Category Archives: Diet Plans

Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation Program

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Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation Program

Inspire Healthy Kids is not only about focusing on what we feed our kids.  There is so much more to it.  And a lot of that “more to it” lies in how we treat ourselves.  As parents, and particularly as mommies, we are primary role models.  How we eat, our lifestyle, and our attitudes all affect kids’ health and diets.  In Australia, as elsewhere in the developed world, obesity is rapidly on the rise among adults and children alike.  To respond to this trend, diet and exercise regime gimmicks have flooded the market.  One of those is Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation (12WBT) program.  But if we as parents are following this are we presenting healthy models to our kids?

My good friend Kylie Ryan recently referred me to a blog post by a friend of hers reviewing the 12WBT program.  (And any friend of Kylie’s is a friend of mine! Kylie is a huge positive force for good so please check out her site.)

So, what is Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT?  It’s a diet and exercise program based on the principle that if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight.  Programs like this one take this to the extreme, by encouraging extreme dieting and lots of exercise.  Participants are told to restrict caloric intake to 1200 calories a day.  Anything less than this is considered starvation – 1200 is the minimum you need to survive.  The problem with consuming this kind of restricted diet for a long period of time is that your body goes into “starvation mode.”  If your body ideally requires, say, 2000 calories a day to maintain body weight, and you only consume 1200, plus you begin exercising and therefore burning more calories, you are in essence starving yourself!

When your body goes into starvation mode the instant you start consuming extra calories, your body immediately stores them away for future use, in case the starvation scenario recurs or gets worse.  This is a natural biological survival mechanism.  This mechanism is how humans survived throughout our long history of “feast and famine” cycles and seasons.  Unfortunately, dieters actually stimulate this survival mechanism in themselves, which leads to them ultimately gaining more weight after the diet finishes.

“THE RESEARCH SHOWS OVER AND OVER THAT ANY KIND OF DIETING INCREASES YOUR PROPENSITY FOR GAINING WEIGHT, BECOMING OBESE, DEVELOPING AN EATING DISORDER, BECOMING PREOCCUPIED WITH FOOD AND EATING WHEN YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY.” BRIDGET JANE THOMPSON, NUTRITIONIST, DIETICIAN & PSYCHOLOGY OF EATING COACH

In her post on this subject, Bianca Aiono lists numerous reasons women might be suffering from carrying too much weight:

  • Polycistic ovaries,
  • Insulin & Leptin resistance,
  • Adrenal fatigue
  • Underactive Thyroid
  • High stress & Cortisol levels
  • Disordered eating
  • Low self esteem
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Food Intolerances
  • Chronic Inflammation

And none of those are addressed by dieting, certainly not by a crash diet program like Michelle Bridges advocates.

The worst part is that when we as role models for our kids engage in unhealthy dieting behaviors, we are teaching our kids to do the same.  The best way to get our kids to eat a healthy, balanced diet is to eat a healthy, balanced diet ourselves.  And the Michelle Bridges 12WBT is not a healthy, balanced diet.

Other criticisms of a program like this is that it takes over your life.  As mothers, we need to dedicate time to our kids and our families.  Of course it is important to focus on ourselves and our health!  But it shouldn’t be so all-consuming that it takes away from our kids.  We want to inspire healthy kids, not ignore them!

To make matters worse, programs like Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT can lead to development of eating disorders or can at least really screw up women’s relationships with food.  As a woman myself, I know how looking at yourself in the mirror loads an extra 10kg of weight on you that nobody else actually sees.  The long term impacts of something like this can be drastic.  For instance, what happens if a woman falls pregnant?  If she diets like this during the pregnancy in an effort not to gain too much weight, the baby will suffer as well.  And what about if she does this program for the very long term – say, 5 sessions in a row?  Long-term exposure to a famine-like state can have long term impacts on the baby.  Babies whose mothers had previously been exposed to famine are more likely to not only have a decreased birth weight, but also to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.  (See, e.g., David Barker, The Malnourished Baby and Infant Relationship with Type 2 Diabetes, Br Med Bull (2001) 60 (1): 69-88.doi: 10.1093/bmb/60.1.69)

Of course, a program like the Michelle Bridges 12WBT does have its benefits.  It gives women a community, group support, and a financial impetus to do something about the extra weight they’re carrying.  But women can easily find those same supports via healthier regimens.

Studies show that a healthy vegan diet does wonders for both adults and children in terms of all diabetes and heart disease risk factors, including weight loss.  And the vegan community is strong, passionate, and supportive.  If women are looking for other women to connect with as a support on a weight loss quest, this is a great way to go.  Eating a healthy vegan diet may be a much slower way to lose weight, but it is a sustainable lifestyle change that can be carried on indefinitely.  It also has a lot of other health benefits due to the higher intake of fiber and other nutrients.

Another positive option is to hire a mind coach and a nutritionist to help you learn how to eat a healthier diet.  A mind coach like my friend Kylie Ryan can help you to view yourself more positively and determine root causes of unhealthy dietary habits, like binge eating, searching out junk foods, and emotional eating.  A nutritionist can teach you what foods are healthy for your body, given your lifestyle, budget, and sensitivities.

And of course there is the exercise aspect of the 12WBT.  Exercise is really important!  Hire a personal trainer to learn how to use equipment and get exercises personalized to you.  Or join a gym with group classes.  My gym, Goodlife Health Clubs, is amazing – they offer shorter term fitness challenges, small group training, large group classes, and even exercise classes for kids!  I love the classes because I’ve made lots of friends there, which leads to accountability: If I skip a class, my friends will inquire as to why not.

In order to inspire healthy kids, we first have to inspire a health us.  As parents we need to model good behaviors and choose holistic ways to improve our health.  The Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation program is not a healthy model of good dietary and weight loss behavior.

 

Emotional Hunger: Prevent and Stop Emotional Eating

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Emotional Hunger: Prevent and Stop Emotional Eating

Earlier this week, I posted about emotional hunger. Emotional hunger is when we feel hungry because of our emotions, not because we physically need to eat.  This behavior shows up even in very young toddlers. What can we as parents do to prevent it from developing, intervene when it strikes, and prevent it from happening once it has developed?  Below are some of my top ways to deal with emotional hunger in kids.

How Parents Can Stop Emotional Eating from Developing

As parents, we cannot control our kids.  They are independent human beings with their own minds, wills, and desires.  However, we do have an enormous amount of influence on them, much of which they (and us) are not even aware of.   Kids’ relationships with food are often strongly influenced by our behaviors as parents.

One thing that has been observed repeatedly in many studies is that parents who use food to soothe their young children when they are experiencing negative emotions will raise children who experience significantly more emotional eating.*  Let me put this another way: If you use food to soothe your unhappy child, you are teaching your child to eat when they are unhappy.

As a parent, I know how distressing it is to see your child unhappy.  Not only do you not like seeing your precious baby upset, but it can also be embarrassing, frustrating, or annoying to you as a parent.  Trust me, even my little angels have thrown tantrums in the grocery store or dissolved into tears because they want something (usually a trip on an airplane, helicopter, boat, or train) that I just cannot possibly provide them with.

I have seen on so many occasions that parents will break down under such circumstances and distract their child with food.  Heck, even I have done it on occasion (but with dried fruit, not chocolate, as the proffered treat).  I think all parents do this every once in a while.  But when this method of dealing with unhappy children becomes the norm rather than a once off rarity, you are teaching your child to soothe with food.  You are educating your child that if they are unhappy, eating will make them feel better.  And as a result, they are more likely to become obese.

