’re carrying more weight than they should for their age, there’s more to it than that.’’

The commonly-used body mass index (BMI) was a population-based measure that didn’t take into account factors such as muscle mass, ethnicity or different body compositions, which sometimes meant someone could be considered overweight when they were not. For example, a slim Asian child and a stockier, more muscular Tongan boy would have different energy needs, she said.

‘‘How can a parent predict what their needs are going to be depending on whether they’re on a growth spurt or not? So we need to trust their appetite.’’

Bowden said parents should teach children to listen to their own hunger and fullness cues. ‘‘We’re connected to our hunger and fullness when we’re born, and usually as toddlers they are, too,’’ she said.

‘‘They’re in tune with their energy needs and we need to teach them to respect that. We need to respect that when they’re going through a growth spurt they will eat a lot more. We trust our child and we teach our child to trust their body.

‘‘We leave it up to them to

decide how much to eat and most parents are uncomfortable with that because we live in a diet culture where we feel we should be taught portion sizes.’’

It was also important to not put judgments around less nutritious ‘‘junk’’ foods, because kids should be able to enjoy treats and not feel guilty, she said.

‘‘We’re teaching them that some foods are more nutritious and help our bodies grow, and other foods are just play foods, they’re less nutritious, they don’t help us grow and give us the energy we need to run around and be strong.’’

Body image advocate Angela

‘‘I’m a big believer in not shaming any child for what their body is and what it does, and that’s across size and shade and features.’’

Angela Barnett

Barnett, of Pretty Smart which visits schools to teach critical thinking, said it was understandable that parents worried about their children’s weight, especially if they thought they might be teased.

‘‘They worry about it because they get the messages from everywhere that putting on weight is bad. I’m a big believer in not shaming any child for what their body is and what it does, and that’s across size and shade and features.

‘‘We can change our thoughts and actions and words but we can’t fundamentally change what we look like. Kids take it on board as something wrong with them if they get teased for something about their body but especially if they’re not the same size as other kids.’’

Barnett said parents should be mindful about how they talk about weight and dieting.

‘‘Use language around what our bodies do rather than what they look like, and that goes for how adults talk about it as well, because kids learn from us,’’ she said. ‘‘Teach them that just like we all have different noses and faces, we all have different bodies and they all have their own unique shape.’’