How often do you look at your overweight children and tell them they are too heavy? Do you tell them they have to stop eating so much? Do they feel guilty, embarrassed and not good enough because of it? Do you feel embarrassed for your child?
Obesity in our children is rampant. Children are developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. And guess what? It isn't their fault. It's your fault. Who buys the food and prepares the meals. Do you make a lunch for your child, or just give them money to buy whatever they want. And if you are buying the food and preparing the meals, and they are overweight and overeating, then they don't know how to eat correctly. So how can they make the good food choices if they don't know how?
Here are some questions to ask yourself?
Do you give your child cereal and juice for breakfast? What about Pop Tarts or breakfast bars? If so, you are taking their body out of balance and they are starting to develop insulin resistance, which is the body's inability to properly process sugar. Cereal and fruit juices have such a high glycemic index that the body triggers insulin to bring down the sugar levels. When that happens, they remain hungry and crave foods that are usually high in sugar for the rest of the day. The body cannot properly process the sugar overload. The cells are too full of glucose, so they close down their receptors and send the sugar directly into fat storage. (For more information on this process and how this leads to the formation of cholesterol, see the link below.)
You may think that the milk with the cereal will curb the sugar, but if your child is overweight you probably purchase non-fat milk. It's the fat in milk that helps modify the insulin response and curb hunger.
Maybe you are fixing your child a peanut butter and jelly on white bread sandwich for lunch. Sometimes you give your child a banana with the sandwich. Nutrition experts on diabetes say that combining peanut butter with white bread increases the sugar level and strongly advise diabetics from having this combination. Peanut butter with celery or an apple is extremely nutritious and high in protein and fiber. A banana is extremely nutritious, but if your child is overweight, give them only a half, or slices of it mixed with other fruit because of the high glycemic value of the banana. An apple or pear or orange is a much better choice. The fiber is high and the glycemic values are low.
Am I getting your attention?
What about white bread (or wheat bread made with "enriched" flour)? Many children prefer white bread because that's all they know. It's light and fluffy and turns to sugar very quickly in the bloodstream. Look for "stone ground whole wheat" on the label to know that the bread nutrients are not tampered with. Food for Life(TM) has some wonderful bread made from sprouted grains that are nourishing, are filled with necessary B vitamins, and taste good. Your child probably couldn't even eat a whole sandwich, because bread rich in food value is filling.
Speaking of white flour, you wouldn't ever just eat a teaspoon of white flour. It's really dead food. It has no food value. Are you really going to count the so-called "enriched" flour? This is such a joke on us. Flour manufacturers take out all of the real nutrients from the grain and add in some synthetic vitamins and call it "enriched." Anything we make with it is made with shortening, which is a transfat. If we didn't add salt or sugar to it, the taste would be unpalatable. All white flour quickly turns to sugar in your bloodstream which raises the insulin to bring the sugar level down. Often it's brought down too low so you get uncontrollably hungry. Is one piece of white bread enough for you? Don't you usually want more?
Do you feed your child macaroni and cheese, and other pastas as a food staple because it's easy to make and your kid likes it? Perhaps you serve it with a roll or crackers? Maybe you give your child fruit juice with it or a soft drink. Do you give them enough pasta to fill them up and add a small piece of meat and vegetable to the meal and think it's "balanced"?
What about potatoes? Kids love French fries and mashed potatoes. Potatoes in moderation are a good vegetable, high in potassium. But we serve potatoes as a staple, and potatoes are a high glycemic food that quickly turns to sugar in the bloodstream. How many times has your overweight child had white or "enriched" bread, pasta, crackers or potatoes this week?
A child in normal sugar balance does not crave sugar and isn't stimulated by the idea of cookies, cakes, etc., unless it's been longer than 3-4 hours since they have eaten. This is the time the sugar level drops naturally to signal hunger.
How can you help? What can you do that's different? You can help your child get back into balance by following some of these weight loss tips:
The most important thing to do is get rid of all snack foods and cereals high in carbohydrates and sugar. Get them out of the house! Then give your children 3 moderate meals and 2 planned protein-type snacks per day.
Think protein for breakfast. Give them a hard-boiled egg, or any type of egg. Buy good, stone-ground or multi-grain bread. It has around 4 grams of protein. Put one fried egg on the bread. Use Smart Balance or a good new margarine without transfat with high omega 3 in it to cook the egg and put on the bread. Regular butter is also good for you. You can make French toast. Use low-sugar syrup. Give them a piece of bread with cottage cheese on it and a dollop of low-sugar jam. SmuckersTM has some excellent ones. Add a few walnut pieces. Melt some cheese on bread. Add low-fat milk and some fresh berries or apple or orange slices and you have a wonderful, nourishing breakfast that will give your child energy and help them concentrate.
For lunch you can make a sandwich with one slice of whole grain bread, lunch meat and cheese and put mustard or butter on it. Add a piece of fruit and a handful of nuts.
Have them buy milk at school. The 100 calories in milk is much better than a diet coke. Calcium has been proven to increase weight loss, and the protein will prevent the sugar drop. Ideally, your child should have protein as a snack 3 hours after each meal. Preferably the protein should have a little carb with it such as ½ apple and cheese or peanut butter and apple or celery, cottage cheese and fruit, nuts, or plain milk or yogurt, or ham slices rolled up with cheese or a pickle. Yogurt sweetened with artificial sugars may stimulate the appetite. You will have to experiment.
When your child comes home from school, or before dinner, have a vegetable platter ready with sliced zucchini, red bell pepper, olives, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, celery, carrots, turnips or fresh shelled peas and whatever else you want to put with it. Serve it with salsa, bean dip or ranch dressing. This is a great way for your child to learn to love vegetables. They like the crunch, and the dips add flavor.
For dinner, think protein. Have any meat with vegetables and a little salad with dressing or fresh cut up fruit. If you make the vegetables fun to eat, children enjoy it. Slice zucchini lengthwise, wrap it in a paper towel and microwave it for 2 minutes. Then spray on Smart Balance or another butter substitute. Add some salt, pepper and herbs. It's delicious and easy to eat.
Give them cut up fruit whenever they are hungry between meals. It takes longer to eat fruit that is cut up, like an apple or orange or pear.
A good snack for after dinner is milk with fresh or frozen berries whipped up in a blender. Use one or two teaspoons of sugar. It only has 17 calories per teaspoon. Or use low-sugar syrup with it.
For fat to burn efficiently during sleep, it is important not to eat for 11 hours between dinner and breakfast. Sleep is very important for proper weight loss.
It may take up to five days to get the cravings for carbohydrates out of the system. Move toward it gradually to make it easier for your children to stop overeating. Once you start following these suggestions, you should notice not only weight loss, but less hyperactivity and irritability in your child's manner. They also should have more energy.
Above all, remove the words "fat," "diet" and "overweight" from your vocabulary when you speak to your children. What we focus on is what we become. Our self-talk becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. Children, especially those under eight years of age, take everything they hear as a programmed suggestion. What they hear becomes their belief system, especially if they feel emotionally hurt in any way.
(C) 2006 - Marie Lenay Rogus
Lenay Rogus has been a hypnotherapist since 1995. She is founder of the Forever Slender™ weight loss program, a program that consists of 5 hypnosis CD’s, an innovative, low-glycemic food plan with menus and recipes for eight weeks, plus personalized email coaching. You can visit her sites at http://www.foreverslenderprogram.com and http://www.hypnosisbylenay.com.
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