How to Deal With Emotional Hunger

Helping your child recognize emotional hunger is only half of the battle.  Once they understand that their hunger is emotionally motivated rather than physically driven, what should they do?  The first thing you must make clear to kids is that the food is not going to solve their problems.  Ultimately, it is not going to improve their emotional situation.

Tell them to wait

That said, do not forbid kids to eat when their emotions are in turmoil.  Children, like adults, always want what they cannot have.  You certainly cannot expect a child to have more self-control than an adult, and few adults can withstand emotional cravings.  Instead, suggest to your child that if they are in an unhappy mood and that is making them want to eat, that they defer it for five minutes.  Children are often mercurial and in five minutes their emotional state could change completely.  Alternatively, they may find another, more constructive, way of self-soothing, or they might simply forget that they wanted to eat.  Because emotional hunger is not physical, it is not enduring in the same way physical hunger is.

Give kids a toolkit

Another way to break the emotional eating habit is to give kids a set of tools to work with.  Kids have to learn how to self-soothe and need to be taught how to appropriately handle emotions.  Some emotions are uncomfortable and we do not like them.  Sadness, anxiety, or loneliness are not good feelings, but they are instructive.  They help teach us what we need and also help us learn to avoid potentially dangerous or counterproductive situations.  Explaining to kids the positive side of bad emotions can be a good way to start.  Then they can view uncomfortable emotions as their friends rather than enemies to be avoided or ignored at all costs.

Sadness: Help children come up with a list of activities that make them happy.  This could be anything from kicking a ball to finger painting to reading a book.  Certain activities like physical activity or singing actually release endorphins that make kids physically feel happy – and they’re healthy, too.

Loneliness: Most children experience loneliness at some point.  Maybe they’re alone in their room while mom takes a nap, or perhaps they just don’t have any friends who can come over to play.  Kids can also feel lonely in a crowd, especially if they are in a group of which they are not a part (such as a new school), or if they are missing a specific person (like a special friend or grandparent).  Suggest that kids who are lonely call a good friend or trusted adult, play with a pet, or connect with someone they care about by looking at photos or writing a letter/drawing a picture to send that person.

Anxiety: Even kids have things they worry about.  Whether it is schoolwork they don’t feel good at or a friend they’ve bickered with, kids have their own “kid-sized” set of concerns.  Never ever downplay your child’s cares!!! Each of us has our own set of problems that are important to us, regardless of anything else that may be going on in the world.  Do not invalidate your child’s worries.  It is amazing how soothing it can be for a worried child when a parent validates their concerns.  Ask what is bothering your child, listen to your their answer, and repeat it back, along with words of understanding.  (E.g., “I hear that you are nervous because you have a big math test tomorrow.  I know how that feels – it can be pretty scary.”) Sometimes kids are anxious without knowing why or you are not around to talk it through with them.  In those cases, encourage your kids to burn off nervous energy by doing something physical, such as dancing to a favorite song or running a few laps around the playground or schoolyard.

Tiredness: Feeling tired, exhausted, or run down can be the result of too little sleep, broken sleep, or too much activity or stimulation.  Like adults, when kids get tired they can also become cranky and might be tempted to reach for their favorite junk foods.  Tired kids should be encouraged to rest as much as the situation allows.  If they are home and it’s not too early they can simply go to bed a bit earlier than usual.  If it is too early for them to go to sleep, they can lie in the bed or on the couch and “veg out” by reading a book or watching a show (reading a book is better, though, as screens stimulate the brain and can make it harder to get a good night’s sleep).  To calm cravings for food, give kids a warm drink, such as a warm cup of milk (we prefer homemade rice milk). If you want to avoid extra calories, offer kids a warm cup of herbal infusion (some herbs and flowers can even be calming and aid in peaceful sleep – I use linden flower, which has a soft and neutral flavor).  Don’t want to give kids drinks before bed?  Use water in a different way: Give your kids a soothing bubble bath.

Boredom: Kids can get bored no matter how many toys you buy them.  To avoid boredom, try rotating toys.  We keep each set of similar toys in a box and no more than one or two boxes are out at any time.  If our kids get bored, they don’t turn to food – instead, they trade in an existing box for a new box full of toys they haven’t recently played with.  Try also making a list with your kids of projects, games, or activities they’d like to try some time when they are bored.  There are an endless amount of kids activity and craft idea books out there to help you come up with ideas.  Photocopy or scrapbook pages with activity or craft ideas into a “boredom book” your child can pull out when they get bored, rather than reaching for snacks.

Hopefully with a toolkit like this in hand, you will find it easier to determine both what your child’s emotional hunger triggers are and what you can do to fix them – without food.

Preventing and Countering Emotional Hunger

One of the best ways to deal with emotional hunger is to prevent it from arising.  As discussed above, as parents we can do certain things that discourage emotional eating habits from developing, but what do we do if our kids already show signs of emotional eating?  And what do we do if they develop the habit regardless of the way we raised them?  Everyone knows that no matter how good a parent you are, you can do everything right and still your child might do something different! So how can we help our kids to counter emotional hunger in the first place?

The key to stopping emotional hunger from arising in our kids is to set them up for success.  There are four aspects of your child’s daily routine that can go a long way to preventing emotional hunger from developing:

  1. Sleep.  Ensure your child gets enough sleep every night.  Tiredness and lack of sufficient sleep make it difficult for kids to process their emotions.  I know what it is like to have bedtime struggles, so the only advice I have is to set up a bedtime routine that gets your kids to sleep with enough hours left before school for them to get the rest they need.
  2. Exercise.  Too many kids today spend a lot of their day either cooped up at school desks or in front of screens – or both.  Physical activity and movement are scientifically proven to boost mood, so making physical activities and sports a regular part of your child’s routine will also help improve their overall mood.
  3. Connection.  Kids need to connect with others.  Social interaction not only teaches good social skills but it also improves kids’ “emotional quotient” by teaching them how to handle their own (and others’) moods. Close bonds and positive relationships also give a boost to kids’ sense of wellbeing and self esteem.
  4. Relaxation.  These days there is an enormous amount of pressure to fill kids’ every waking moment with activities and stimulation.  I know some kids who are on the go from 7 AM to 10 PM, every day.  This is an overwhelming schedule even for an adult!  Parents do this thinking they are doing the right thing for their kids, by entertaining them without pause.  But all that stimulation can produce stress and kids need a time out sometimes to cool down and relax.  Institute some sort of quiet time in your child’s day.  It may be a nap or it could simply be a peaceful half hour in their day.  Older children can read a book or listen to a book on tape.  If you have the time, reading a book to the family is a great quiet-time bonding opportunity all can enjoy.

Conclusion

Emotional hunger can plague anyone, from very young toddlers through to the elderly.  Eating just because we want to assuage our emotions can lead to overeating, unhealthy eating, and weight gain.  Unfortunately, kids can establish these habits and patterns very young.  Using the tips and advice in this post can help you learn what to do: A) as a parent, in order to prevent habits from developing; B) to help your child avoid eating for emotional reasons; and C) to prevent emotional hunger from arising by changing your child’s daily routines.  With these tips in hand, we can start to say goodbye to emotional hunger!

*Farrow C, Haycraft E, Blissett J. Teaching our children when to eat: how parental feeding practices inform the development of emotional eating—a longitudinal experimental design Am J Clin Nutr May 2015 vol. 101 no. 5 908-913

Emotional Hunger: What Is It?

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Emotional Hunger: What Is It?

Earlier this week, I posted about using mindfulness as a tool to teach kids how to take control of their eating habits.  One of the most critical things kids (and all of us) can learn from being more mindful when we eat is to be aware of our hunger.  Some hunger comes because our bodies need fuel, but not all of it.  Some hunger is instead emotional hunger.

