weight loss and family

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.