2013 Resolutions: Lose Weight and Change How Your Kids Eat

It is New Year's Day, and what do people usually do today? Start on their resolutions. 

Improve Health and Fitness always make the Top 10 New Year's Resolution lists. Here are some tips to get you going.

As new study reports small habit changes lead to effective weight loss: use smaller plates, don't eat directly from the package, drink water with every meal, put your utensils down between bites.

• The key to effective weight loss? Small and concrete habit changes.
• The key to changing how your kids eat? Small and concrete habit changes.

See where I'm going? 

Parents tell me all the time about how excited and upbeat they feel when they come across a new strategy, and how equally frustrated they feel when the new strategy fails.

Other people seem to have success, these parents say. Why can’t they?

The answer comes down to two things.

• Switching strategies can’t work while tensions in the household remain high because your child is still primed to resist all of your efforts, no matter what they are. 
• Many parents attempt to make changes that seem like small steps to them but which are too difficult for their children to achieve.

Resolution 1: Do whatever it takes to reduce the tension around eating in your household.

It might surprise you to hear that the easiest way for parents to reduce tension is to tap into their permissive parent. When used as a long-term strategy, permissive parenting exacerbates problem eating. Here, I’m proposing that you use permissive parenting as a temporary fix. 

Scale back on your expectations and demands for a few days or a week. Let your child: 

• Forgo vegetables
• Drink chocolate milk
• Eat on the go

Resolution 2: Break your feeding goals down into small, incremental steps, ones your children can achieve very easily.

The smaller the step, the easier to achieve, the more successful you'll be.

For most children, the ideal outcome is simply too hard to attain in one giant step. By pressing for too big of a challenge, parents set their children up for failure (and, in doing so, they set themselves up for a great deal of frustration).

Instead, work towards smaller goals, one stage at a time.

• You may want your children to eat new food when what they have to do first is learn to taste new foods.
• You may want your kids to taste new foods when what they need to do first is learn to smell new foods.
• You may want your child to smell new foods when what they need to do first is let new foods sit on their plates.

Reward your children for each small step. Reward with praise. Reward with stars. Reward with extra stories at bedtime. Reward with whatever your children find rewarding!

The point is, when you present your kids with small, doable challenges, they succeed. Nothing encourages kids to move forward more than that.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Source: Kaipainen K, Payne CR, Wansink B. 2012. Mindless Eating challenge: Retention, Weight Outcomes, and Barriers for Changes in a Public Web-Based Healthy Eating and Weight Loss Program. J med Internet Res 14(6): e168 downloaded from http://www.jmir.org/2012/6/e168/ on 1/1/13.

Soccer Mom Syndrome

Do parents really care about healthy eating?

I don't think parents do.  Actually, I do think parents do.  OK, what I'm trying to say is, it's complicated. 

I think parents are ambivalent about healthy eating because they have so many conflicting concerns. Research backs me up.

Conflicting concerns are most easily seen in cases of, what I call, Soccer Mom Syndrome (or SMS for short).

In a study designed to examine how parents feel about the food environment in youth sports, researchers recently found that while some parents are adamantly against unhealthy snacks and other parents aren't terribly concerned about them... 

• Many parents rationalize unhealthy eating during sports because they think their children are essentially healthy, or because the kids "work it off."  (This pits nutrition against current weight or health.)

• Parents use snacks for rewards after sporting events because the children have "worked hard" or have won the game. (This pits nutrition against feeding the soul.)

• Parents report being too "crunched for time" to prepare healthy snacks (or to avoid fast food restaurants for meals) on sporting event days. (This pits nutrition against time.)

• Most parents say that unhealthy snacks are readily available in sports settings and that their kids want them. (This pits nutrition against happiness.)

SMS is widespread! This study canvassed parents of youth basketball players.  I've witnessed SMS in non-sporting environments too. 

At the risk of bringing up a sore subject—the NY Times article about Free-Range Parenting and puree pouches that I wrote a post about last week—one of the things I found most striking was the author's justification for using puree pouches in his own home.  He writes:

ON one level, certainly, the pouch is irresistible. How much time have I spent trying to sell one of my children on a piece of Colby cheese? And while my wife and I aren’t particularly neurotic, we are not above hearing what I think is a fairly common refrain running through most parents’ heads: “My child hasn’t eaten in hours and will die on my watch!”

(For the record, I'm not totally against puree pouches.  Read my review of pouches here.)

FEAR of HUNGER is rampant amongst parents I know.