What is Emotional Hunger?

Emotional hunger is the hunger we feel when we are experiencing a certain mood or situation.  The emotional triggers are different for each person.  I know a lot of people who eat nonstop when they are stressed.  I, on the other hand, cannot even think about food when I’m stressed.  But stress and anxiety are not the only triggers that make people suddenly want to eat.  Some people eat when they’re happy or when they’re sad.  Some people eat when they’re in a relaxed mood, others when they are under pressure.

Often we eat simply because we are reminded of a food.  No matter what our mood is, we start to salivate when we walk past a chocolate or pizza shop.  Just smelling food can make our bodies respond as if we are about to eat.  Not only smells, but memories or reminders can also spur us to eat.  Thinking fondly of a family member who has just called can bring to mind memories about shared meals.  Remembering with pride a certain achievement can also recall the foods we used to celebrate it.

Being in a situation similar to one we’ve experienced many times can also trigger us to want certain foods.  I know a lot of people who insist on having chicken soup the moment they come down with a cold, whether they are hungry or not.  When my stomach is upset, I reach for dry crackers and ginger ale, even if I really don’t want to consume anything.

All of these moods and memories that spark our interest in eating are forms of emotional hunger.  We are hungry not because we need to eat but because something else internal to our mind has made us think we need to eat.  Emotional hunger is hunger driven by our emotions and our psychological needs rather than our physical needs.

Kids Also Experience Emotional Hunger

As adults, we may be tempted to think of emotional hunger as an adult experience.  Kids, who surely have less emotional baggage to carry around, should not be so susceptible, right? Right? Wrong.  In fact, there is an entire emotional eating scale adapted specifically for children and adolescents!*

Emotional Hunger Begins Young

It makes perfect sense that even very young children should associate food with soothing emotions.  Beginning at birth, babies are offered food as a soothing mechanism and feeding times are often an opportunity for intense parent-baby bonding.  Food is immediately associated with being a way to improve mood and overall feeling.  Having had two babies of my own, I can freely admit to many times having offered the breast to my babies to stop them from crying and to soothe their distress – even when I knew they weren’t hungry.

Actively eating as a result of emotional hunger can be observed in children as young as 2 years old.**  It has also been extensively tested in preschool children*** as well as in adolescents.****  There is no doubt that children use food to stimulate or still their emotional states just as adults do.

The Dangers of Emotional Eating and Emotional Hunger

The main danger of emotional eating and emotional hunger in children is that it is clearly associated with obesity.  Emotional eating leads to a greater body mass index (BMI) and a less healthy diet, which results in less healthy kids.***  If we want to inspire healthy kids, we need to deal with emotional hunger in a constructive way.

How to Identify Emotional Hunger

If your child(ren) is/are already displaying emotional eating habits, it is time to teach them how to identify emotional hunger and to separate it from physical hunger.  Mindfulness techniques can really help.  Mindfulness encourages children to assess their emotional state prior to eating.  However, there are some key identifiers that make it easier for a child to answer whether they are experiencing emotional or physical hunger. Use these lists as your guide, from Doris Wild Helmering and Dianne Hales Think Thin, Be Thin (New York: Broadway Books, 2004): 77 and Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Australia: Hay House, 2010): 153.

Physical Hunger

  • Builds gradually
  • Strikes below the neck (e.g., growling stomach)
  • Occurs several hours after a meal
  • Goes away when full
  • Eating leads to feeling of satisfaction

Emotional Hunger

  • Develops suddenly
  • Above the neck (e.g., a “taste” for ice cream)
  • Unrelated to time
  • Persists despite fullness
  • Eating leads to guilt and shame

Conclusion

Emotional hunger can plague anyone, from very young toddlers through to the elderly.  Eating just because we want to assuage our emotions can lead to overeating, unhealthy eating, and weight gain.  Unfortunately, kids can establish these habits and patterns very young.  Stay tuned for my next post: I will tell you all about how to prevent and counter emotional hunger.

*Tanofsky-Kraff, M., Theim, K. R., Yanovski, S. Z., Bassett, A. M., Burns, N. P., Ranzenhofer, L. M., Glasofer, D. R. and Yanovski, J. A. (2007), Validation of the emotional eating scale adapted for use in children and adolescents (EES-C). Int. J. Eat. Disord., 40: 232–240. doi: 10.1002/eat.20362

**Farrow C, Blissett J, Stability and continuity of parentally reported feeding practices and child eating behaviours from 2-5 years of age. Appetite 2012;58:151–6.

***Blissett J, Haycraft E, Farrow C. Inducing preschool children’s emotional eating: relations with parental feeding practices. Am J Clin Nutr 2010;92:359–65.

****Braet C, Van Strien T. Assessment of emotional, externally induced and restrained eating behaviour in nine to twelve-year-old obese and non-obese children. Behav Res Ther 1997;35:863–73.

Mindfulness: Using Awareness to Eat Healthy

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Mindfulness: Using Awareness to Eat Healthy

It seems like buzzwords like mindfulness, meditation, and awareness are becoming more commonly accepted.  When I was younger, these concepts raised images of gurus, hippies, and quacks.  Today, the health benefits of meditation are undisputed, and mindfulness and living in the present are becoming lifestyles in their own right.  This made me wonder: Could mindfulness be used to teach our kids to eat more healthfully?

Mindless Eating

A lot of the food we eat, we eat mindlessly.  I am guilty party numero uno in this regard: I see mealtimes as my “time out” from the stress of being a full-time wife and mother, so whenever I can snatch a moment to sit at the table and eat, I grab a good book and read.  Of course there are many manifestations of this: some people eat while they watch television, some while they read, and even some while they’re driving.  Our kids are no exception.  If they’re not eating in front of the boob tube, they’re likely to be eating on the go or while horsing around with their friends.  Even in the hour-long child minding my kids attend while I go to the gym, the carers put the TV on while the kids eat their snacks.

The problem with eating mindlessly is that we don’t tend to think about what we are eating, or how much.  On the one hand this is a really bad thing because it often leads us to eat too much of the wrong foods.  We end up eating an extra dozen handfuls of popcorn, an extra bread roll, or an extra helping of pasta.  On the other hand, we can turn this to our advantage.  If our kids are eating mindlessly, they will end up eating more healthy stuff, like salad, veggies, and fresh fruit.  It is up to us as their parents to replace the cookie jar with a bowl of fresh fruit and to relegate the serving bowl of pasta to the sideboard while a big bowl of salad takes pride of place on the table.

Using mindless eating as a trick to get kids to eat more healthfully only works when our children are eating at home.  But as kids grow up, head off to school, and take on more and more activities, the number of opportunities we have to trick them into eating healthfully decreases.  This is when we need to educate our kids in the skills they need to make good eating decisions.

Applying Mindfulness to Eating

Mindfulness goes beyond simply living in the moment.  When it comes to eating, it is actually all-encompassing.  Often, we taste the first and last few bites of a meal, but the intervening majority of flavor is lost on us.  We frequently eat and cannot remember how much we consumed.  We habitually underestimate how much and how many we have eaten.  We don’t even know if we are hungry or full.  We don’t pay attention.  And the majority of us overeat as a result.  And that includes our kids.

By applying a mindfulness approach, we bring our focus back fully onto our food.  We pay attention to all those details, including:

  • How fast or slow am I eating?
  • How long does it take me to eat this meal/snack?
  • What is the texture of the food?
  • How does the food taste?
  • How does eating this food make me feel?
  • What memories, feelings, or emotions do I associate with this food?
  • Am I hungry, not hungry, or full?
  • Do I want to take each bite?
  • What will be the consequences of eating this food?

