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Can you answer these questions:

How much should your child weigh?
How to recognize your child’s concerns about his or her weight?
What if your child is being teased?
How to nurture the child’s self-esteem?
How to shop?
How to change your family habits?
When to seek professional help?
What if you child has an eating disorder?

Parents’ Dos and Donts

This tips could be a manual for parents rising a chubby child. I was a plump child myself and I wish my parents would have had this tips to consult. Some of the solutions very good, like encouraging my participation in structured physical activities (ballet, team swimming, and skiing), yet in finding others they could have used some help: I wished they (and I) had been taught more about food, eating, and how to talk about our problem, but then who did have this help back in the 1950s? None of my three sons is or has ever been overweight and all are physically very active, but I did find useful some of the thoughts on providing better nutrition to a child who strongly dislikes vegetables and fish while being prone to feast on the junk food.

What I remember, are these tips, dos and donts, I hope thay can help you, too.

When you make your everyday decisions, keep these Dos and Donts in mind.

Do:

Provide information rather than lecture
Make observations rather than judgment
Ask questions instead of dictating the rules
Offer suggestions rather than reprimand
Be honest, never manipulate
Treat lightly, never nag
Be supportive, avoid threatening
Praise, not criticize
Encourage, not punish

Do not:

Insist on a strict diet
Deny child’s favorite foods
Accept child being hungry
Prohibit snacks between meals
Ignore exercise
Insist on strenuous exercise
Be afraid that exercise will make your child eat more
Be angry when your child eat a wrong food
Control how much your child eat
Use withholding food as a punishment
Use food as a treat
Expect your child to be able to have self-control
Insist that your child eat all you put on the plate
Ignore the fun element in physical activities
Blame your child for eating too much
Think that overweight children are different from normal
Repeatedly remind your child about eating behavior
Punish your child for not losing weight (e.g., by not allowing new clothes)
State that a good-looking child should be thin…
…and muscular, for a boy