Cutting the Food Cord
I just read the great article over at the Mun Fitness Blog called Why Teenagers Like Eating Fast Food? Having just done a show on childhood obesity, one of the points stuck out to me that Jeff and I probably didn’t totally address - rebellion. Here’s an excerpt:
At fast food restaurants, you choose what you want. You can mix and match with plenty of choices. Coke with French fries, sundae with apple pie, salad with burger.
I had never considered the rebellion factor. “You choose what you want” sums that up nicely. We tell kids what to eat, when to eat, you can’t leave the table unless you eat “x” as they’re growing up. When they get a chance to choose for themselves, they go in the exact opposite direction. Not all kids are going to rebel though. Some percentage of them will hear what their parents are saying and heed their advice. But what about that percentage, however large or small, that do rebel in this way.
Should we as parents go the opposite way. I remember an episode of the Cosby Show where Vanessa got drunk. When Cliff found out, he pulled out the bottle of whiskey and told her, “You wanna drink, let’s drink.” If you fed your kids fast food consistently for a period of time, would they rebel against that? Would they rebel before their weight tipped into the obese category? I worry that the treatment is worse than the affliction.
What is the right move then, from a parent’s perspective, to help kids/teens make the right decisions? Don’t give a kid money? Give him a pre-paid credit card and monitor the purchases? There are any number of ways you might try to reign in your kids, particularly teenagers, food choices. But in the end, will their desire to do exactly the opposite of what their parents tell them always put them in harm’s way nutritionally?
Eventually you have to cut the strings and let them make the decision for themselves. Hopefully Mun is wrong when he says “I doubt youngsters will listen”.
Fat 2 Fit Show #23 - Childhood Obesity
Childhood obesity is quickly becoming an international problem. Speculation on the causes for the widening of our children’s waists are numerous. Does the responsibility of a child’s weight rest solely on the shoulders of the parent? At what age should a child take responsibility for their health?
We start the discussion by talking about some startling statistics. Type 2 Diabetes is now becoming common in children when it used to only be an adult disease. As well, for the first time children now have a shorter life expectancy than their parents - which is directly linked to our sedentary lifestyles and poor eating. Even the advances in medicine cannot overcome this.
We continue with the causes of childhood obesity, how to know if your child is overweight, how to bring up the subject with your child, how you can help them achieve their weight loss goals, and how you can hopefully prevent it in the first place. We also read some listener feedback from our support group at www.fat2fitsupport.com. In preparation for this show, we asked our listeners for some ideas and they responded. Make sure you check out the support group to read all of the feedback and suggestions.
In our news section, Russ had an article about 7 habits of overweight people, and Jeff had an article that listed 7 habits of a successful routine.
Links mentioned in the show:
Bodies The Exhibition
7 Bad Habits of Overweight People
7 Good Habits of a Successful Workout Routine
Briefing: The childhood obesity epidemic
Weight loss program for kids, BMI Calculator
Obesity in children. How to help your obese child
100 Small Steps
Who’s to blame for Childhood Obesity?
BMI charts for boys
BMI Charts for girls
Watch out for the Munchies
Recipe of the Week:
Rice Crust Pizza (Download the recipe below)
Rice Crust Pizza Recipe: Download
Fat 2 Fit Radio Show #23 [58:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadListen here, or subscribe to automatically receive future shows.
Love Won’t Add Weight
Getting ready for this week’s show on childhood obesity, I was reminded of the great public service announcements that ran when I was a kid. There was one in particular that was most relevant to this week’s podcast topic. What ever happened to these types of great public service announcements? I learned about the preamble to the constitution, planets, the nervous system, conjunctions, math and nutrition from these public service announcements. These were wonderful messages that taught kids lessons, such as the right things to eat, in a format that they love, the cartoon.
Leave your favorite Saturday morning public service announcement in the comments.
Fat 2 Fit Show #16 - Body Image and Self Esteem
In the movie “The Matrix”, your “real body” is somewhere else and you live your life in a computer simulation. The way that your body appears in the Matrix is your “residual self-image”, or in other words, your brain makes your Body Image into reality.
We discuss Body Image and the implications of having a negative or positive one. Many people have a Body Image that isn’t realistic or similar to what their real body looks like. We talk about how your body image can actually affect your subconscious reasoning and impact your conscious behaviors for good or for bad.
There was a new documentary on TLC entitled “My Shocking Story, Too Young to Be So Fat”. It raised some serious concerns from both Jeff and Russ about the childhood obesity epidemic that is going on. We discussed a 13 year old girl who was morbidly obese and wanted weight loss surgery. We brought up the topic about responsibility with obesity in children. A parent is 100% responsible for an obese child at 5 years old, but what about a 15 year old? We decide that we will tackle this issue on an upcoming episode.
In our email and comment section, Russ was informed about where the term “Phedippidations” came from, Jeff answered a question on doing cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, Russ answered a query about eating at your Basal Metabolic Rate or slightly below, and Jeff responded to a comment about whether to count the calories in “Negative Calorie Foods”. We played our first comment that came in from our voice mail line from James.
In our news section, Jeff brought up a new weight loss scam that is currently being advertised. “Eat all you want and still lose weight” is the mantra of its advertising campaign. With a little discussion, is was painfully obvious as to the ridiculousness of the product and it’s claims. Russ discussed an article from Consumer Reports that discussed eating soup or salad before your meal to help with weight loss and also some other great points.
Links mentioned in the show:
The hero behind the name Phedippedations
Eat All You Want and Still Lose Weight
Eat Soup or Salad before your meal to lose weight
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
10 Will Powers to a better body image
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