I recently starting thinking about what it takes to raise a well-adjusted girl, on the heels of celebrating Gabby’s new found love for food. Boys have their challenges, don’t get me wrong, but everyone knows that raising girls comes with an emotional hormonal roller coaster where mothers frequently can’t do anything right.
I was reading an article this morning…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/18/us-heavy-teens-idUSTRE76H15320110718
It was talking about how important it is for pediatricians to discuss weight, diet and physical activity with overweight children and teens.
I have always been a big proponent for diet and exercise lessons being learned at home. If my kids see me eating healthy and making physical activity a priority, they will too. If your child doesn’t choose to follow your lead, what then?
At one point all of us were rebellious kids, not wanting to listen to what our parents have thought was best for us. When it comes to diet and exercise, this can effect our children’s health. How do we properly convey the importance without forcing them away from our ideals? And to that point, it should be the doctor’s responsibility to team up with the parents to pass this message along.
Dealing with girls, however, sometimes requires “kid gloves.” How do you effectively build their self-esteem while ever so delicately passing along the message of being healthy when it comes to weight? Weight is one of those subjects for women where the only right thing an outsider can say about it is that you look great and are so thin. But what if that is just not the case? On the flip side, are we a weight obsessed culture that should just let people be?
Excuse me while I go have my dry salad and run for an hour on the treadmill while watching reality tv full of anorexic models with tons of plastic surgery….
I'm a mother, wife, daughter, and friend. Until recently I was also an employee. Now that I'm a full time mom, I've decided to make my thoughts, concerns and feelings public.
Medically, you can’t just let people be. It can make too much of a difference in someone’s long term health. However, it is SOOO hard to encourage female patients of all ages gently to lose weight, very emotional subject. I was trained in an effective technique called motivational interviewing, but for me so far it’s resulted in some tearful situations unfortunately.
I think that if children are taught to believe in themselves and encouraged to have self esteem, they will want to be the best they can be in every part of their lives.