Now my dilemma is helping her to make wise food choices. I have been pretty lax with her as far as her eating has gone. She has gained quite a bit of weight, which she is not happy about. As we all know, losing that weight means making some hard choices. I know that food is a source of comfort for her, and I don't want to completely remove that. At the same time I think her eating habits are contributing to her tummy discomfort, and making her self-conscious. Eating more veggies, and saying no to some things that she really likes are going to be tough changes. Ultimately they are choices she is going to have to want to make herself. I am simply not there to make her eat the good things all of the time. I am thinking about having her help me do some of the shopping. I want her to be involved in choosing things that she likes, and help her to understand what she is choosing. She saw an add for Weight Watchers and asked me about it. I actually thought it wasn't a bad idea. She does very well when she is armed with enough information to make good choices. I'm not sure if she has the will power yet to apply that to her diet. I think I will try to get some of the nutrition information and walk her through the plan.
She has also been hesitant to exercise. She dreads PE. Yesterday she ran the mile. She had been dreading it for the previous two days. I knew that she would likely not feel well when she was done, purely do to the anxiety she had about it. She finished it, with flying colors. She improved her time by 3 minutes, which we were both very happy about. She has enjoyed walking on the treadmill. I think I have her convinced that a little bit of walking every day will help her improve her mile time, and to feel better generally. She is still terrified of riding bikes. Apparently she had a bad accident in Ethiopia. My dad is determined to get her on a bike. He even offered to buy her one if she would learn to ride it. He is pretty persuasive, I think she will give in by the end of the summer.
I know that establishing good health habits is important. It is a lot easier when you start when they are little. Meals with little kids can be challenging, but all of that hard work does pay off. It is a lot tougher when you start at twelve. She is old enough to make a lot of her own choices, and I can't really make her eat something she doesn't want to. I need to be ready to stand up to the challenge. The more I can encourage her now, the more it will benefit her later. Of course it means that the whole family will have to be more disciplined about what we eat. I certainly don't want to single her out, we all need more fresh fruits and veggies. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, I'm open to suggestions.
3 comments:
I bet that's even more frustrating when you have a degree in nutrition, huh? Hopefully as she gets older she will take your wise advice.
We definitely had problem with portion size and second, third, fourth, etc. helpings. I know Layla let the kids eat as much as they wanted to avoid hoarding but it created some bad eating habits. Ru'tah was having the same problem and sports helped a lot. She too was really loosing self-esteem over it. We talked about not getting obsessed with size or weight and we don't use words like fat or skinny. Instead we talked to all of our kids about healthy vs. unhealthy. I told them that I am skinny but when I eat junk food and don't exercise, I am unhealthy. And we talked about how many calories a growing body needs and how much food that is. We talked about how food that goes over the calories we need is stored as fat and can hurt our hearts. We googled pictures of cholesterol in arteries and showed the kids what happens when we get too much. After all of that we told them we would determine portion size and that seconds would be the limit for additional helpings. If we feel that a food is plenty but the kids still feel hungry and we don't think they need seconds on that food, we offer fruit, fresh veggies or salad. That usually helps them decide if they are really hungry or just want to eat because they like it. And they know there are options if they really need them. It all helped us. I know Ru'tah was feeling panicky about her weight gain after getting home so we knew we needed to do something quickly. She didn't need another area in her life in which to struggle with confidence. I don't know if that helps but at least you know you aren't the only one : )
While you may not want to "make her eat something she doesn't want to", that doesn't mean that she needs to always get what she does want to eat.
I believe you should have a variety of healthy choices that she can choose from. But, burgers and fries don't need to be on the menu every week. :) If she is hungry, she will choose to eat something that is offered. If she is not that hungry, than maybe this will help her to only eat when she is truly hungry.
At age 12 ... we do still tell our kids what they are to eat and/or what they are not to eat. Yes, they often have choices ... but, not always. I really think that it is okay to say, "This is what we are having for lunch today." Period.
With a dozen children, we have just never allowed the "eat what you want to eat" philosophy. Mom is not a short order cook. We have 1 meal, and that's what everyone eats. The young adults may choose to go "out" to eat, but they may not choose to dig through the refrigerator or cupboards to come up with their own meals. (We have a very tight food budget, as well, which reinforces our parenting philosophy on this one.)
Just my perspective.
Laurel
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