Are you worried your child or someone else’s child is overweight? Host Amelia Phillips and Paediatric Endocrinologist Dr Gary Leong discuss the best way to approach this issue, how to determine if a child’s health is suffering and how to broach the conversation sensitively with family, friends and the child.
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
As my kids are growing up, I’m watching their body shape change in front of my eyes, and it’s really interesting. My four kids have very different body shapes and very different eating patterns. Now I notice these patterns forming and. Amplifying as they’re getting older. And it struck me the other day that even with all my experience in training, I could not confidently assess visually if my child was overweight or not.
Then throw in body image, self-worth and language around body shape and a child’s weight becomes a very complex issue.
This is healthy her with Amelia Phillips, do you ever worry about. Child’s weight, or maybe someone else’s child, a friends or a niece or a nephew. 25% of children are overweight or obese, and this number has doubled since 1985. But the good news is that since 2014, overweight and obesity levels in children has stabilized.
Now, 25% is still way too high, but at least that percentage doesn’t seem to be getting any higher. So what should we do if we suspect a child is overweight? How do we discuss this with our child without compromising their body image? And what practical steps can we take that are realistic in our busy, exhausting lives?
To help me navigate this minefield is Dr. Gary Leon or Dr. Koala as his patients warmly refer to him. Dr. Gary is a pediatric endocrinologist who specializes in treatment of children suffering with obesity, diabetes, and their complications. He’s dedicated his entire career, including his PhD, to understanding the best ways to combat childhood obesity, and he’s written a book called Ride to Life to help families struggling with obesity, to reconnect to a healthy, happier life.
Dr. Gary, thank you so much for coming on today. My pleasure, Amelia. Now. US mums already have a lot to worry about and with obesity and overweight. Some kids you can clearly tell they are, but there are other kids that you just might not be so sure about. So what should we do and how can we actually tell if a child is overweight?
It’s a very, very important question that lots of parents ask me. I mean, the children that I see are clearly overweight, uh, in my clinic. But if you’ve got like most moms, 75% who you know, wondering, Oh, are they really overweight? One of the simplest things to do is to do what I call is the pinch test, okay?
Which revolves around pinching a little bit of fat around the tummy or ly, and seeing if there’s a lot of excess fat there. It suggests that your child may be overweight. The other classical way and, and traditional way is body mass index, which involves, you know, calculation, dividing your, uh, weight and kilograms divided by your height squared, which can be found on a whole lot of pediatric growth.
You know, BMI calculators online. Yeah, because the BMI charts for kids are different to the adult charts, and they’re also measured in a different way. The, the results are different. So if a mum’s out there listening to this now and not so sure, she could literally Google, you know, childhood BMI calculator.
Exactly. It’s a very good one. Through New South Wales Health, there’s, there’s many, many ones that will give you a guide at least. But in the end it is all. Healthy habits, healthy behaviors, and so even though you may be in a healthy weight bmi, if your child is eating lots, Process packaged, uh, not enough fruit and vegetables internally, they’re gonna be unhealthy, but they may have a normal bmi, so that’s still important.
Okay. So that’s a really good point you make that a child with a healthy weight could actually still be at a health risk if their diet is really poor. Yeah. But getting back to the charts for a. So if we do this chart, it’s actually a percentile figure, right? Where not to 5% is underweight. Five to 85% is considered a normal weight.
Yes. 85 to 95% is considered overweight, and then 95% or higher is considered obese. Yeah. Yeah. But if not, sure. Yeah. Seek out, you know, advice from. Um, professional health professionals, whether that’s your GP or dietician or someone like that. Well, and that brings me actually to my next point, cause you’re an endocrinologist that treats obesity.
Many don’t think of weight as an endocrine disorder. Why are you treating obesity? Well, in fact, it is isn’t endocrine disorder because there’s so many hormones involved in maintaining a healthy weight and controlling our appetite. So it’s not a classical endocrine disorder, like lack of thyroid hormone and throid hormone efficiency.
