Never Say Diet! 5 Sensitive Ways to Discuss Weight Gain with your Child/Teen

Coronavirus regulations have lead to many sports/leisure activities being cancelled or limited to control the spread of the virus. As a result, we can see noticeable weight fluctuations with ourselves and our children. Not everyone has access to walking or exercising spaces. Not everybody is up for going to the gym to control catching the virus.

Childhood and adolescent periods are very sensitive ones. Children are like sponges whose thoughts get shaped as they absorb everything around them. On the other hand, adolescents are highly emotional, due to specific cognitive development during this age. Teenagers rarely respond to 'lectures' and are more likely to listen when they feel secure and feel they are being listened to. 

What are some productive and sensitive ways to follow if my child/teen is gaining weight? 

• Avoid using direct language that might stick with your child/teen for the rest of their life. 

“You’ve gained weight”. 

“You need to lose weight”. 

“X is more fit than you are”. 

Negative comments are so powerful and are strongly correlated with disturbed eating patterns (Heinberg, 1996 as cited in Smolak, Levine & Schermer, 1997). 

Negative comments are also related to weight gain among adolescents (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). If a teenager seems neutral to such comments, such comments are more powerful than their reactions may appear (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). 

Instead offer help: 

“Would you like to go for a walk/run with me?”

“What do you feel about practicing ... sport at home or outdoors?”. If sport practice is cancelled, there are many free Youtube exercise videos.  

“What are your favorite meals?” 

If your child likes burgers and fries, why not make this meal at home using low fat products or an air fryer. 

• Love your own body. Try not commenting on your own body (losing or gaining weight) when your child is present.

 “I’m not happy with the way I look now”. “These pants don’t fit me any more!”. 

“My legs look so...”. 

Parental comments about own weight have long been connected to child’s own negative body image (Smolak, Levine & Schermer, 1997; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). 

• Model healthy eating habits. You don’t need to be perfect all the time though. Going back to the previous note, parents’ negative comments on their own weight are deemed more powerful than parental modeling and healthy parent eating habits (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2010). 
• Do not encourage your child to go on a diet. In fact scrap the word diet altogether and replace it with ‘healthy’ or ‘healthy lifestyle’. Focus more on mental well being than weight. 

Studies have shown that encouragement on dieting allows children to resort to binge eating or unhealthy weight loss practices such as starvation or skipping meals (Fulkerson, Mcguire & Perry, 2002). 

• Help your child develop self-esteem that is not related to physical appearance. What are your child’s strengths/ talents? 
• Provide your child with access to healthy/ nutritious food options.

References 

Fulkerson, J., Mcguire, M.T., Perry, C.L., (2002) Weight related attitudes and behaviors of adolescent boys and girls who are encouraged to diet by their mothers. International Journal of Obesity. 

Neumark-Sztainer,Bauer, M., Friend, S., Stat, P., Story, M., Berge, J. (2010) Family weight talk and dieting: how much do they matter for body dissatisfaction and disordered eating behaviors in adolescent girls? Journal of Adolescent Health 47 (3). 

Smolak, L., Levine, M. & Schermer, F. (1997) Parental input and weight conerns among elementary school children. John Wiley and Sons Inc.