Teaching Your Kids Mindful Eating

Getting kids to slow down and savor their food may seem a daunting task, but it is a skill that can be taught.  Try this simple exercise with your kids and repeat it as frequently as possible until the act of being mindful and aware becomes familiar and a matter of course.

Have your child take a few raisins, some sunflower seeds, a cracker, a stick of celery, or another small snack the first time you try this, but you can also try this at the dinner table as a family.  Begin by asking your child to describe how they are feeling.  Are they hungry or full? Heavy or light? Relaxed or anxious?  What is their mood, and does it affect their desire to eat?  What do they think will be the consequences of their eating this snack?  (Will it give them energy, make them gain weight, or make them feel more or less hungry?)  Have your child pick up the food in his/her hand.  Ask them to describe it in intimate detail.  Is it heavy or light?  Is it wrinkled or smooth?  How does it feel sitting on their skin? Comfortable or uncomfortable?  What color is it?  What texture?  Have your child bring the food up to their nose and inhale.  What does it smell like?  Is the smell strong or weak?  Does this smell remind them of any thing, person, or experience?  Have them place the snack in their mouth or take a bite of it.  Before they chew have them assess how it feels in their mouth.  Is it dry or wet? Warm or cold? Does the texture feel different on their tongue than it did in their hand?  Does the food have a taste even before they begin to chew?  Does it feel heavy on their tongue or light?  Is it melting or solid?  Ask them to chew but not yet swallow.  What does the food taste like?  Is it sweet, sour, salty, bitter, or umami?  Does it remind them of anything?  Does it affect their emotions at all?  What is the texture of the food?  Is it chewy or crunchy? Hard or soft?  How does the texture change the longer they chew it?  How does the flavor change?  Tell your child to swallow.  As they do so, have them focus on the feeling of the food sliding down their throat.  Have them imagine it sliding down into their stomach.  Now ask them how they feel.  Do they feel more or less hungry?  How is their emotional state?  Do they feel satisfied? Guilty?  Repeat with the remaining snack.

The Results of Mindfulness

Mindfulness and awareness may or may not motivate your child to make more healthy food choices away from home.  They still might not choose to order salad when all their friends order greasy pizza.  But mindfulness can help them be more aware of their bodies and their emotions as they eat.  By nurturing mindfulness related to eating, you will make it impossible for them to continue to eat mindlessly.  Whether they want to or not, they will suddenly find themselves “zoning in” when eating instead of “zoning out.”  Unwittingly, they will begin to be aware of how much they are eating, how fast they are eating, and how they feel about the food they are eating.  It will make them stop and think twice before heading to the snack machines – asking themselves if they are really hungry right now.

Mindful eating can really help kids to make better food choices.  It can also help them to lose weight or to stay at a healthy weight.  It will also help them confront their emotions surrounding food.  If eating certain foods makes them feel sluggish or guilty, their awareness of this can help them choose to avoid those foods in the future.

Another benefit of mindful eating is that it gives kids a sense of consequences.  The judgment center of kids’ brains doesn’t fully develop until their early 20’s.  But by making consequences very clear and by teaching kids to consider the consequences of their eating habits, we introduce them to a useful skill that can be applied across the board in their lives.

Good for Relationships

Teaching kids the skills of mindfulness when eating can also be good for your relationship with them.  In effect, teaching mindfulness is a form of granting stewardship.  Instead of micromanaging and trying to control all of your child’s eating habits, you are teaching them the skills they need to make good food choices.  Handing over the control to your kids, at least when they are out of the house, gives them a sense of power and control.

Power and control are essential for any human being.  None of us likes the feeling of being powerless, and that includes even very young children.  Anyone who has had a baby spit their food or formula out at them or refuse a particular type of food has run into this head on.  If we want to inspire healthy kids, we cannot just focus on the last two words.  Of course we want healthy kids, but we also want inspired kids!

Mindfulness is one tool of many that we as parents can deploy to teach our kids to make good food choices.  By teaching them this skill, we can also give them the gift of being able to say to them that we trust them to make good decisions on their own.  Being granted power, control, and stewardship over their own eating habits can be hugely empowering for kids of all ages.  This does not mean they are without guidance!  This means we provide them the guidance, the help, and the aid they need to learn how to make good decisions without wresting the control away from them.

Happy Mindful Eating!

I hope this tutorial on teaching mindful eating proves helpful.  In fact, it is the kind of timeless wisdom we can all benefit from, no matter what our age.  Mindfulness can stop us from reaching into the office candy dish when we don’t really want another chocolate, and it can stop us from going back for seconds when we are no longer hungry.  But unlike conventional diets, mindfulness does not deprive anyone of the foods they want.  It simply makes us more alert to our behaviors and empowers us to make good decisions.  For an adult, this can be hugely liberating and for a child it is even more inspirational and empowering.

For anyone interested in using mindfulness and emotional awareness as the keys to resolving weight or food issues, I strongly encourage you to contact my good friend and personal inspiration, Kylie Ryan.  And no, she didn’t pay me to say that.  I just think she’s awesome and good at what she does, and I know you will, too.

Diabetes: How Kids Can Eat Healthy

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Diabetes: How Kids Can Eat Healthy

My brother has diabetes.  He developed it when he was just 7 years old, so it dominated his childhood and my teenage years.  It had major impacts on our family.  For families with a diabetic child, it can cause major changes in the family diet.  Here are some ways to eat healthy with diabetes:

Types of Diabetes

There are two types of diabetes.  Type 1 diabetes (which used to be known as juvenile onset diabetes) is when the pancreas simply stops producing insulin.  There is no cure for Type 1 diabetes and diabetics with this form of the disease have to take insulin injections for the rest of their lives (or until a cure is found).  Diet and insulin injections are the best way to manage Type 1 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes used to be known as adult onset diabetes because it is strongly associated with obesity and used to occur predominantly in older adults.  Not so today.  With so many children today overweight and so many children consuming high sugar foods and refined carbohydrates that spike blood sugars, Type 2 diabetes is now increasingly common among children and can no longer be called “adult onset diabetes.”  With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas still produces insulin but the body doesn’t regulate it well.  Type 2 diabetes is not as stark as Type 1 diabetes.  Indeed, it is more of a continuum.  Some people have Type 2 diabetes so mildly that it can be managed entirely by dietary modifications.  People who have a more severe form can take medication and people who have a very severe form need insulin injections like Type 1 diabetics do.

No matter how severe the diabetes or what Type, diet is a crucial part of any management program.  Of course you should consult you’re doctor before embarking on a particular dietary program, as I am not a doctor, nor have I even played one on TV (although I was once on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which is fitting because I am actually a lawyer haha!).  My advice regarding diet for diabetics is meant to be practical and helpful, not the be all and end all of diabetes dietary requirements!!

Impact of diet on diabetes

Diet can have an enormous impact on diabetes.  Insulin is a hormone our bodies produce that regulates blood sugar levels.  Blood sugar levels that are too high or too low can cause serious illness, coma, and even death, so managing diabetes effectively is really important.  Unfortunately, much of the food kids eat today is processed and full of sugar (it is hidden in all sorts of things you wouldn’t expect).  Kids also eat a lot of refined carbohydrates, such as white rice, white flour, and white potatoes – I like to say, “White flour, white potatoes, and white rice: If it’s white, it isn’t nice!”  Carbohydrates are converted into sugars by the body so it can use them as fuel, but refined carbohydrates are converted into sugars very quickly and simply, so they flood the system.  Think about it: eat one serving of white bread and compare how long you feel full to when you eat one serving of whole grain steel cut oatmeal.

