Statistics show that 1 out of 3 children and teens in the U.S. are overweight or obese. In addition to food and exercise, it is important to begin to teach children to connect to their body and to trust in the healing aspects of their body system. This healing system was set up from birth in every child’s blueprint and includes the natural function of eliminating excess food and weight. Begin by pointing out that when they get a cut and it bleeds, it then forms a scab and goes away! Teach them the miracle of the body and its ability to heal as it tries to maintain their perfect proportion. Help them understand that they are not alone in this battle of weight loss and that their body is on their side. What messages do you give your child that seem to create a positive result?
When dealing with adults in my Freedom From Food seminars, I teach how the concept that the body heals itself is extremely important to weight loss.
“I Trust my body to take the nourishment it needs from food and to release the rest.”
—Patricia Bisch
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Great book and so inspirational!!!! Having grandchildren that are growing up in this day and age it is so important to give them the tools that are necessary to help fight the the problem of obesity. If we are able to learn these principles we can help educate our future generations.
With children, I also think it’s important to be coherent and consistent. Mixed messages about food (which adults often send) can make children confused. Not knowing what to do, children often pick up on the dominant thoughts and ideas that usually point towards the equation “food makes you fat”.
The ideal would be for the adults to firmly believe in their own bodies’ capacity to find the right proportion and then naturally transfer this belief to their children…
Dear Ivy,
Thanks for your comment. I do think that parents believing in their own body’s capacity to heal would help their children. Children are so impressionable. They are open and really believe so much of what their parents tell them. I have had parents turn around a child’s weight with a simple thought they tell them like “It is common for children to lose weight when they get older. The weight just seems to go away.” You can suggest that they will probably start seeing it come off soon within this year or something like that. It is certainly better than telling them all the time that the food they eat is going to make them fat.
Thank you for your thoughtful posts Patricia.
I imagine childhood obesity is cultural, that the United States is perhaps one of the few countries with this problem? That it is related to consumerism, commercialism, conspicuous consumption?
The topic leads me to reflect upon my own childhood. When I was 8 people began commenting on my getting chubby. At that point it was considered ‘cute’ by the adults. I didn’t think it cute at all as I saw the image of beauty, of thin models, flashing by on the billboards, television screens, in the pages of magazines.
It became very clear very quickly that beauty and a thin figure were one and the same.
The messages around food were confusing and conflicting. As my father’s rage began to scorch into my 8 year old soul I found food a comfort and a refuge. I saw the seductive photos of food in the media, along with the thin beautiful women, and soon embodied the message that to be happy I needed both: food for comfort and a thin body for acceptance, approval and love.
I countered the bitterness of my father’s words with the sweetness of candy. Ice cream soothed my fear. Sneaking food out of the kitchen felt empowering. I could control nothing except what went into my mouth. But after a time I couldn’t even control that, or so it seemed.
I’m deeply sad for today’s children who have no adults to nurture them, who need to resort to other means, especially since in today’s world, at least in the U.S., so many children watch television or play computer games instead of riding bikes and playing outside. Especially since so much of the food has become synthetic, devoid of nutrients of any kind, has become more of a drug than in my day, where at least the cream in ice cream was real cream, not a chemical substitute.
Since the age of 8 I’ve always been ‘chubby’, ‘plump’, ‘full-figured’ but I’ve thought of myself as obese, and have developed a hatred of my body. I’ve been brain-washed into equating a flat stomach with happiness. And I am not alone. While my friends are educated, progressive women I know of none who are freed from the cultural chains around food and body image.
Until my generation, the adults, are free from the messages around food and body image there is little hope for the children. The problem of childhood obesity is clearly a problem of the adults who need to model nurturing, caring for, indeed, celebrating, the beauty of diversity and being human in all it’s forms. We need to see that over-consumption of anything is but a tragic solution to a very real problem: finding and creating love, nurturing and authentic connection in a culture that worships and idealizes money and power.
Dear Margery,
Thank you for you authentic and touching post. It brought up a memory when my parents friends would come over to visit and say “Oh isn’t Patricia blossoming out.” I wasn’t dumb and I new they were saying “Oh isn’t she getting fat”. Then they would comment on the beauty of my younger sister. It was all so painful and my skin was breaking out at the same time. I remember eating a candy bar the moment I was out of sight. Other people can be so disconnected from how their comments are landing. And since, we are on the topic of Children, without realizing it they can be the so mean to other children who are overweight. Overweight children need our love and attention and to remember they are wonderful!