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Should You Put Your Child on a Diet? Are you For or Against
All parents want the best for their children, which includes ensuring they’re physically healthy and confident about their body image. But getting children to eat well, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy lifestyle is sometimes challenging. Media reports suggest that childhood obesity is increasing, but if you feel your child is becoming overweight, is it right to put them on a diet? yourwellness.com
All parents want the best for their children, which includes ensuring they’re physically healthy and confident about their body image. But getting children to eat well, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy lifestyle is sometimes challenging. Media reports suggest that childhood obesity is increasing, but if you feel your child is becoming overweight, is it right to put them on a diet? For: Tanisha By the age of ten, my daughter was a lot heavier than her classmates. She was getting to the age where her appearance was important, and I could tell she was upset about being bigger than all her friends. I didn t want her to end up struggling with weight all her life ‒ as I have - so suggested that we both start a new diet. By planning our meals together, I was able to supervise exactly what she ate. It gave me the opportunity to teach her about healthy foods, and help motivate her not to return to the sugary snacks she loves. Every Friday, we weigh ourselves and if
we ve hit our target for the week, we reward ourselves with a trip to the cinema or some new clothes. If your child is overweight, then I think the right thing to do is put them on a healthy eating plan. If you don t, they ll continue gaining weight, and then it s only a matter of time before doctors, teachers or their classmates start to make comments about their weight ‒ and this is far more upsetting for children. Hopefully, by putting my daughter on a diet at this age, she will grow up to eat healthily and maintain a normal weight for the rest of her life.
Against: Gillian Children are still growing well into their late teens, and putting them on a diet at a young age isn t a good idea. Quite often a chubby child will lose their puppy fat naturally as they grow up, so diets often aren t necessary. I think it can be really harmful to talk to young children about diets and body shape. It may make them obsessive about food, which could lead to an eating disorder. It s far better to encourage children to feel happy and confident in themselves, whatever their shape happens to be. In our household, we all eat healthily most of the time.
This means that our children have naturally stayed at a healthy weight, and there s never been any need to suggest that they should diet. If I was worried about my children putting on weight, I wouldn t mention it to them. Instead, I d just change the habits of the whole family ‒ perhaps by buying fewer treats. Our culture is obsessed with image and it s really sad to see young people obsessing over whether they look right . So many adults are on endless diets and encouraging children to diet just starts them on this path from a young age.
What do you think? Are you For or Against putting children ‘on a diet’? Visit www.yourwellness.com to register your vote! For family healthy eating and exercise advice, visit www.change4life.com.