In fact, in cases of Type 2 diabetes diet can even reverse diabetes entirely, just as diet can reverse obesity.  This has been tested in animals and also shown in scientific peer-reviewed studies to work in humans (especially effective if exercise is included).  This works because a healthy diet reduces obesity and heart disease risk factors – even in children.

Diets for Diabetic Kids

The Internet is full of different diets to help reduce or reverse diabetes.  As an adult, you can afford to buy into the starvation diet, but even if it is endorsed by a reputable university’s biomedical department, a starvation diet can be dangerous for children, whose bodies are still developing.  Do not starve your children!

However, the concept still works for kids.  Other studies (see above) show that reducing calorie intake can slow, stop, or even reverse diabetes development.  This is because reducing caloric intake has a twofold benefit for diabetics.  Firstly, if done in a healthy and balanced way, it normalizes blood sugar, avoiding blood sugar spikes and making blood sugar regulation easier on the body.  Secondly, it reduces weight and reducing obesity reduces the incidence of diabetes.

Another demonstrated dietary fact is that diabetics should reduce fat intake.  In more than one of the studies I cited above, fat and especially fatty liver played a stark role in the development and reversal of diabetes.  This is why the healthy vegan diet kids in the recent heart disease study was so effective in reducing heart disease risk factors in children: It was very low fat.

That said, there are three commonly endorsed diets for diabetics, all of which can be healthfully used by children:

The Plate Method

The Plate Method Diet for DiabeticsThe Plate Method is the diet for diabetics that is currently recommended.  It calls for 50% of the plate to be covered with non-starchy vegetables, 25% with starchy vegetables, and 25% with protein, as well as a serving of fruit and a serving of milk on the side for each lunch and dinner meal.  Of course, the efficacy of any diet like this relies on making good food choices. Non-starchy vegetables such as asparagus or broccoli should be cooked in a healthy way, like steaming, roasting, or stir fry, not doused in sauces and oils.  Not all starchy foods are created equal.  Whole grains like brown or wild rice and quinoa are preferable to refined grains like white rice or white bread.  Starchy vegetables like zucchini, peas, and parsnips are more nutritious than white potatoes (and also have more flavor, reducing the need for additives like butter and oil).  Non-fat protein choices like tofu or seitan will always be better than an animal product even if it is low in fat, due to the way in which the body metabolizes animal fats, and also due to the benefit of fat reduction in diabetic diets.  For children, consider serving the fruit during snack times rather than during meal times, thus eliminating the need for kids to have yet more calories in their diets during the day.  For the milk, I recommend making your own brown rice milk or buying oat or almond milk.  If done properly, this kind of diet is incredibly healthy.

A sample lunch would be:

  • 1 cup brown rice milk
  • Sandwich of whole grain bread, lots of hummus (for protein), and roasted spring vegetables or salad vegetables
  • Side of raw non-starchy vegetables (such as cucumbers, mushrooms, and capsicum) with some more hummus to dip them in.
  • 1/2 cup strawberries for morning snack
  • 1 small banana for afternoon snack

A sample dinner would be:

  • 1 cup brown rice milk
  • Stir fry of non-starchy vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach with tofu over brown and wild rice mix

Diabetic Exchange Diets

There was a time when this method was very popular, but compared to the Plate Method, it seems like a bit of a pain to me.  Foods are divided into six categories: starch, meat (there are no vegan meat substitutes), non-starchy vegetables, fruit, milk, and fats.  Together with a dietician each individual will be given a number of servings to have from each category each day.  This method is easier in a way because it is easier to measure out servings, but it also basically forces adherents to eat a lot of animal protein.  This eliminates the potential benefits of following diets now shown to be effective for weight loss.

Carbohydrate Counting

This method counts each major carbohydrate source as one serving (15 g) of carbohydrate.  The list of carbohydrate sources includes starches, fruits, milk, and sweets.  Of course this does not necessarily lend itself to be the most healthy diet, although it does allow a lot more leniency for kids who won’t take well to being told they cannot have dessert.  That’s because if, say, a cookie counts as one carbohydrate, kids can choose to fill up their carbohydrate quota with unhealthy sources of carbs.  This type of diet requires a lot of parent monitoring because its permissiveness creates a sort of temptation for kids.  It also does not limit sources of other things affecting kids’ diet and weight.  For instance, fat and meat intake are not measured, so a child could eat lots of steak and then carbohydrate count for dessert, which would not be a healthy diet at all.  Of course, a parent who is conscious of their child’s choices and is committed to making good food choices and to dedicating extra time to their child’s diet can make it work.  But carbohydrate counting is definitely the most time consuming of the three methods.

Tips and Advice

  • Feed the whole family the same meals as the diabetic child is eating.  Diabetic children should be eating very healthfully, which will be good for the whole family.  Also, if a child is overweight, it is likely that other family members are also not at their ideal weights and can benefit from a healthy weight loss diet.
  • Don’t starve your kids, but do do portion control.  Don’t allow kids to eat as much as they want.  Overeating is often a contributor to obesity, which can lead to the onset of diabetes.
  • Reduce the amount of packaged and processed foods in your child’s diet.  Even so-called diabetic foods are not necessarily healthy.  Feeding your diabetic child sweets made with artificial sweeteners can cause other health problems.
  • Read nutrition labels.  You may be surprised to see how many carbohydrates are in your favorite foods and snacks.  Be aware that the serving size on a package may not match the serving size of one serving if you are doing an exchange diet.
  • Reduce the amount of fat – fat consumption increases risk of heart disease and diabetics are much more at risk of developing heart disease.
  • Spread meals out during the day.  For instance, breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.  This will help keep your child from feeling too hungry and will also help the body metabolize sugars and nutrients more evenly.
  • Get your child active!  Diet can go a long way to reducing obesity and diabetes management, but exercise and burning up of some of that energy is also really important.  This is a good time to get your child involved in an activity that gets them moving, whether that is an organized team sport or just neighborhood games.  My gym even offers classes for kids!  You can also make exercise a family activity – going for walks, family bike rides, or hikes in local nature areas are great ways to bond as a family while increasing the health of everyone in the family!

I hope these tips make it easier to find a healthy diet for your diabetic or pre-diabetic child!  Together, we can manage diabetes and maybe even reverse it!

For More Information:

American Diabetes Association: www.diabetes.org

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: www.eatright.org

National Diabetes Education Program: http://ndep.nih.gov

Trick Your Kids Into Eating Healthy Away From Home

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Trick Your Kids Into Eating Healthy Away From Home

If getting your kids to eat healthy food or choose healthy food options is a regular struggle, maybe you’re going about it the wrong way.  Most kids will be happy to learn to eat healthy foods using the techniques I have previously suggested (here, here, here, and here), but some kids really make it a struggle.  What if there was a way to get them used to eating healthier foods without fighting? If only there was some way to trick them into eating healthier.

The idea of tricking kids into eating healthy food may seem disingenuous, but it doesn’t have to be. The idea of tricking kids into eating veggies often means hiding veggies in cake, lying about the contents of a dish, or giving kids green juice in an opaque bottle.  I’m not opposed to disguising the color of an item or hiding vegetables in a food kids already enjoy, but outright lying is only going to damage your child’s trust.  If we want kids to value what we have to say and to really take on board the lessons we are trying to teach them, we have to maintain a high level of trust.

But we can still trick them into eating healthier.