So what would the standard process be? So say a mum listening is concerned, she would go to her GP with the child and then the GP may refer on it could be a pediatrician, it could be a dietician, or it could even be someone such as yourself. Exactly. The problem is, Some gps themselves, if you think about 60% of people are overweight in the adult population, so a lot of gps themselves, um, may be overweight.
And then often I get the story from, uh, children and the parents of the children referred to me. Ah, but we went to the GP and he said, Oh, they’re just gonna grow out of it. Which when you’ve got more severe obesity, that’s not not likely to happen. Because if you look at the tracking, as you said before, of a five year old, 10 year old, as you remain overweight or severely obese, as you get closer to adolescents, they’re gonna remain obese as adults.
Yeah. And look, I can imagine how much harder it would be to try to change. A relatively independent teenager or tweens, eating habits. Having had younger children, myself, I’m in full control of their diet at the moment. Exactly. I can bring the shopping home, I can choose, yeah. What to put in front of them and I know how hard it is.
Yes. To have them eat healthy. And that’s the secret, isn’t it mean? It’s it. It is hard, but it’s the parents who have the power, Especially the mother though. I don’t wanna let the father off because he’s got a absolutely huge role in maintaining. You know, the same message from both parents. The book that I’ve written is really to try Empower Mothers and Father.
To make health a priority in their life, their own life as an adult and as a parent. But then that rolls on and affects in a positive way of the children that they’re looking after. And in this modern world as well, there’s often many other people taking primary carer roles as well. Such as grandparents.
Exactly. You know, nannies, daycare centers. I feel like the daycare centers, the schools are getting their act together where they’re, They’re improving. Yeah. But it’s a long way to go. How do you find the impact when you’ve. Grandparents or relatives looking after the kids. In fact, in the book itself, I’ve got a number of case stories of grandparents who have, because the parents are both working, take uh, have taken care of the children and as grandparents do, uh, you know, they take them for a day each on either side.
So two or three days a week, sometimes on the weekends. They nurture them, uh, with food. Yes. Especially when they’ve come from that generation where there was a scarcity of food. Exactly. That’s how you show your love with a full plate or ice cream or two ice cream, or they come from a culture where food is a way of expressing your love and being overweight actually is, you know, with that history of being underweight or having.
Poor access to food. So sooner you deal with it as a early childhood, the more likely you’re gonna make an impact. So things can be changed and grandparents can, you know, understand too. They can be changed. Though it’s difficult and you know, if you’re seeing your, your, your grandparents or your aunties or uncles, occasionally, that’s one thing.
But if it’s part of your weekly care, I could imagine that those extra treats really would add up and, and trigger some bad habits. It’s all about. You know, eating real fresh food and then the amount of snacking of sugary processed packaged food in children that gain weight. I mean, even if they’re active doing their, you know, mandatory, um, one hour of physical activity a day.
Unless you are doing a lot, lot more activity. If you’re eating all that high processed calorie food, which has got no nutrition, you’re gonna gain weight excessively in c. An Australian Institute of Health and Wellness report found that the main cause of children being overweight is an imbalance between kilo jewels consumed and energy expenditure.
So basically calories in, calories out. Other factors include things like poor sleep, having parents who are overweight or obese, and also exposure to marketing of unhealthy food. But in your view, is it predominantly a child who is eating too much and not exercising enough, or would you say it’s more nuanced than that?
It’s definitely more nuance than that. That’s the basic principles by which, you know, our weight is regulated. Sounds so easy, it sounds, and move more. If it was, if it was that easy, there wouldn’t be 60, 60% of adults who are overweight, 25% of children. So, yeah, so it’s definitely more nuance in that it’s the combination of the way we function, uh, with travel, uh, work, stress, disconnected families, single moms struggling.
Uh, divorced parents sharing, you know, different messages. Uh, mental health is a big barrier. Well, because of comfort eating, or comfort emotional overeating, mindless eating. And then, um, in itself, you’re less likely to be as active if you’re mentally ill, you’re going to go to the pantry or fridge to, to deal with your emotions.