Parents have lots of other competing concerns too.  Read What's Holding You Hostage.  And so the treatment for SMS isn't simple.  It's also why all those calls for parents to supply healthier snacks often go unheard (or at least they go unheeded).

If you suffer from Soccer Mom Syndrome the solution is to think LONG TERM.

Recognize the long term implications of the lessons  your kids are really learning—when parents prioritize current weight over long term eating habits, or when parents reward kids with food—and you'll automatically be able to see the path you need to follow.

In other words, Think BIG  and then:

• Learn the truth about products targeted towards young athletes, such as Gatorade. Read Soccer Moms BEWARE!
• Develop a strategy for feeding your kids that works.  Read What's a Soccer Mom to Do About Snacks?

Remember, when you keep your eyes on the longterm "prize" you end up teaching your kids the habits they need for a lifetime of healthy eating.  When you don't...well...all you have to do is look around to see what happens.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Source: Thomas, M., T. F. Nelson, E. Harwood, and D. Neumark-Sztainer. 2012. “Exploring Parent Perceptions of the Food Environment in Youth Sport.” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 44(4): 365-71.

Soul Food for Kids

I vividly remember the first time someone tried to soothe my crying child with a sweet.

It was at the doctor’s office after my daughter had gotten a shot.  She was crying and the nurse offered her a lollypop.

Having watched both my mother’s constant struggle with food, and her premature death from obesity-related issues, I was hyper-attuned to the problems associated with using food to soothe the soul. 

And so, that day at the doctor’s office I whipped the lollypop away from the nurse before my daughter could see it.  I soothed her with hugs and kisses and then, only after my daughter had recovered from the trauma, did I offer up the lollypop.

You see, I wasn’t against the lollypop. I was against teaching my daughter to use sweets to soothe her soul.

Research shows that children learn to eat for emotional reasons as early as age 3.

It’s a startling statistic that makes you think.  Read Using Sweets to Soothe the Soul.

Given my history, I’m sure you can see why I was determined from the get-go not to soothe my sweetheart with food.  And while I haven’t always been as effective as that day in the doctor’s office—Read Cookie Love and you’ll see how I adore feeding my daughter sweets and treats—I’ve been pretty good about using food as, well, food.  And it is a good thing too.

A new study shows that mothers who reported using food to soothe their kids tend to have heavier children.

I’m not interested in vilifying mothers.

For starters, I am one, and raising children is hard to do (especially, if like me, you sometimes feel like you’re raising your husband too!).  What’s more, I don’t think anyone is ever really prepared to handle the range of issues that come up with kids.   Sometimes food can be a handy tool.

Here’s the study:

• Gather 100 mothers of 3-36 month old children.
• Ask the mothers a bunch of questions about how they meet their children’s basic needs (feeding, sleeping, crying, soothing).
• Gather data about the children’s height/length and weight.
• Ask the mothers to assess how they feel about their competence as parents, and how ably they feel they meet their children’s needs.
• Ask the mothers to assess their infant’s temperament.
• Crunch the numbers and see what happens.

Mothers who used food to soothe were more likely to describe their infants and toddlers as having a negative temperament.

The mothers were also more likely to feel that they were not effective parents, especially when it came to being able to soothe their children. 

Mothers who used food to soothe their children had heavier children.

Mothers who used food to soothe children with negative temperaments had even heavier children.

Much of the emphasis on child obesity is directed towards identifying the kinds of foods that lead to weight gain. 

This research shows that we need to move beyond thinking about what our kids eat, and start considering why they eat the way they do. 

In this study, the researchers found that using food to soothe the soul can be a successful strategy.  However, the long-term costs are probably pretty high, particularly for children with challenging personalities.

Soothing kids with food teaches them a bunch of bad habits, including these: 

• To use distress (not just hunger) as a cue to eat.
• That eating has rewards (i.e. emotional relief) beyond taste and satiation.

The more negative the child, the more opportunities for soothing, the more risk there is for becoming overweight.

When parents do NOT use food to soothe their kids, especially those with highly negative personalities, the risk for childhood obesity is reduced.

This is good news. 

I think it’s safe to say that nobody wants their kids to be overweight.  This study shows that by switching soothing strategies—consider hugs instead of handouts—parent can teach their kids the habits they need for a lifetime of healthy eating.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

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Stifter, C. A., S. Anzman-Frasca, L. L. Birch, and K. Voegtline. 2011. “Parent Use of Food to Soothe Infant/Toddler Distress and Child Weight Status. an Exploratory Study.” Appetite 57: 693-99.