How to Address Your Concerns about Your Childs Weight

In today’s video, you will learn how to address your concerns about your child’s weight. I’m Shani Mara Breiter, Registered Dietician. Specializing in helping families, kids and teens. Welcome to Yummy TV, the place to be to create a healthy lifestyle that you and your family will love. I have helped hundreds of families just like yours, and I can help you too. Subscribe to my channel below, and go to my website at ShaniMara.com to get great tips that you won’t find anywhere else.

Now, let’s talk about the matter at hand. You’re concerned about your child’s weight, and you don’t know how to address it. The reason you might feel concerned is because number one, you went to a pediatric appointment recently, and the Pediatrician expressed concern about the growth chart. Or, maybe your child, you recently went clothes shopping and there was a challenge because your child did not like how they were feeling in their clothes. Or, maybe they’re comparing themselves to their friends.

Another reason why this might be a concern to you is that you’re noticing eating habits, you’re noticing cravings, and you’re noticing portion size concerns with your child at home. All these are very, very valid.

Here is the challenge in addressing it with your child. If you talk directly to your child about this, you could actually create negative feelings within your child about their body that can ultimately lead to disordered eating. And, emotional challenges, which is something that we definitely want to avoid. The key here instead, is to make this a family affair and to begin to address this without even talking to your child about it. Again, it starts with you.

Here is what you don’t want to do with your child in this situation. You do not want to talk to them about their weight, or their body. You want to make sure that your spouse, that their siblings, and grandparents, that nobody talks about their weight or their body image in any way. The reason is because again, this can really affect them during their lifetime, and we want to avoid that like the plague. That’s number one.

Number two is, do not put your child on a diet. Don’t talk about diet, don’t buy diet foods, don’t do anything like that. Number three is, don’t compare them to others. To your sibling, to yourself, to anything like that. Those are the three things not to do.

Here is what you do want to do. You want to have healthy foods available at home, both for meals, and for snacks. That’s number one. Number two is, you want to provide healthy balanced meals for dinner especially, but also for breakfast and for lunch. I do talk about this a bit in other videos, so check it out. Number three is, you want to provide family sit down meals, where you can provide the balance, and you can plate it in the kitchen. Number four, is that you want to model healthy habits around food for your kids, so that they can see because they’re going to watch you. They watch everything that you do. Lastly, if you really feel like you need help, then get some professional help so that you can really zero in on the challenges that you’re having, a make a quick shift so that the stress dissipates, and it doesn’t create a problem moving forward.

Remember, healthy family nutrition starts with you, and not with your kids. If you liked this video, please subscribe below. And, also go to my website at ShaniMara.com, and sign up so that you an get great tips that you won’t find anywhere else. Thank you so much for being here today, you are the best part of Yummy TV. See you in the next video.