So that’s a big, big, especially adolescents. How do you tackle those issues with young children? Fortunately, most young children before adolescents, they don’t have major mental health issues. But I, you know, I’ve had eight, nine year old girls and boys coming to me who clearly, they’re severely overweight and they’re.
Being socially isolated because they can’t participate in sports. To deal with it. The parent, again, has to be the leader in the family and deal with their own mental health, physical health issues if they’re obese, which is often the case. And then provide, you know, a framework and a foundation at home where they are eating healthier.
Making healthier choices, being as active as they can, making micro habits turned into, you know, each day into a slightly bigger habit, and then eventually embedded in their life. The problem with that, though, I hear you say that. And I know in my history of working with adults and obesity how hard it is to change.
It’s very hard. Yeah. So if you now add on my back as an overweight mom that now if I don’t do something about my weight, I’m basically screwing up my children. Like that almost is too much pressure and I worry that that actually has a detrimental effect. Is there a case to say that yes, as a mom and as an adult, I’m working on my own issues, but I’m gonna treat my child’s issues separately to that and I’m, you know, even if I can’t get on top of my own issues, I can still change the trajectory of my child.
Uh, yes, but it’s much, it’s more, more likely to succeed if the parent can make those changes himself or herself. Uh, we’re all, you know, product of. Environment. So if you can, parents can make small changes around the environment, celebrate those small changes in a healthy way, and then embed those changes down and make those changes part of their daily life.
And set some healthy goals. You can, you can make changes, but I appreciate that. Uh, most overweight adults, very difficult for them to change, uh, their weight. But it’s not impossible. No, and I’ve seen it happen and. It’s amazing that transformational. It is incredible. And often the people that didn’t expect it to happen that were just, you know, started on this program and they didn’t tell anyone because they were sure it was going to fail.
Yes. Um, Bit by bit those little changes actually started to gain momentum. Yeah. And then two, four years down the track, they have completely transformed themselves. So it, I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Yeah. And I’ve seen people fall off the wagon. You know, they call it fail. I hate using the word fail.
But have these setbacks, but then ultimately the pieces come together. Yeah. I talk about it in the book, having, uh, the parent having the why, uh, w h y, why are they doing this? So if they can keep focus on that. So is it, as you said, it’s for the betterment of the health of my child. And fear of, uh, avoiding their own childhood journey.
Often the parents have had, because they’re overweight or obese now had the same mental health issues, teasing, bullying, et cetera. So if the parent could focus on why, and then get around them, the A team, the team that’s gonna be supportive, get rid of all the people around them that say, No, you can’t do this.
Why are you doing that? Why are you. You know, restocking the fridge with all this healthy food. They don’t need that. You know, they’re. Yeah, because one of your tips is just one thing at a time. Yeah. One thing rule. Yeah. The one thing rule. Yeah. Can you explain that? Well, it’s basically, um, that concept of making small changes regularly.
And just focusing on one thing, the easiest thing that you can change. So like the lowest hanging fruit from the tree where you can reach and change. So that’s where that might be changing something about getting, you know, water instead of juice in the house or sitting around the dinner table. Yeah.
Sitting around eating dinner together. Yeah. So that’s a priority so that you have that time to connect with each other as a family. Eat slowly. Enjoy each other’s company, communicate, um, and eat more mindfully. So yeah, one thing. So that would be the first thing, um, trying to establish as many days a week.
A commitment from every member of the family to eat around the dinner table together and share that meal together. May only be once a week to start off with, but just get it started and then it will roll on to other benefits for the whole family because I, I think the concept that good nutrition. Lies at the dinner table is a really good one.
And I look at that even with my family and my friend’s family. You know, when we’re all sitting down having a meal together, most of the time that’s the good nutrition. It’s the snacking in between meals, snacking between grabbing something to or from school sitting in front of the television couch. Yeah.
Yeah. So I do like this idea. Good nutrition happens at the dinner table unless you get Uber Eats every night. Yeah. That’s not . Exactly. That’s not a good one. Exactly. But um, Yeah, I mean that I think is a, a really great, almost like a 1 0 1. You must, you know, eat the main meal at nighttime together. What about the dynamic when you have one child who might be super skinny and the other who tends to be on the heaviest side, so they’re both in the same environment, they’re both offered the same foods yet?
