My Child Will Not Be Obese

By Martha Luege

If it wasn’t for my husband and me, our eleven-year-old son would be obese today. I know it’s not polite to brag, but in this case I think it’s necessary. I keep reading and hearing about the obesity problem among our children and the blame put on schools for not offering enough P.E. Parents blame fast-food companies for putting too much trans fat, sugar and salt in kids' diets. They blame technology (computers, TV and video games especially) for replacing outdoor activities. It’s true all these factors contribute to kids' growing waistlines and soaring cholesterol levels, but ultimately the responsibility for this problem rests on parents. Luckily, so does the solution.

From “slim” to “husky”
Certainly genes play a key role. There are children (and adults) who eat all they want and can’t seem to keep enough weight on their bones. Others, like my son, seem to have inherited a slow metabolism that makes them ideal candidates for a lifetime of weight issues. My son Willy was a skinny baby and thin toddler, or so I thought. I grew up in a Cuban household where a baby is not healthy unless he is round, displaying inflated rosy cheeks. My mother would often complain that I wasn’t feeding Willy enough, telling me that if I wasn’t careful, he could get sick and possibly develop anemia, a highly dreaded disease among Cuban families. In my head I knew it was not necessary for my child to be round in order to be healthy, but so many years of indoctrination are hard to erase. I was almost obsessed about forcing Willy to finish his dinner, and I carried snacks with me all day long to make sure Willy was eating…until he turned seven. That year we traveled to Spain where Willy discovered the joy of Spanish cuisine. By the end of the summer Willy had gained 20 pounds. “Well, I guess he didn’t inherit my husband’s skinny genes after all,” I thought. At first I was relieved. No more worrying about anemia. Then, as I began to buy larger and larger sizes for Willy, going from “slim” to “husky” in one year, I realized his weight gain could be dangerous for him.

Having struggled with weight all my life, I refused to see my son’s life burdened with the same problems. I have managed to keep a healthy weight (although I’m not exactly thin) through constant exercise and careful eating. My sister and cousins all carry excessive weight in varying degrees, along with all the health problems that come with it, problems like high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

The hardest part…
The hardest part was first changing my own attitude and behavior towards Willy’s food. We decided that Willy did not have to finish his plate if he was full. That was the most difficult change since my husband and I followed a strict policy of not wasting food. It’s a good policy, but I realized it was hurting our son. His body should not take the place of a trash can. Of course, we then began to be more careful about the amount of food served on the plate. But we soon realized this would not be enough. Willy needed to exercise and exercise a lot.
By the time Willy was eight, he was in a year-round swim team that required daily exercise, rigorous enough to put a stop to what seemed to be uncontrollable weight gain.

We certainly didn’t want to put an eight-year-old on a diet, but we began to watch his food intake and cut down considerably on the amount of sweets he ate. We told him if he was hungry, he could eat all the real food he wanted, like vegetables, fruits, and even the occasional seconds at dinner, but no sugar and no soft-drinks of any kind. I started making him healthy lunches, so as to control the quantity and type of food he ate at school. At home, I no longer stocked the shelves and refrigerator with all the sweets and unhealthy snacks most parents tend to keep on hand for when the kids get hungry. Instead of chips, we encouraged fruit yogurt after school or a banana or whole grain crackers and hummus.
Perhaps most important of all, we taught him about self-discipline and the concept of moderation. We encouraged him to love his body, nourish it well and appreciate what this extraordinary God-given machine can do.
Don’t get me wrong, this was not easy at first. Willy did not like any of it. He didn’t like going to swimming every day and certainly was upset he couldn’t eat all twelve cookies in one sitting. It was hard, but he’s a smart kid who, even at an early age, understood good reasoning. We explained to him how we didn’t want him to be plagued with weight problems throughout his life. We talked to him about family members and their health struggles, and he began to understand. He also began to enjoy the swim practices, after about a year. He liked pushing himself to see what he could do. Later on he set his own goals for what he wanted to accomplish, like qualifying to compete in the Jr. Olympics (which he did last March). As a family, we all shared our joys and struggles in our chosen physical activities. My husband has always been a runner, and I too started running that same year because I thought it was only fair to do what I preached.

Success!
Like in every other area of a child’s development, parents are there to act as the voice of reason. It takes years to train our kids to do their homework, clean their rooms, and brush their teeth on their own. We guide them (and nag them) to do these things. Exercise and healthy eating should be at the top of that list. We can not expect our children to do this for themselves, and we certainly can’t rely on schools and the food industry to handle this for us. They need our firm help, starting in the very early years, before the problem gets out of control. Eventually, the nagging becomes their own inner voice and they begin to make the right decisions based on what they have learned.

Today, my son is a self-confident, healthy eleven-year-old. He loves swimming and looks forward to seeing his friends every day. He is far from obese. He works out six days a week for almost two hours each day. He takes responsibility for his food intake and has learned the concept of food as fuel. His coaches have taught him what to eat before meets, and what not to eat. He’s looking forward to joining a high school swim team and even looks ahead to a college team. What he is learning about his body today he will carry with him throughout his life, and his heart will be in better shape for it.

So yes, we think we have earned the right to brag a little. We caught what our pediatrician described as a bus headed downhill. We stopped the bus and got it back on flat land. Our son turned it into a pretty powerful machine. But we took full responsibility for his physical health and eating habits early on, because when you are seven, that’s what you need a parent to do. We wish there were no fast-food restaurants to tempt us and we hope our schools will increase physical education, but ultimately it is our responsibility as parents to teach our kids how to lead a healthy life.

For now, we savor the momentary joys of parental success, knowing there will be many other challenges to come as Willy nears his teenage years. But at least we can cross off obesity from our long list of worries.