Dieting and Kids and other Sensitive Subjects

A personal essay by Dara-Lynn Weiss in the recent issue of Vogue magazine has caused quite a stir. The essay concerns Weiss' attempts to regulate her daughter's eating habits as a result of her pediatrician's observation that Weiss' daughter's BMI fell into the obese category.

Internet bloggers and commentators express outrage at the Weiss' admissions of occasionally harsh criticisms of her daughter, reprimanding the daughter for unhealthy food choices, making scenes in restaurants, applying rules inconsistently, and acting hypocritically by secretly consuming the same foods she admonished her daughter for enjoying. (All parents make these mistakes and more all the time. I find no need to vilify Weiss for confessing her parenting sins.) Clearly, by putting personal and family issues on public display Weiss opens herself up to judgment, and may subject her daughter to undue embarrassment from the scrutiny of the sometimes strained mother-daughter relationship.

However, in my reading of the article, I find Weiss' tone to be self-aware of her shortcomings. She does not claim to be recommending to readers a litany of effective parenting methods; rather, her essay is an acknowledgement of the difficulties of navigating an important, but sensitive, subject with her daughter when she has yet to come to terms with how to deal with it herself. Weiss admits to struggling with body image issues, food, and weight herself. She faces these issues with ambivalence, wanting to allow her daughter indulgences while at the same time encouraging healthy choices.

Her daughter's pediatrician expressed concern over her daughter's weight, and indeed, childhood obesity is a real problem. Reading over many of the commentators, people brushed off the idea of obesity in children by commenting that a little weight on kids is normal and nothing to be concerned about. However, health problems associated with obesity are well-documented, and the problem is growing exponentially, with the incidences of childhood obesity tripling over the past thirty years.

While Weiss' methods may leave something to be desired, at least she is attempting to deal with the problem. She also addresses an issue that I feel is often neglected: the type and amount of food that children are confronted with on a daily basis. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has made it his mission to help schools overhaul their menus to include healthier options, but unfortunately, most schools are continuing to offer the same mass-produced, overly processed, canned, frozen junk that we had on our plates as kids. Adding to that, each and every milestone is a child's life appears to be rewarded by some kind of candy or unhealthy treat. Cupcakes brought in for birthdays, candy for Halloween/Valentine's Day/Purim/President's Day/Arbor Day, lollipops for haircuts, cookies included with kids' restaurant meals, and on and on. Everywhere they turn, kids are confronted with sugar in all forms. A child struggling with her weight meets temptation all the time, forcing her to make difficult decisions.

Furthermore, several commentators suggest that Weiss failed to factor in exercise as part of the equation, when in fact, she does mention that she enrolled her daughter in tae kwon do, an activity in which her daughter enjoys participating. Physical activity is part of a healthy lifestyle, part of the way that we build healthy habits into our children's lives.

While Weiss may not be the poster child we want for combating childhood obesity, at least she is taking steps in the right direction for her family. Rather than snipe at her over the internet, let's find ways, hopefully more constructive ways, to help our children stay healthy, be active, and eat nutritiously.


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How's Your Body?

Someone asked me today: "How's your body?" and I obviously answered: "AWESOME." How's that for a positive self image?

That's not what he meant, of course. He was asking me, have you had any injuries? For a person who trains everyday, usually twice a day, and has for over fifteen years, that's not an unreasonable question. I have been lucky to have been healthy and injury-free (other than muscle soreness) through the many years of intense working out.

That seems to be less common than you might think. In his book, Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports, Michael Sokolove draws attention to the disturbingly high incidence of injuries in women's and girls' sports. Due to a variety of factors, including the competitive climate of athletics with regard to the intensity of play and year-round duration of practice and play, the fundamental musculoskeletal differences between male and female athletes, and the fierce determination of the players, more and more girls and women are getting hurt in their sports. The proportion of female athletes who experience significant injury (such as an ACL tear) is exponentially higher than for their male counterparts. In some sports, like soccer and basketball, tearing an ACL is almost a rite of passage, an inevitable part of participation.

Unfortunately, while eager young athletes and their driven coaches may see these injuries as detrimental in terms of lost playing time and deconditioning while rehabilitating, the consequences can be much more severe. Every surgery, no matter how minor, carries inherent risks, and each time these women go under the knife they subject themselves to the possibility of additional complications. Furthermore, tears and damage to the ligaments and tendons of the joints of young, healthy people may result in crippling impairments twenty years down the road.


Of course we do want our daughters to run and play and compete. We can't have them sitting on the sidelines watching the boys play. So how do we keep them safe? Here are some ideas:

• Cross-training. The tendency of the past few years is to have kids specialize in a single sport from a very young age and immerse them in the sport completely so that they are playing and training for the one sport year-round -- through the regular season, school, club and travel teams. This leads to a lot of repetitive movements and overexposures to opportunities for injury. Allow children (boys and girls) to play a variety of sports and games. This will create a cross-training effect that will strengthen the whole body in different ways.

• Rest. Hyper-competitiveness and drive may give her an edge over the rival team, but is it worth it if she can't walk in middle age? Keep a reasonable training schedule that allows for at least one true rest day a week. While training, remember to get sufficient sleep each night. Fatigue leads to injury.
  

• Increase muscle strength. Many joint injuries result from weakness in the muscles supporting the joint. In addition to cardiovascular endurance, athletic drills, and practice games, incorporate resistance training to strengthen the muscles, particularly the lower limbs. Do weighted squats and lunges to strengthen quadriceps and hamstrings

• Listen to your body. Respect the signs and signals that your body gives you. "Warrior girls" want to play through pain and push through injuries -- but this only makes the injuries worse. Although it can be hard to stop, particularly if it is a key moment in a game, it may make the difference between a minor ache and a catastrophic injury.

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