Physiologically, the outcome is so different. Yeah. Yeah. And it gets back to your own anecdote about Charlotte, like she drains the smoothie and I’m like, Oh, Locke is the one that really should have had that. Yeah. I suppose it’s a matter of the parents accepting that even though they’ve got, you know, shared genetics in the same family, uh, that everyone is meant to be slightly different.
What I would suggest is, Even though you are trying to build, you know, you don’t wanna be cooking three meals for, for your family, cook one healthy meal and that child’s skinny will still benefit from getting healthy nutrition, as will the overweight child. And internally they’ll be healthy even though their BMI may not be, you know, um, as healthy.
But in general, most families, most parents, Probably are used to seeing over more overweight children and accepting that as the normal and being skinny is actually though normal, you would need to eat more. Look at your skin and body. Yeah, is actually is probably normal. So how would you talk to a child assuming that a child’s maybe, you know, eight to 14 years old, I’m just picking that age bracket and they’re sitting there saying, You let Johnny have the big bowl of four scoops of ice cream, and you know, I only got two scoops of ice cream.
How do you have the conversation with a child about this healthy eating? Yeah, it’s a difficult one. You shouldn’t be giving Johnny and the other boy differences is the amount of ice cream. You should make a, I just gave something away then. Yeah, yeah. You should be making a one rule run one The other thing, one rule for all.
All for one. Okay. So, Oh, good. Well, there you go. I’ve just learned something really important. Set up these, these, uh, food fighting, which is not good for anyone. Yeah. It just makes the, the, you know, what should be a really. Uh, family dinner time into a stressful family dinner time. Everyone gets the same.
Gets the same. Yeah. And you make the decision as a parent. Um, obviously adolescence may be slightly different, but you said, this is what I, you know, as a parent, what I think is important. That includes, you know, both parents being on the same message, which is often not the case. Um, but, but you know, you have to deal with that.
Cause you have got, again, you, you’ve got the, why are you doing this, What’s the priority in your health? So everyone gets the same. Uh, food, same, you know, one dessert, you know, healthy portions, et cetera. So trying to do that when, I mean, a child will usually come home and say they’re already aware at a much younger age than they should be because kids in school have called them fat, or, Exactly.
I mean, kids pick up on way more than we would like to acknowledge that they do. What do you do when your child comes home and says, Mommy, I’m fat. Well, They, they may be overweight, but as long as they’re eating healthily, being active, I would say to that child, you, everyone is meant to be different.
Alright? Some people taller, some people shorter, some people skinny, and some people more, uh, overweight, but, As long as you’re healthy and you’re happy and you’re doing all your sports and other things, there’s nothing to worry about. That’s what I would say to the child, that you are still special. Uh, you’ve got special qualities, and it’s important not to feel those bad feelings come from other people affect you inside.
You feel strong inside and that you can still be, you know, exceptional, special. And everyone is meant to be different. And I’ve heard you say to, you know, really focus on the talents that they might have. You’re so musical. Or let’s really double down on, you know, you, you love playing this sport, or your beautiful drawer, or whatever it might be to make sure that their confidence is staying bolstered.
Exactly. What about when the child is making poor choices all the time, and as a mom, the message doesn’t seem to be getting through and the child keeps making those poor food choices. Yeah, it’s very difficult. I don’t have a simple answer for that. Uh, I think it’s important that you. Uh, act as a role model the parent as a role model.
Um, and so if you are in charge, uh, of the shopping, whether that’s mom, dad, or both, you stock the pantry in the fridge with those healthy options and healthier choices so that there isn’t this, you know, process sugars for. Food available in the pantry. In the fridge. So that’s one thing that will lead to less food fighting because you know, they’ll only have those options.
Options. It’s just not available. Children will always complain to their parents about many things, . Oh, my kids tell me, Mommy, I have such a boring lunch. Why do you give me such a boring lunch? There’s not nothing in a packet. Yeah, exactly. It’s so boring. Yeah, well, you can say, Well, it’s not boring. It’s actually healthy to nourish your internal body and make, So it’s a rainbow.
