Should Your Child Diet?

What to Consider Before Dieting Takes on a Life of its Own

I just became aware of a discussion thread on a parenting website about whether to put an 8-year-old child on a diet. Here is the original post:

Help! My 8 year old DD [Darling Daughter] is getting fat! We already are a no junk food healthy, active family. I think she's inherited her aunt's body type -- morbidly obese. What can I do now to keep DD from getting into the terrible weight/misery cycle??

This posting itself indicates a mortal fear of all things weight related. It will be difficult for this Mom to gain the perspective needed to encourage health in her daughter, even though she clearly cares a great deal about her. Here are some ideas to keep in mind:

Growing Concern over Children and Dieting

First, some notable statistics from the National Eating Disorders Association on girls, body image and dieting:

• Girls who diet frequently are 12 times as likely to binge as girls who don’t diet.
• 42% of 1st to 3rd grade girls want to be thinner.
• 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
• 46% of 9- to- 11-year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets.
• 95% of all dieters will regain their lost weight in 1 to 5 years.

What you don't see here is any mention of children's concern over their health. Personal health is not an issue in the minds of most kids; they consider themselves indestructible. Image, on the other hand, is important. That's why we see that girls "want to be thinner" and are "afraid of being fat" -- not that they are "concerned they'll develop heart disease," for example.

Their usual attempt at a solution: dieting, clearly. It's also just as clear that dieting can often do more harm than good. From where does the urge to diet arise? Sometimes it comes through the example and the encouragement of parents.

Dieting in Children Reflects Parental Attitudes

Let's go back to the mother's posting above. It's not hard to tell that she's struggling under some major assumptions, some of which are contradictory:

• Body size is entirely under our control. This Mom notes that they're already doing everything they know to keep weight under control but assumes that there must be something else they can do (and should do).
• Her body type must be inherited. That could very well be, as body type does have a genetic component (and so do eating disorders), but if it's inherited, it's definitely not entirely under the family's control.
• My daughter is headed for a "terrible" cycle of weight problems and "misery." Actually, we have no idea how the daughter feels about it right now, but given that parents' attitudes tend to pass to their children, it's more likely that the daughter will eventually feel terrible about her weight.
• Weight problems happen in a cycle. She's right on this one. The problem is that dieting is part of the cycle.

In short, "something has to be done," because the belief is that an overweight child is doomed to an ugly life.

How to Encourage Children Away from Dieting and Toward Health

The best way I know to answer this Mom's question is to try to help lower the anxiety around weight gain.

She states that hers is a "no junk food healthy, active family." Okay. How religious is the no junk food policy? Does she give stern looks to those who eat these foods? What does she tell her kids about them? Any food policy in the home that is completely restrictive will tend to increase the desire for that food.

Second, what about concentrating on the child's health? Several people responded to the woman's post by urging her to take her daughter to a doctor for an exam. Of course, some doctors will be militant about weight gain in kids, but wise doctors will balance the long-term health risks of being overweight with the health risks of eating disorders that involve restricting or binging and purging.

Finally, how does this Mom view herself? In the forum dialogue, she says that she used to be overweight. Is that a shameful thing? Are there historical reasons for that? For example, if this Mom feels shame at the thought of being overweight, because her family has made brutal comments about her own weight and that of others (possibly including the "morbidly obese" aunt), it's easy to pass that on to a daughter. The Mom would be better off dealing with her own emotional reactions (perhaps in counseling) than putting her daughter on a diet.

Parents are definitely not the only risk factors for eating disorders. Of the things parents can control, though, their own attitudes should be the first priority.