There is a lot of research out there about how different psychological factors impact how much and what we choose to eat.  If we have concerns about obesity, we can start by reducing the amount of food our kids eat, and we can do it all without their even knowing.  We can do it by using psychological tricks.

In a Restaurant

Americans eat 43% of their food away from home, so it is good to have a few tricks up your sleeve when it comes to eating out.

Where are you eating out?  Most restaurants offer a range of healthy and unhealthy foods, so just picking a “healthier” restaurant may not be enough.  Consider the atmosphere and mood of the restaurant.  Sound and lighting can actually influence what we eat.  A restaurant with dim lighting and loud music will encourage you to eat more calories.  Also consider that certain types of music will enhance your dining experience.  Higher pitched music makes sweet food taste better while deeper notes improve the taste of bitter flavors, so if you’re trying to stick to an enjoyable savory meal and avoid the dessert, find a restaurant that tends to play deep orchestral music, rather than one with a piano in the corner.

Choose the right seat.  In a conventional restaurant, select a spot near a window, which increases the likelihood of ordering salad by 80%.  Avoid dark corner booths where nobody can see you – instead choose a spot near the front door – they increase your chances of ordering dessert by 73%.  And if you can, choose a high-top bar-style table.  These tables make you sit up straighter and reduce the risk of you ordering fried food.

When it comes time to order, resist the urge to order healthy food for your kids, or to pressure them to order that healthy salad.  People who are pushed to eat healthy food make up for it later by “treating” themselves, and you don’t want your kid dipping into the cookie jar as soon as he/she gets home.  (I think a lot of people do this with the gym, too, which is why exercise alone is not enough to lose weight.)  Instead, trick your kids into ordering a healthier option by asking them what someone else they admire – say, Batman or Dora the Explorer – would choose to eat.  Having to order for someone else encourages kids to think more deeply – and often they will change their order.

Going to a buffet?  Sit as far away from the buffet as you can – it encourages you to eat less.  Make sure your kids are facing away from the buffet, as well – they won’t be as likely to keep returning for more if they aren’t staring at it.  As above, encourage them to use small plates, rather than large ones.  Walk them through the buffet and look at each option before taking any food.  (Letting them take before looking encourages them to just grab the first things they see and end up eating those things in addition to what they really want.  Buffet-goers who look first only take those foods they really want to eat.)  Finally, if it’s an Asian buffet, teach your kids to eat with chopsticks.  Many Asian restaurants even have some special chopsticks for kids, to help them learn.  People who eat with chopsticks rather than forks tend to eat less, probably because chopsticks force you to eat more slowly, and allow the signal of fullness from your stomach to reach your brain before you’ve eaten too much.

At School

School lunches have improved in recent years… and also haven’t.  Consider packing a healthy lunch for your kids.  People at work who bring bag lunches eat less food than people who eat out, so why not apply this principle to your kids?  You also have more control over how healthy the food is that you are sending your kids.  Healthy lunch ideas like falafel plates, shish kabobs (and more shish kabobs), and roasted vegetables are filling and nutritious.  Homemade snacks like pizza crackers, fruity muffins, and even healthy cookies or mini cakes will be more nutritious than the snacks your kids are likely to eat from the school vending machines – even if they meet new health standards for “smart snacks”.

If you are going to send your child to school with snacks, consider some ways to get your child to snack less.  Try transferring snacks to clear bags.  If you are sending a snack that would normally fit in a sandwich size bag, send it instead in two or three small snack sized bags.  Studies show that snackers who have one big bag are likely to eat the whole thing, whereas snackers with the same amount of food in multiple small bags often only finish one of them.  And if you are concerned that your child might waste the healthy fruit you are sending, try cutting it up – one study found that 48% fewer apples were wasted when they were cut up, as opposed to served whole – and that there was a 73% increase in kids eating more than half of their apples.

Conclusion

These tips will help you trick your kids into eating healthier even if they are eating a lot of their meals away from home.  When kids are not eating at home, where are they most likely to be eating?  Primarily at school and a restaurants (whether with or without parents).  If you use these tricks, you can help get your kids to eat less and to eat healthier.

But that’s not all, folks!  Stay tuned for a new post soon, on how to trick your kids… at home!

Slim by Design

Go ahead, shamelessly trick your kids into eating healthier.

*Many of these statistics have come from the research of Brian Wansink, who is a food psychologist and the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab.  You can read more about tips and tricks for psychological food mind games in his new book, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life.

Patience: The Key to Achieving Results of a Healthy Diet

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Patience: The Key to Achieving Results of a Healthy Diet

Today’s society places far too much emphasis on immediate results.  We just do not seem to have any patience anymore.  Instead, immediate gratification is the name of the game.  To make matters worse, most people today prefer even more if there is minimal effort involved in achieving results.  Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t work like that.

Fad diets and quick fixes might yield pretty quick results, but they don’t last.  Indeed, lots of things can cause rapid weight loss, but that doesn’t mean they’re good for you.  Just like ebola would be a dangerous but effective way to get your child to lose weight, fad diets are also unhealthy and should be avoided, especially for children, who are still growing and developing.

If we want healthy kids, we need to inspire them to lead healthy lifestyles.  Weight loss and positive changes to their health profile will follow.  We have to have patience.

My family and I try to lead a healthy lifestyle all around.  We eat a healthy diet with an emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables, very little processed food, very little dairy, very little fish, and no meat.  Both my husband and I exercise regularly in the gym (I do about 6 hours per week) and our kids watch shows (on the computer – we don’t watch TV) only a couple days per week, and even then, only for a half hour or so at a time.  The rest of the time our kids are out running around.

Yes, this kind of lifestyle is a challenge.  If there are excuses, I’ve made them all, in the past.  Junk food and meat taste good, when you’re tired you want to just zone out in front of the TV, and gym memberships cost money and take time.  But in the end, these are just that: excuses.  I have a million excuses I could make why I can’t find time to blog, but I push through and I do it.

I’m not trying to pass judgment in a holier-than-thou kind of way.  I’m a stay-at-home-mom, which has both benefits and challenges that working moms don’t face.  Sure, I have more freedom to take my kids to the park almost every day and I’m home more, making things from scratch.  But then again, I spend my whole day refereeing two rambunctious boys, who seem to have taken making a mess on as their goal in life.  Parents who don’t have their kids home all day don’t face the constant cleaning struggle that three meals a day (plus snacks) being prepared in the kitchen presents.  Kids who aren’t home aren’t dumping dirt all over the floors you just mopped and aren’t spreading the entire contents of their toy chests all over the house all day long.  I’m not complaining – but it doesn’t present its own set of challenges.

Eating a healthy diet is a lifestyle choice that hopefully also includes an active lifestyle.  It’s not easy, I know that, but it is important.  If we care about our kids, we need to feed both them and us healthy, nutritious diets, even if it is a challenge, even if it requires some sacrifice.  What are your excuses?

One of the biggest excuses I hear is that results are just not forthcoming.  Think about all those people you know who resolve on January 1 to go to the gym this year, but come June regular exercise is a thing of the past.  They didn’t see results fast enough.  The gym can yield results quickly, if you throw yourself into it in a way most of us do not have the time and motivation for.  But if you make the gym a lifestyle, you will see results, even if you only go a couple times a week.  You will see results, but they will take a while.

Changes to diet present the same exact challenge.  Fad diets are popular because the results are immediate.  But the change doesn’t last.  If we want healthy kids, we need to change their lifestyles.  They should eat a healthy, balanced diet as a whole life change, not just as a weight loss method.  The change will be gradual, but stick with it.  Have patience.