You’re eating a rainbow to make your brain more special, smarter, to make you jump faster, to make you, you know, into a, into a real special inside. So yeah, so children will complain about lots of things and there is this nagging factor as you are aware of in children. But if you, again, focus on why you’re doing this, this is for your health and your children and family’s health, you should stay, you know, provide you some, um, support energies for staying strong about that.
Changing lifestyle patterns in a busy household can be so challenging. I mean, , I know that my kids do not cope well with change at the best of times. So I love that your passion is about finding practical ways that families can break the cycle of obesity and so practical. You’ve even created a Facebook group for families, um, to come together to discuss these practical strategies.
Called 2020 Family Health Challenge. Yeah. We’ve mentioned a couple, but I’d like to talk some more about just some of your kind of hacks. So you’ve said, you know, eating at the dinner table, making sure we all share a meal together. We don’t go and take it into our rooms. Yeah. What are some other kind of practical strategies that us moms who are just, you know, our child might not be obese or, or seriously overweight, but we just feel like their eating habits have been a bit out of whack.
There’s a lot of the book and a lot of what we try to do in the clinic is talk about mindful slow eating, so using the 20 minute rule. From eating main meals, there’s a minimum time where you finish your food. So having a glass, big glass of water at the dinner table. Um, I always talk about hands free eating with the families, so making sure that everyone in the family puts down their fork or knife or.
Or spoon or chopsticks. Um, so in between, in between mouth. Mouth force. Exactly. Okay. Uh, and then having appropriate portions and appropriate plate size for the child. So, you know, a small primary school child only needs a medium size plate or bowl as opposed to adolescent who might be closer to adult size bowl.
So having those sorts of things again, sitting around the dinner table. And then if the child is a fast eater in that initial stage where they really scoff down, why are they doing that? Is that so that they’re allowed to go into the room and play their video game or, So you have to establish, uh, the ground rules about that, you know, dinner, sitting together for minutes.
If they wanna finish their dinner in five, 10 minutes, they shouldn’t be allowed to then rush off. I love that. Without some sort of, um, consequence of their behavior. So, Challenging, but I think that’s essential. Everyone sits together, stays together for that minimum time of 20 to 30 minutes. Joys the dinner.
This is a fundamental part of you being part of the family, the child and the parent, and also have a conversation. Um, yeah, and I, I’ve got a fun ritual that we do together called the Pit and the Peak, where we go around the table and everyone has to talk about the pit of their day. So, you know, the worst thing that happened today for them and then, and the best thing that happened that, that’s wonderful.
My kids love it now. Like they’re, as soon as you know, we are sitting down and eating, they’ll go pit in the peak, let’s do that. And now we have issues cuz they all fight over who gets to go first. So we get five minutes of them all fighting . But then once that’s sorted out, they’re eating allows you to communicate.
And then the other children understand, oh, you know, what was their day like? What was their brother or sister’s day like? What was their parents’ day? Yeah, but that’s good. That’s the same concept of having that, uh, gratitude saying three things that you know, you were happy with during the day that you did well, or that, you know, appreciate it.
Some other things that have worked well in my experience is food out of sight. So Yes. You know, a lot of families will love to put the biscuit, the glass biscuit, jar out, you know, and so you can see the food. Yeah. But I always have the rule. You know, those sorts of foods. Number one, ideally they’re not in the house, but if you do have some crackers or biscuits or whatever, they’re in a tin that’s hidden away.
The only thing that should be freely available is a bowl of fruit. Yeah, I think that’s a good one. The other one that I love is, um, screen time is green time. Yes. So that’s the idea that if they’re on a screen and they wanna snack, Which isn’t ideal, but if they do wanna snack, well it has to be a vegetable or a fruit.
It has to be, you know, screen time is green time. Yeah. And that’s worked really well. I, I’ll often, when we have quiet time when my baby’s still asleep and they, on the weekends they watch their screens, I’ll do a big platter of fruit and veg and they can just come and, and grab a few sticks of that.
