The Role of the Parent
TIP OF THE WEEK: More on the importance of the “parent” role in your child’s health
I know I seem like a one-track broken record on this topic, but I continue to validate my sense of this vital piece. My current reading has brought me to the book Generation Extra Large: Rescuing Our Children from the Epidemic of Obesity by Lisa Tartamella, Elaine Herscher, and Chris Woolston. Mentioned in this book is a landmark study in 1990 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that looked at three different educational programs for overweight children, but only one involved both parents and children. Ten years later, in the group that took a family approach to the problem, the proportion of children who were overweight had dropped eight percent. In contrast, the rates of obesity had climbed significantly in the other two groups.
I don’t think this study is any surprise to any of you reading this newsletter. We know from experience that parents have more control over a child’s weight than anyone else, and that includes doctors, nutritionists, friends at school, and even the child themselves. No matter how deeply a child cares, they can not get anywhere without the support of the people who buy the groceries, make the dinners, and set the rules. Even in the face of all the unhealthy influences in the world, parents have an astonishing power to shape their kids’ eating habits. We can have many new fast food restaurants popping up on every corner, billions of dollars spent on advertising, and toys offered with every meal, but it is still the parent who ultimately decides what to put in the refrigerator or on the dinner table. We often blame the environment as a major player in the current child obesity epidemic, and parents are still a major part of any child’s environment.
Another significant study done published in 2004 by Moira Golan, PhD, a senior teacher in the School of Nutritional Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reinforced the belief that parents hold the key to healthy childhood weight and habits. The study involved sixty overweight children ages seven through twelve. Half of the kids attended thirty intensive sessions where they learned about diet and exercise. The second half stayed home while their parents went to fourteen classes where they learned how to encourage children to eat well and stay active. Both groups of kids slimmed down after one year, but the kids who stayed home while their parents went to class lost significantly more weight. Interestingly, after three years, the kids who had attended the thirty educational sessions were more overweight than before, while the kids who stayed home had moved even closer to their ideal weight. Golan was able to show that parents who are committed to creating a healthy home environment can help their children achieve the healthy habits necessary to be and stay a healthy weight. What she found was that the kids who attended the thirty educational sessions knew enough about exercise and nutrition to write a book, but she learned from talking to them that “they were dieting all the time”. They would deny themselves fatty food or sweet treats for a while, but eventually they let down their guard and ate more than they had before. The kids in the group that had stayed home rarely felt the need to “binge” at all because they were not denying themselves anything. They were just eating what was around the house and going with the flow. A “flow” that led them to a slimmer, healthier life.
BayAreaCTK is adapted from Committed to Kids developed at Louisiana State University by our esteemed Dr. Kris and Melinda Sothern. This was one of the first programs to enlist the support of parents and siblings from the very beginning. The parent’s example and dedication are often the critical link to being successful in a program like BayAreaCTK. Melinda Sothern states that many parents feel terrible guilt, and blame themselves because they think they have “allowed” their child to become overweight. She says that parents who blame themselves need to be reminded that” it is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to do whatever you can to make things better…the cards dealt in life are stacked against them, and nothing in society is going to help parents who are trying to help kids lose weight. Everything in society is designed to make kids fatter”.
So, my message is obvious. We can’t be successful in what we are trying to do for our kids without the parents buy in and commitment for their own selves also. We are here to help you, both child and parent, to learn new ways of supporting and nourishing, without nagging and criticizing. As many of us know, this is a very fine line for some and it (thankfully) never has to be done perfectly!! |
