If you come from a family where obesity is considered taboo, where weight loss is a way of life, and where weight is a topic of conversation, you are more likely to have problems with eating than a family with a positive attitude toward food. How do families convey messages about food to their children?
Ms. Zhang’s daughter, Lily, is 15 years old and was recently confused by Lily’s sudden interest in weight loss. During the conversation. Ms. Zhang mentioned that her husband was on a diet, and that he was on a trendy high-protein diet to lose the 20 pounds he had gained in the last year. I asked some questions to see how Lily reacted to her father’s weight loss behavior and found the answer to the question from there. After having complained loudly about his pesky waistline for the past year, albeit in a self-deprecating humorous way, the husband had dieted for a while, and just as he was about to maintain his weight loss, Lily magically lost interest in food.
As parents, most of us are aware of the tremendous influence we have on our children, but when it comes to the specifics, we often get confused. Sometimes our behavior and attitudes are so ingrained that it’s as if it’s a part of ourselves that it’s hard to see the harm these can do to our children. For many parents, dieting and attitudes toward food can seem like these “blind spots.
What are the misconceptions about food, dieting, and weight?
1. Dieting is the most effective way to lose weight.
2, the more exercise you do, the healthier you are, and there is no harm in working out more.
3, sweets and snacks are bad.
4, no need to eat breakfast.
5, all people are focused on losing weight as well as staying slim.
6, every meal is to put something random in the mouth at mealtime.
7. an oil-free diet is always the healthiest
8. meat and dairy products are fatty foods and should be eliminated
9, if only for fun, it is normal for teenagers to use some stimulants and other substances.
What are the risky behaviors of parents in life? If you recognize that the message sent to children is negative and harmful, how can we change it?
1. Parents’ eating attitudes and behaviors
”I observed my mother looking in the mirror all year long and asking my father and me if we thought she was fat, if we thought her dresses were too tight and her arms were too thick?” Most women have a hard time being satisfied with their natural body shape, and these dissatisfactions can have a negative impact on their children. Many children reinforce dieting behaviors because of the influence of their immediate family members.
2. Parents’ criticism of their children’s weight, shape and size
Because of the onset of puberty, changes in body shape can make children feel uncomfortable and they can become more sensitive to their parents’ comments.
3.Monitoring or criticizing your child’s eating
Your child wants to develop more independence at this stage and wants to make his or her own choices, including the choice of food and diet. If you criticize, monitor or restrict your child’s choice of food, then there will be conflict over the issue of eating.
4. Encourage your child to diet
Giving your child a special recipe, making him/her exercise or asking to stay slim, or using buying clothes, rewarding money, or exercising to urge your child to lose weight are all dangerous behaviors.
A girl named Wen Wen, whose parents had high expectations for her, gained 10 pounds in the year Wen Wen turned 12. Her mother advised her daughter to lose weight and told her, “Learning how to manage your weight will help you in the future, and I’m worried that your hips will look like mine, so you’ll look bad in a swimsuit. Wen was devastated, knowing that people popular with everyone in her mother’s eyes were slim, and that her mother’s first reaction to celebrities’ weight gain was to ridicule it. Her mother’s comments about her body shape were hardly enough to make Wen happy with the changes in her body, and she was extremely eager for her weight gain to stop.
Recent studies have shown that body dissatisfaction and dieting behaviors do not only occur in adolescents, but even in children at a much younger age. Children in kindergarten already have negative attitudes about their own and others’ obesity, and children in third grade are well-versed in dieting. In one survey, half of the children in grades 3 through 6 wanted to lose weight, and more than one-third wanted to stay slim. To help them develop a strong, positive body imagery, here’s what you can do.
1. Tell your children to respect all body sizes and shapes, and let them know that body size and shape are largely predetermined by genetics.
2. Explain to your children about physiology, which can help them eliminate the new feelings of embarrassment, insecurity and temperamental feelings at this stage.
3. Help your child develop a sense of self-worth that is not based primarily on appearance.
Some parents do a good job of helping their children develop a self-concept based on personal qualities (e.g., patience, friendliness) and accomplishments rather than on appearance, which protects their children from developing eating problems. Not using slenderness as a criterion for evaluating beauty is equally protective.