For severely obese kids on a very strict vegan diet, results can be seen in as few as four weeks.  But you don’t have to go to such an extreme to see results, nor do you have to have a child whose health profile is so dire.  Instead, make changes, even baby steps, to feed your family a healthier diet.  Don’t reassess to see if there has been progress after just a month or two.  Reassess for progress in the long term – six months to a year.  And if you really want to know how much progress is being made, don’t rely solely on checking your child’s waistline to see if they need slimmer pants.  Have their blood tested by a health professional before and after to see how their body is doing inside, not just the visible outside.

Dietitians agree that patience is a key to good health.  If we can get past our excuses and start taking steps toward eating a healthier diet, eventually we can get there.  I didn’t start doing six hours a week in the gym – I started with two and worked my way up from there.  Similarly, start with one or two homemade family meals every week and begin cutting out one unhealthy food item each shopping trip.

But most of all, have patience.

New Study Shows Vegan Diet Reduces Heart Disease Risk in Kids

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New Study Shows Vegan Diet Reduces Heart Disease Risk in Kids

We think of our children as immune to certain diseases we associate with old age.  We don’t expect them to get arthritis or to have a stroke.  Yet, sadly, with childhood obesity on the rise, more and more of our children are at risk for heart disease.  Just as type 2 (once called “adult onset”) diabetes has become commonplace among the youth of today, risk factors for heart disease are on the rise in younger and younger children.  The good news is, you can turn it around, and it’s easier than you think.

Earlier this month a study came out in The Journal of Pediatrics showing just how powerful switching to a healthy diet is.  Researchers wanted to evaluate how effective different diets were at reducing risk factors for heart disease in children.  Many studies of this nature have been done on adults, but this one is specifically targeting precursors of heart disease in children, which I have mentioned before is an increasing concern, with 70% of obese 5-7 year old kids exhibiting at least one risk factor for heart disease.

The current mainstream guidelines for reducing heart disease risk are those put forth by the American Heart Association (AHA).  While many doctors and individuals have long criticized their standards as being far from sufficiently rigorous, the AHA has been loathe to further restrict their recommended diet.  Perhaps they are concerned that being too strict will frighten people away from keeping to the recommendations.  But in the meantime, their diet is far from ideal.  So, what exactly are the AHA recommendations?

Choose foods low in saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium and added sugars and sweeteners.  As part of a healthy diet, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, fiber-rich whole grains, fish (preferably oily fish — at least twice per week), nuts, legumes and seeds.  Also try eating some meals without meat.  Select fat-free and low-fat dairy products and lean meats and poultry (skinless).  Limit sugar-sweetened beverages.

 

On the AHA diet, which is definitely healthier than the average diet, kids did see their diets improve and become healthier.  But how much healthier?  1/3 – 30% – of their calories were still coming from fats, although less than 7% of those calories came from harmful saturated fats.  Because they reduced meat intake, daily cholesterol intake dropped to less than 300 mg/day.  Sodium intake also dropped to 1,500 mg/day.

To determine if this diet is truly the ideal in reducing risk factors for cardiovascular disease in children, researchers, led by Dr. Michael Macknin, tested both the AHA diet and an alternate vegan diet.  He and his team of researchers selected 28 obese children between the ages of 9 and 18 to participate in the study, which ran for 4 weeks.  They then randomly selected children to participate in one of the two diets.  At least one parent of each child in the study was also required to stick to the diet.  This makes it much easier for kids to stick to the diet, follow through with the study, and maintain a positive attitude.  The addition of this provision is actually a good example of what I repeatedly have said: Lead your kids by example.  If you want to inspire healthy kids, you need to also be eating a healthy diet!  Participants in the study also attended two-hour educational nutrition information sessions once per week, which affirms again what I have repeatedly said: Kids need to be educated about how food affects their health so they will be motivated to make healthy decisions.

What was the vegan diet like?  Children on the vegan diet were given plants and whole grains, although they limited their intake of fatty plant foods, like nuts and avocados.  They were given no animal products and no added fat was used in food preparation.

As a result, and no doubt in spite of a bit of cheating and leniency, consumption of animal proteins dropped from an average 42 grams per day to just 2.24 grams per day.  The percentage of calories from fat was just 18% (compared to 30% for the AHA diet), with only 3.6% coming from saturate fats (compared to 7% on the AHA diet).  Clearly, the vegan diet is a dramatically healthier diet than the AHA guidelines, if we look just at nutritional intakes.  (Of course not all nutritional values for foods were tested, but we can easily make an educated guess that those children on the vegan diet were consuming more vitamins and minerals, as their diets included more nutrient dense vegetable and whole grain ingredients.)

What were the results of the study?

Children on PB had 9 and children on AHA had 4 statistically significant (P < .05) beneficial changes from baseline (mean decreases): body mass index z-scorePB (−0.14), systolic blood pressurePB (−6.43 mm Hg), total cholesterolPB(−22.5 mg/dL), low-density lipoproteinPB (−13.14 mg/dL), high-sensitivity C-reactive proteinPB (−2.09 mg/L), insulinPB(−5.42 uU/mL), myeloperoxidasePB/AHA (−75.34/69.23 pmol/L), mid-arm circumferencePB/AHA (−2.02/−1.55 cm), weightPB/AHA (−3.05/−1.14 kg), and waist circumferenceAHA (−2.96 cm). Adults on PB and AHA had 7 and 2, respectively, statistically significant (P < .05) beneficial changes. The significant change favoring AHA was a 1% difference in children’s waist circumference. Difficulty shopping for food for the PB was the only statistically significant acceptability barrier.

In layman’s terms, this means that kids on the plant-based diet showed significant improvement in nine different categories: body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, insulin, myeloperoxidase, mid-arm circumference, weight, and waist circumference.  High sensitivity C-reactive protein is one measure of inflammation in the body and is a major indicator of heart disease risk.  Myeloperoxidase is an enzyme necessary for healthy body function, but in elevated levels is associated with risk for coronary artery disease,* to the point that high levels over a 13-year period was shown to have more than doubled the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.**

In contrast, children on the AHA diet showed statistically significant improvement in only four areas: mid-arm circumference, weight, waist circumference, and myeloperoxidase.  Clearly, the vegan diet was more effective in reducing risk factors for heart disease.  However, the AHA diet did show a 1% change in waist circumference, which shows it was good for losing weight in the right places.  On the other hand, the vegan diet resulted in greater health benefits even if those benefits were more internal than external.

(If you are an adult reading this and want to reap the benefits, you can.  Children’s bodies are more reactive to changes in their diet than adults, so they show more significant results more quickly, but adults also showed major benefits.  On the plant based diet, adults benefits in seven of the risk factor areas, while on the AHA diet they benefited in two of the risk factor areas.  If you put your child on one of these diets and you join him/her, you will also stand to gain – or, in this case, to lose! Haha!)

Dr. Macknin’s conclusion was:

As the number of obese children with high cholesterol continues to grow, we need to have effective lifestyle modifications to help them reverse their risk factors for heart disease.

 

We’ve known that plant-based diets are beneficial in adults in preventing and possibly reversing heart disease. This study shows that the same may be true in children too, though more studies are needed.

Of course this study was limited in scope, as not many children were tested.  Also, the study ran only for four weeks.  But just think about that!  Statistically significant benefits in nine areas were found in children on a plant based diet in just four weeks!  That’s such a short time.  It is really amazing.

The one complaint participants on the low-fat vegan diet had was that food was expensive and difficult to find.  It does not need to be this way.  Of course if you are buying convenience foods, it will be more of a challenge and more expensive.  Processed foods in the vegan market are niche, and fat-free vegan foods even more so.  I would suggest that more foods be made at home and less processed foods consumed, to take a page out of the paleo diet book.

