First, thanks again to all of you reading this and your comments are energizing...
I am writing this entry tonight as opposed to tomorrow morning to give myself an extra 15 minutes of sleep...but doing this reminds me of a great Billy Crystal joke about elderly Jewish people in Florida....he says that the old people eat lunch at 10am, dinner at 4pm and breakfast the night before....well, here is your old jewish doctor writing his blog the night before...next thing you know I will be eating at the early bird specials! As n aside, to any of you out there from the Jewish persuasion, happy Jewish New Year!
Tonight my travels brought me to a place called "Elevation Burger" at the National Harbor...a pretty high-priced burger place. As a physician who has a weight loss practice, I cannot help but watch behavior patterns of people. Tonight I saw a very nice mother and daughter come into the place and the daughter was about 15 years old. Just watching their interactions, you can just tell how loving and caring a mother she is. Both were significantly overweight. I witnessed the daughter order a double cheeseburger, fries and an Oreo cookie milk shake. Clearly, the amount of calories to be consummed were enormous.
Here lies the disconnect: Childhood/adolescent obesity is the nation's largest health concern and the life expectancy of our children is less than ours. Why would a loving mother "feed" into the obesity problem of her most precious possession, her daughter? Why would the mother not set a role model example by losing weight herself and only frequenting restaurants that offered healthier choices? If her daughter had a drug addiction, would the mother bring her into a place where drugs were sold?
My thoughts on this are the following: Parents, especially the mother, are NURTURING to their children and we all grew up equating "nurturing" with feeding our children. We reward our children with "fun" foods and we bond with our children over food/eating events. Also, the last thing we ever want to do is to make our children feel "ugly" or lower their self esteem, so bringing up weight issues is very unsettling .
I would ask all of you to try as best you can to NOT contribute to anyone's weight problems. Whether if be avoiding caloric laden gifts on holidays/birthdays, providing people you cook for healthy c hoices, etc...be part of the solution to our nation's largest health concern...help your children and loved ones become healthier and happier.
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5 comments:
It makes me sick when I see obese children, especially those under the age of ten. It is 100% the parents fault. Give the kids food so they will shut up and leave you alone. Sad. I always look for the parents and you can spot them a mile away, sometimes literally! Not being mean, just being honest. My feelings is that it is laziness. We have all done it, after a long day of working, school activities, sports, music lessons, the last thing we want to do is go home and figure out what to cook for dinner and so we hit the nearest drive through. I'm guilty of it too, especially on road trips. I had a bad experience growing up with a parent that made weight the biggest issue in the world and subsequently has raised 4 children that have endured an eating disorder of some sort in their lives. I do not want that for my girls. I make a concerted effort not to ever say that eating certain foods will make you fat. I always say that certain things are 'unhealthy' and it has worked. Yes we still get a happy meal, maybe once a month, but I have actually succeeded in teaching them that fast food is not healthy for them. They have actually turned it down on occasions! Not bad for a 3 and 5 year old. The other big thing I do not and will not say to them is 'you don't need to eat that'. I heard that every day of my life growing up and is it any wonder that I became a closet eater?! Sometimes I would eat that particular food just to spite them. Not good. Parents, especially these days, need to grow up and not be afraid to tell their children NO. No, you can not sit and eat cookies all day after school. Cause 9 times out of 10, where are they eating these cookies? In front of the t.v. And in my house if the t.v. is on, they are upstairs every 10 minutes telling me they are hungry. No they aren't, they are just bored! Turn off the t.v. and go outside! And when it comes to family gatherings, learn to have the courage to say no to the extra helpings. Tell your family members that they aren't helping you in your fight against your weight when they keep hounding you to eat more. Hurting their feelings for a whole 5 minutes is not more important then your health.
I myself am a mother of a two year old. I found myself in an akward place not to long ago. I feed my daughter much healthier than I would at that time. I watched myself fixing her a very well rounded healthy Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now as for what I would eat, lets just say it was far less than a healthy balanced meal. The question I asked myself was " what am I doing?, why am I doing this?. I don't want my daughter to watch me destroy myself any more. And god forbide follow in my foot steps!" I can't imagine how some mothers let poor eating habbits for their children slid. It just set them up for a very long and hard life a head of them. Not to long ago I had to talk with her daycare provider about takeing her to McDonalds for lunch once a week! My daughter is only TWO!! She had never had that crap before. Anyways people these days either don't want to take the time or have the patients to cook healty for their children or don't know how to say no. We as parents are not their best friends. We are parents first who need to say no to "please just this once" The greatest friendship will come later as they grow and thank us for guideing them on the right path of health.
I loved this blog. I often have the same dialogue in my head when I'm sitting at a restaurant and watch what obese people eat and more importantly, what they allow their kids to eat. My daughter owns a day care center. I emailed the blog to her and asked her to put it in her next email or newsletter to all the parents. Hopefully it will strike a nerve.