Probably harder with adolescents I imagine. Yeah. It is harder. Yeah. The other thing that I like to do, I’ve, you know, come up with this little acronym, The Five Qs, which talks. Quality of food that you’re eating. Are you eating real rainbow food or processed packaged food? The quantity, eat smaller portions and eat to your satisfied rather than full.
The third cue is quick. Are you moving your body quickly with huffy puffy movement? And then how quick are you eating? Are you eating slowly? Getting back to the 20 minute rule, and I’ll ask you is question yourself. Are you truly hungry or just bored, anxious or upset? Getting back to emotional overeating.
And then ask yourself the question, will this food actually nourish your body or make you upset or sluggish? Five cues, they’re great. The five cues are great. And would you suggest actually discussing this with your child? Like at what age would you be? Yeah, having the conversation with your child versus just doing it?
I think from the age of five or six onwards, you can talk. You know, the quality, how much you’re eating, uh, all those sorts of things. Yeah. From the age of primary school, basically. I know parents get worried about triggering body image issues. Yes. When they discuss weight with their children, how do you coach parents to carefully walk that line between wanting a child to be conscious of what they’re eating, but also not damaging their body image?
So I try not to use the word weight. Good, excellent. Or fat. Firstly, Or fat. Or even if you’re really angry, sometimes it’s hard. But yeah, your child’s choices. So talk about one little thing I talk about with the family, the children encourage parents talk is talk about a, a healthy puzzle. Oh, okay. So that involves, uh, if you can imagine, A hundred pieces in your healthy puzzle.
And so the more pieces that you put down, seven pieces might be drinking water every day. Another piece doing your half an hour to an hour of physical activity a day. Oh, these are all add up. So I love this. So visual. Yeah. And so the idea is that the, And then fruit vegetable, Um, sleep, mindful eating, slow eating all the basic things, and doing it as a family, eating around a dinner table.
So the more pieces each member of the family put down in the puzzle, that picture of that healthy person comes out. Whatever weight they are. But definitely if you make those changes in creating that healthy puzzle for yourself, you will see change slowly but surely over the six, 12 months that you start making those changes.
So thinking about that, rather than thinking, Oh, we’re just gonna focus on your weight, because as you know, weights fluctuates, especially adults up and down being on lots of, you know, uh, things happening. Children basically, if they’re overweight, you want them to. Staying the same weight. If they’re growing, which they will be 5, 6, 7 centimeter per year.
The bmi, their pinch test, their waste of companies will fall if they stay the same weight, if they’re way above the healthy weight chart. Yeah, and I think that’s a really good point that you make, is that it’s not actually about having the child. Lose the weight. It’s just having that weight gain slow down so that their growth can catch up, grow into their weight.
Exactly. And then you’ll see those BMI chart numbers starting into, into lives. Right? Yeah. I’ve heard you also talk to kids like in their bodies to a sports car. What’s the analogy you use there? I asked the child. Um, usually it’s, it’s a pre-adolescent, again, you have to speak differently to adolescence, but I asked the child, what’s their favorite car?
You know, And what would happen if you put junk petrol in there as analogy to junk food? Or would you put, you know, really nutritious food into your car on petrol? Uh, how would that make the engine? Run more efficiently so you could run faster, sleep better, do better at school. So using that sort of petrol, I just love that analogy.
It’s like if, you know, if you had this sports car, you would be putting the high octane fuel in it and you know you are a sports car, you are the red Ferrari, so let’s fuel you with high pain and. Um, and interestingly, did you notice that all the examples you gave just then were all, nothing to do with how they looked, but it was all around their performance.
So run fast and do well at school. And I think talking about body image, you know, it’s important that cuz we’re such a materialistic and visual society not to fall in the trap of saying, You’ll look pretty, you’ll look great. If you lose weight, you know your muscles will stand out or something like that, because we’re trying to get, That’s where the body image Yes.
