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Lightening the Load
- Nov 15, 2009 at 3:18 PM
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- Comments (19) Total Views (1279) Everyone can see this journal post.
I am no parenting genius, and I truly feel that different strokes work for different folks. However, there is something that has become a Parenting Truth for me that I think can apply to pretty much anyone's life.
Kids listen to what you say, but only if what you say matches what you do. If you tell your children every single day that Smoking Is Bad but they see you smoke, all those words were wasted. If you tell them it's important to go outside and play, but you stay inside all day, every day, shrouded in the blue glow of your computer screen, those words are wasted. Children have an incredibly sensitive and highly developed Bull Shit meter and they are not afraid to call you out.
What does this have to do with the title of this post, you say?
This has to do with a problem that is affecting my little sister and an alarmingly large portion of the United States. My sister, who is 16 years my junior, just turned 14 last month. She is just a smidge under 5'5 and she weighs 200lbs. She is definitely overweight and by most medical standards would be considered obese.
Yes, the DNA is stacked against her. She comes from a family that has long struggled with its weight. Our mother weighed 300lbs a year and a half ago. Through hard work, she has brought herself down to 218lbs but she is currently struggle to get under that 200lb mark. But DNA isn't all to blame. It is the seconds and thirds she goes back for at dinner time. It's the gravy and the bacon grease in every meal. It's all the potluck dinners at church with the bevy of cakes and pies, each one needing to be tasted. It's the lunch she doesn't eat at school, which means she starving when she gets home and gorges on snacks as soon as she walks in the door.
Her father, my stepfather, is pushing 400 lbs himself. Although he likes to sit on the sidelines and complain about what my sister eats and how much of it she eats, that doesn't keep him from shoveling his third helping in his loud and annoying pie hole.
My mother has long wanted to help my sister change her eating habits, but hasn't known how to approach the problem without putting my sister on the defensive or crushing her self esteem. My mother didn't want to be a nag who caused my sister to sneak food in order to rebel. It was a notion I struggled with for a while, too. I decided to turn to my Parenting Truth for inspiration and approached my mother with a plan.
Rather than single my sister out for an overhaul, we would instead start overhauling ourselves. My mother has made great progress with getting herself to a healthier weight, but she is stuck at her current plateau. She exercises regularly, is very active, and eats reasonably but she still had areas to improve. I am closer to a healthier weight than either my mom or my sister, but I could still make an improvement. I have another 15lbs to go before qualifying in the normal weight range for my height. We were going to get this wagon rolling, and invite my sister along for the ride. This wasn't going to be about how she was overweight and needed to change, but instead about how we could all stand to have healthier habits.
To kick start things, we all started keeping food journals together. We reminded each other to keep track and helped each other, but we didn't nag. I found a great online website to use for this purpose, and much to my mother's surprise and relief my sister has been excited about it. She is reading labels and measuring food, just like she sees us doing. We have also been very clear that this isn't about what we can't have, but rather about having the right amount of something. This week we are just trying to get in the habit of keeping track.
Next week we will move on to helping her make sure she makes healthy choices at breakfast and packs a healthy lunch for school. She complained before that she could never remember to take her lunch and that lunch always ended up squished in her backpack. With our support, she won't forget the lunches she makes and a new lunchbox will prevent her fruit and veggies from being decimated.
The week after that, my sister and I will start walking in the evening on a regular basis. Perhaps we can eventually move up to jogging part of the way, but we are going to take small steps. Not only will this be good exercise, but it will be a great time to talk about healthy choices in foods and why exercise is important for your whole life. Most importantly we can talk about how you don't owe it to anyone to be a skinny minny who wears size 0 jeans but how everyone owes it to themselves to be healthy and strong.
I know that when I have this conversation with her my words will carry weight, because I am putting my money where my mouth is. I am showing her that I mean what I say and that I put stock in my own advice. She has seen my mother doing this for over a year now. We can show her that this is a life long process and that now is the time to start. Along the way, maybe we can come a little closer and encourage her to talk and share with us at a time when most kids start drifting away from the adults in their life.
Whether she loses 15 lbs or 50 lbs, we have set her up to succeed by not just telling, but showing. That is a lesson you can apply to any troubled area of a child's life. Change starts with you. You can inspire them or discourage them through your words AND your actions. The one thing that can make parenting so incredibly hard, can also make it so incredibly rewarding. If you want to teach your children to be better people, not only to you have to tell them how to be better, but you must step up and BE a better person yourself. You don't have to be perfect and always succeed because failure teaches just as much as victory, but you do have to always try. When you approach life from that angle, not only do your children win, but so do you.
Comments:
Will you be my big sister?
AWESOME! I want you to be my sister, too!
That's good stuff, that is, Sam. You're awesome :)
Best wishes, Let me know if I can help. I know of a product that helps people with health problems that were eligible for gastric sugery.
You are great!
Bravo!
and Bump!
P.S. Think about trying new things as far as getting moving goes. YOu never know what you might end up enjoying- karate, yoga, etc.-until you give it a try. And my focus has always been on finding something I enjoy and have fun doing.
You're a goddess Sam. Keep it up, beautiful!!!
Don't forget the power of FIBER!
Great journal, Sam! I applaud your efforts, it shows what great heart you have.
This journal is very timely for me, too. Thank you for that. I'm going to start walking this week, as I really need to get in shape. I am looking at things a little differently after reading this, and may walk in the evenings so that I can include my kids.
You rock, chickie!
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You are doing the right thing by her. Making everyone in your family healthy is only a plus.
Hats off to all of you!
- Rebeccalynn_dj
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