I'm surprised at this blog. One says "IT MAKES ME SICK WHEN I SEE OBESE CHILDREN" and one says "I SIT IN RESTAURANTS AND WATCH WHAT OBESE PEOPLE EAT". Give me a break. Why are YOU spending your time in a restaurant WATCHING OBESE PEOPLE EAT? Don't you have anything else better to do? Are you people so perfect that you consider everyone else less than yourselves?
Maybe you could stand to eat some humble pie. Haven't you heard of the saying "Don't judge until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes." I have to say, too, that I am surprised at you, Dr. Posner. You judged this mother at the restaurant without knowing her circumstances. All you saw when you looked at her is that she was overweight and her daughter was overweight. You put her love for her child in question because of her being at that particular place eating that particular meal. In a flash you judge another human being. I applaud your efforts in the field of weight loss but after all, that is how you make your living. Maybe it would be nice if you used a little more compassion when you WATCH them in all these places you talk about. I didn't realize there were so many of you "obese people-watching people" out there watching what I have been eating for years. I am doing my best now to change behavior from my past but words like you people talk make me want to go out and EAT just so you can watch me. I want to lose weight but losing weight is not the ONLY thing in my life. There is so much more to my life than a number on a scale. Many years ago my young daughter was overweight and I seeked professional help for her, a weight loss center. Because of that experience, she became a "closet eater" and got even more overweight and suffered many years before she found the strength within herself to conquer her weight problem as an adult. So be careful how you judge people. I thought this blog was for constructive discussion about what can be done to help people, to give them hope and positive reinforcement,not to put people down. If I were obese and checking out this website for weight loss and happen to read this particular blog,I would click off fron this site because I would think you would not show understanding or compassion. Why not support more education on how to feed children healthy food, maybe lobby for fewer snack food commercials and more healthy eating ads on tv? Why not more health insurance going toward helping people lose weight instead of us having to pay out of pocket for expensive weight loss programs. Why are the weight loss programs SO expensive?
Just talking about LOOKING at obese people eating does not solve the problem of obesity and
losing weight does not guarantee a long healthy life, just as we
heard when Dr. Posner's family friend, after losing 100 lbs was tragically killed in a car accident. I think criticizing obese people is not the answer.
I think positive reinforcement and compassion does more good than criticism.
I think it is a fine we all walk when it comes to not only ourselves, but our children. You talk about overweight parents perpetuating the same in their children, but I have to tell you I see just as many thin parents with thin children who don't have any better eating habits than their overweight counterparts. But because they are NOT overweight, they are perceived as being healthy...SO not the case. The ability to live a HEALTHY lifestyle may be the biggest obstacle for people in the U.S. I was overweight as a child, but thinned out (not sure how, I ate nearly everything in sight) by high school. As an adult, it has been more difficult to keep my weight down, and have fluctuated between 120 and 185 lbs over the past 25+ years. After working with Dr. Posner and his staff, i have lost over 30 lbs, and am back in single digit dress sizes, but more importantly, I am HEALTHY. Now my daughter has had similar issues with weight, and it has been a gut wrenching experience for me to go through with her. Let me first give you the good news. She lost 16 lbs this summer, nearly completely on her own, through watching what she eats and exercising daily. She stays with her dad during the summer and was so adamant that she lose weight, that while he was working upstairs in his office, she threw out all of the junk food in his house! By the way, she is only 9. Now she is well under 100 lbs and so very proud of herself. It brings tears to my eyes to see her so happy. All that being said, despite my best efforts to try to get her to make healthy choices and stay active over the years, she had to want it for herself. It wasn't until her own epiphany did she set her mind to accomplishing her goal. So when you say obese children make you sick, you need to look at the total situation. Things are not always as clear cut and simple as they appear. There are many reasons people battle weight, and children are no exception. Do you think they WANT to be made fun of, to be chosen last in gym class, and feeling alone and without a friend in the world? I know that isn't what my daughter wanted, and certainly not what I wanted for her. I spent countless hours trying to make her understand that it wasn't about being skinny, it was about being healthy, and feeling good about yourself. But SHE had to want it. Thank God she did. Now she and I go to the gym together, plan meals together, and make a concerted effort together to live a healthier lifestyle.
Megan, if you would like to really understand some of the emotions that are going on with these people, I encourage you to watch the Biggest Loser. Some of these stories and battles these overweight individuals have endured will make you sit and cry for them. Oftentimes, weight isn't the real battle, it is merely a symptom of a much bigger battle going on. What we all need to remember is to use some tolerance and some compassion for those who are walking what can be a unimagineably difficult path. They right thing to do would be to pray and send them positive energy that they find their way.
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