We shop in bulk at farmer’s markets, often going once a week to stock up on fruits and vegetables.  I then use these to make healthy meals for my family.  Perhaps tomorrow I will post a recipe for an easy fat-free vegan tomato soup.  I often make big batches of this comfort food when tomatoes are in season and freeze containers for use later in the year. I find prices in farmer’s markets are 30%-50% lower than in supermarkets, I can support local farmers directly, and the food is more fresh.  On my last trip to the farmer’s market, I got 10 kg (22 lb) organic grapes for $10!  In the US, some farmer’s markets are even offering to double food stamps, so even people on food stamps can take advantage of the findings in this fantastic study.

With childhood obesity on the rise, we as parents have the power to combat it.  It’s not as hard as it might seem – even if you cut back and begin to follow the AHA guidelines, your child will benefit.  Go gradually and slowly transition to a more plant-based diet.  Even I cannot claim to be vegan (we eat a small amount of dairy and a tiny amount of fish once a week, but lots and lots of eggs), but take the steps you can in the right direction and it will only benefit you and your kids.  I know if my kids showed one of these risk factors for heart disease, or showed signs of obesity, I would not hesitate for a moment to switch to an even healthier diet than the one we are currently on.  We all have to start somewhere! Go ahead, take the plunge – or at least the first step – in the vegan direction!

*Zhang R, Brennan ML, Fu X, Aviles RJ, Pearce GL, Penn MS, Topol EJ, Sprecher DL, Hazen SL (November 2001). “Association between myeloperoxidase levels and risk of coronary artery disease”. JAMA 286 (17): 2136–42.doi:10.1001/jama.286.17.2136

**Heslop CL, Frohlich JJ, Hill JS (March 2010). “Myeloperoxidase and C-reactive protein have combined utility for long-term prediction of cardiovascular mortality after coronary angiography”. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 55 (11): 1102–9.doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2009.11.050

Does “Healthy Obese” Really Exist? Why Not to Let Your Kids Become Overweight.

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Does “Healthy Obese” Really Exist? Why Not to Let Your Kids Become Overweight.

“I’m not fat, I’m just big boned!” goes the classic joke.  But it’s not such a joke anymore.  For years, the trend of “healthy but obese” has been booming.  This comes as no surprise, in a day and age when more and more people are overweight.  Nobody wants to admit they are fat and even if they are willing to accept their obesity, they do not want to accept that this extra weight on their bodies could be putting their health at risk.  This is even more true when it comes to our children.  As parents, we want to feel that we are doing what is best for our children, not that we are making them sick or shortening their lifespans!  The concept of “healthy obese” has become a trendy copout.

What is “healthy obese?”  Healthy obese is when an individual is classed as “obese,” with a BMI (body mass index) over over 30, yet who has normal cholesterol levels, good blood pressure, and no diabetes or other metabolic risk factors.  These people claim it is okay to be obese because they are also presenting as healthy in blood tests.  People claim there is nothing wrong with having this extra weight because it poses no additional health risks.  However, until recently there were no long-term studies done to prove this.

The problem is that people who are “healthy obese” do not tend to stay healthy in the long term.  The mere fact of being obese, even “healthy obese,” dramatically increases your chances of becoming “unhealthy obese” in the future.  In a study published a few days ago in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists followed over 2,000 people for 20 years to assess their long-term health outcomes.  Over the course of the study, researchers periodically tested the subjects on five indicators of metabolic health: cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, fasting glucose levels, and insulin resistance.

By the time the twenty years had elapsed, more than half of the “healthy obese” had becoming “unhealthy obese,” at a rate nearly eight times that of control subjects who were not obese at the outset of the study.  In most cases, “healthy obesity” leads over time to “unhealthy obesity,” with the risk of becoming unhealthy increasing as more time passes.

While this study focused on adults, its message for children is clear: obesity is not healthy.  Even if your child appears healthy, obesity is setting them up for an unhealthy future.  This could be due to the obesity itself as a risk factor, or it could be due to the unhealthy habits that led to the obesity in the first place adding up over time.  Either way, obesity puts your child at risk of an unhealthy future.

This is why it is essential to emphasize a healthy diet for your kids.  Ensure they eat well and maintain a healthy weight – and by “healthy weight” I mean not an “obese healthy” weight! – so they can live longer and thrive.

Combating Childhood Obesity (Part 3)

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Combating Childhood Obesity (Part 3)

The third set of reasons for why children become obese are down to social pressures.  Of the three reasons I’ve addressed, this may be the most difficult one to deal with.  Within your own home, you have control over what your kids eat, but once they are out in the world, they are more likely to be influenced by friends.

Of course, it is good to encourage your kids to make friends with other kids who have similar values surrounding health and diet, but there is no way to guarantee they will do so.  However, being friendly with other parents who hold similar values to yours and have children the same ages as your children is a good first step to take.  I remember that when I was a child, my parents would regularly have dinner guests who had kids we could play with.  As a child, I was always happy to see these friends, although I would probably not have been friends with them had I been in school.  Nevertheless, they did become my friends and did succeed in influencing me (as perhaps I did to them as well).  Thus, you can take steps to find friends for your kids who have the kinds of values you want your kids to have, too.

But what about those friends who are not a good influence on your children?  (And there always seems to be at least one!)  Telling your child to stay away from that friend will only backfire and make them want to be closer to that friend.  The best thing you can do is to encourage your child to stand up to pressure from their friend.  If that friend eats a very unhealthy diet, you need to make sure your child is confident in their healthy choices.  This is why you need to really inspire your kids to be healthy.  They need to want it as much as you do.  Talk to them about it and see how they feel.  Then emphasize the good parts and focus on them, ignoring the bad.  Make sure they understand that it is good to stand up for what they believe in.  If their friend is trying to encourage them to toss their healthy lunch and go for a meal of French fries instead, make sure your child has the tools to stand up to the peer pressure. Kidshealth.org advises:

If you continue to face peer pressure and you’re finding it difficult to handle, talk to someone you trust. Don’t feel guilty if you’ve made a mistake or two. Talking to a parent, teacher, or school counselor can help you feel much better and prepare you for the next time you face peer pressure.

Make sure your kids understand this.  You need to create an environment where they feel comfortable speaking to you, which is why it is important to inspire them to want to lead healthy lives and eat healthy food.  They are more likely to stand up to peer pressure when it is something they believe in, too.

If your socio-economic situation makes it harder for you to provide your family with healthy food, there are certain steps you can take.  Take a half an hour a week or 5 minutes a day to read blogs like this one to inform yourself about health and nutrition.  You can share what you read with your family, perhaps reading aloud for 5 minutes after dinner and discussing for a couple minutes what you read.  You can also take baby steps toward a healthier lifestyle for you and your kids.  Instead of buying oily fast food French fries, get pre-cut fries from the grocery store freezer aisle and bake them in the oven.  With a tiny bit of olive oil spray and some good seasonings, they will be much healthier and won’t take any more time or effort than it would to sit in line at a drive-thru.  You can start replacing unhealthy snacks like chips and cookies with healthier ones like plain yogurt, fresh fruit, or snacking vegetables like baby carrots.  Buy frozen vegetables rather than tinned ones (which usually have sugar and/or salt as an ingredient, plus preservatives).  Little steps like this won’t cost you more time or money but, when added up, will make a big impact on your kids’ health.

I hope these tips on how to fight or prevent obesity in children have proven helpful.  Please share in the comments section the strategies you have employed!