Word to Parents

Monday, Jun. 07, 2004 By CLAUDIA WALLIS
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Nobody wants his kid to be fat. Aside from the serious health issues, there's the gym-class issue, the last-one-picked-for-the-team issue, the clothes-shopping issue and, alas, the meanness issue. Being an overweight kid is often painful. Other kids can be cruel; even teachers can be biased. And, let's face it, a blubbery kid is a bad reflection on the parent. It suggests too much junk food in the pantry, too much time in front of the TV and other failures of parental oversight. For a parent who also carries too many pounds, it's one more thing to feel awful about.

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A child who's overweight as a teenager has an 80% chance of being overweight as an adult, so preventing obesity--with family meals that instill good eating habits and family outings that involve plenty of activity--is a parent's best bet. But what if you've lost that bet? What if your child is one of the 30% of kids who are either overweight or "at risk"? How can you turn the tide without making him or her more miserable, more resentful of you and more obsessed with eating, or, just as perilous, not eating? Here are some pointers from experts:

1. FACE UP TO THE PROBLEM

It's easy to tell yourself that your child is going through a chubby phase. But your pediatrician's growth and body mass index charts don't lie. "You should begin to be concerned if you see rapid, abnormal upward weight divergence," says psychotherapist Ellyn Satter, author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. If, over two years, you see a child's weight jump, say, from the 25th to the 75th percentile of the average weight for his age while his height stays at the 50th percentile, then there's cause for concern.

2. IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR

Don't focus on a problem child. It's better to get the whole family eating right, starting with yourself. If you don't know how to do that, consult a dietitian or nutritionist. Parents have a lot of control over the diet of children under age 10. Change your own ways, and the kids will change theirs. Children tend to mimic their father's eating habits, observes dietitian Marilyn Tanner, who works with obese children at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Introduce more fruits, vegetables and whole grains at meals, even if they aren't your favorites. Tanner's message to dads: "Pretend you like it."

3. TAKE A SEAT

Sit-down family dinners offer the best opportunity for building good eating habits. Not only do they enable you to keep an eye on what your child eats, but they also tend to be more well-rounded than meals eaten on the run, and kids are less apt to bolt them down. Dinnertime talk can also reveal emotional issues that might underlie overeating. If you can't do it every night, aim for three or four family dinners a week. Satter stresses that even snacks should be "structured, sit-down [meals] served at set times" with no grazing in between.

4. MAKE IT FUN. TRY NEW THINGS