Seeds can be really so Exactly. Negatively. It’s all about performance. It’s all about respecting your body. Yeah. And achieving, you know, things in, in your everyday life at school and in your. Many people, including gps, tip toe around the weight conversation, finding it too uncomfortable to talk about research also shows that using incorrect language can stigmatize or shame patients, which then has this negative impact on their outcomes.
So what should we do if we are worried about other people’s kids? So it might be a niece or a nephew, or a friend at the school gate. Do you suggest we approach them and talk to them about it? Or is this really only the responsibility of the family or the gp? Well, that depends on your relationship with your, Yeah, you might ostracize a few people.
But basically, um, I think if you feel that you have a good communication with that relative and you are concerned about your niece or nephew, for instance, I don’t see any problem with you, uh, in a gentle, non-judgmental way, asking the, you know, do you have any concerns about Johnny’s growth at all? You know, cuz it’s affecting maybe his asthma or, uh, his ability to, uh, sleep or some other, you know, is there anything that I can do to help you with, you know, discussing about this?
Yeah. Okay. I think, I mean it. It’s such a delicate issue that I don’t like the idea of people not saying anything because they’re worried they’re gonna offend or upset, because sometimes it does take a little bit of a jolt for somebody to go, Oh, okay, yeah, I really do need to see this. Yes. But then at the same time, You know, I can imagine how loaded that question could be and, and how it could be a little bit of a, you know, a hand grenade thrown into a relationship.
But I, I do feel that if it’s, you know, if it’s a loved one or someone that’s, you know, very near and dear to you, yes, that it’s worth. Having that conversation and saying, Look, it’s probably just not a bad idea to put everyone’s mind at ease. You know, plot them on the chart and then if there’s an issue, you can always speak to your GP and Exactly.
Yeah. And hope your GP will be sympathetic, . Yes, exactly. Exactly. Finally, Dr. Gary, for those moms out there who think their child might be on the heavier side, what is the first step that they should take to curbing the weight gain and to let their child grow into their weight? I think the first step is just doing a little self ordered of where you are with your pantry and fridge.
So we know that children that do gain too much weight, it’s because of the excessive snacking and drinking sugary drinks. So if you’ve got those sorts of unhealthy, um, snacks, packaged snacks, process, XM usually bars, chips in the pantry. Have a discussion with the whole family and saying, Look, these are not helping you with your growth, with your being fitter with your school, with your sleep.
Cause there’s a big food and mood connection I believe too. Behavior. Absolutely. But as a parent, you have to make that decision. You are the in charge. So I know that there may be some, uh, initial, uh, angst about making those changes, but make. Commitment that, can I make my pantry, Can I make my fridge healthier?
Have the fresh fruit and vegetables at a, you know, eye level. So that’s easy to go to a fruit bowl like you mentioned before. So that’s would be one very important step. Yeah. Because most of our kids are still getting the majority of their food from our fridge and pantry. You nail that, then you’ve probably nailed a large portion of their diet.
Exactly. And then maintaining good levels of family, physical activity on the weekends, make a commitment rather than going to Westfield and going round shopping. Go out to the park, go out to the beach. Go for a walk bush, walk a bike ride, do some fun things together as a family. Yeah. The gorgeous Libby Bait, who was one of the trainers on the latest seasons of Biggest Loser, she has a concept called Walkabout Weekends, where she encourages families to go on a walkabout.
Yeah. On the weekend, you know, for hours, if you can catch a. Bus somewhere. There you go. In so many beautiful places. Yeah. Walk around there. Yeah. Whether it’s out on the bush somewhere, whether it’s going into your city and just walking and seeing the vitamin. Vitamin N. Vitamin nature. Oh, I love all that.
Yeah. So getting a bit of vitamin N and vitamin D at the same time. I love that. Look. So many great tips and I think it will put a lot of mum’s minds at ease that look on the whole, Most of us and our kids will be fine. Yes. As you mentioned, starting out younger, trying to, you know, get those eating habits as healthy as we can from a young age is gonna set our kids up for a very healthy and happy life.
Exactly. Thank you so much. Thank you, Amelia. Pleasure.
Recent Comments