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The Truth behind Seven Food Myths

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The Truth behind Seven Food Myths

MYTH #1:

Children Grow Out of Being Fat


The Myth: A chubby baby is a healthy baby. Being overweight as a child isn’t really a problem, because eventually children grow out of their baby fat. Worrying about a child’s weight is just a form of vanity.

The Facts: While it’s true that being overweight affects appearance, the related health problems go much deeper. You’re not being vain if you worry about your child’s weight. You’re being a good parent. Children who are overweight can grow into adults with serious, even life-threatening health problems. It’s true that a lack of weight gain in the first few weeks or months can be cause for concern.

It can be difficult to know when you should be concerned about your child’s size. Asking your pediatrician is always a good idea. The accepted medical definition of “overweight” is when a child’s body mass index (BMI) is above the 85th percentile for children the same age and sex.“Obesity” is defined when the BMI exceeds the 95th percentile for age and sex. Generally doctors become concerned if a child gains more than 10 pounds in a year after the third birthday. Practically speaking, however, no time is too early for you to be aware of your child’s weight.

MYTH #2:

Being Overweight is Your Biological Destiny


The Myth: Being overweight is caused by hormones, genetics, and other things that can’t be changed.

The Facts: Medical science has identified several physiological causes of being overweight, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you and your family can do to counteract them.

Hormones do regulate a wide range of body processes, including growth and how your body uses and stores nutrients, and they affect your weight and energy level. The most powerful weight-regulating hormone is insulin, which regulates how fast you use fats, starches, and carbohydrates, and tells your body to use the food you’ve just eaten instead of your fat stores. In diabetes, a lack of insulin lets sugars build up in the blood. Insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes, may occur in some people who chronically eat too much or snack constantly, causing their bodies to produce more insulin than their cells can handle. The cells become more resistant to insulin to fend off the surplus, and in return, the body senses that resistance and produces more insulin to compensate. Insulin resistance results from a genetic predisposition, poor diet, and a lack of exercise—the latter two factors can be modified by changes in lifestyle.

Hormonal conditions are not destiny.

Neither are genes. You probably know families where every member is tall and lean, or where every member is short and stocky. Like hormones, genes affect height, weight, and body shape. But you can be fit, no matter what body type you were born with. While genes can contribute to your build and weight, environment is the stronger influence. You teach your children how to eat, how to choose food, how to prepare it, how to serve it, when to serve it, how fast to eat it, how to savor it, how to feel about it, what to do after they eat, and what to do between meals. Family has everything to do with how and what we eat and how much exercise we get.

Where your body is concerned, you are the captain of your own ship.

MYTH #3:

Some People Are Overweight for No Reason


The Myth: Some people are just big-boned, or have slow metabolisms.

The Facts: Just as you can probably think of families where everyone is tall and lean, or short and stocky, you can probably also think of someone who apparently can eat anything she wants without gaining a pound. Or someone who seems to gain two pounds every time he eats an ice cream cone. People are different, with an endless variety of body types.

In the same way, we all have different metabolisms. “Metabolic rate” is how fast your body uses your food for fuel. People with slower metabolic rates burn fewer of the calories they eat and store the rest as fat; people with faster metabolisms burn more of the calories they take in and store very little as fat. While people with fast metabolisms tend to be naturally leaner, those with slow metabolisms are by no means condemned to being overweight. Your metabolic rate is influenced by several factors including age, sex, the presence of fever, the environmental temperature, your muscle mass, your hormone levels (particularly insulin and hormones produced by the thyroid), and your sensitivity to these hormones. The most important influence is exercise, which kicks your metabolism into high gear by telling it to burn that extra fuel that your body has stored as fat. In addition, you can increase your muscle mass by strength training, which further increases your metabolic rate.

No one is overweight for “no reason.” Most people have more than one reason why they’re overweight and the key to losing weight is understanding those reasons.

MYTH #4:

By Instinct, Children Know When to Stop Eating


The Myth: Children know instinctively when they’ve had enough to eat.

The Facts: Most children up to age three know when to stop eating, but beyond this age children are as likely to overeat as adults, and in most cases are more susceptible to the pressures adults feel.

You already know the primal instinct a parent feels about feeding a child.  The baby books told you to introduce one new food at a time and be on the lookout for allergic reactions. “They’ll tell you what they want to eat and what they don’t,” your own parents may have advised. When you were in doubt, you perhaps overfed your baby, reasoning that it was better than underfeeding. “Eating is a natural process,” you may have told yourself. “The baby will tell me what to do.”

It doesn’t really work that way—children tend to lack impulse control, and when you factor in the cute toys packaged with child meals at fast-food restaurants, the notion that children should somehow “naturally” resist eating too much high-calorie or tasty food seems a little wishful. Your children don’t instinctively know when to stop eating, certainly not after the toddler phase. In a Penn State study, three-year-olds stopped eating when they were full regardless of how much was served. Five-year-olds, however, polished off super-sized platefuls of macaroni and cheese (far more than a serving size) almost every time.

Children, however, can be taught when to stop eating and how to know when to stop. They can learn what it feels like to be full and what constitutes a serving, as well as how to identify emotional eating, mindless snacking, and compulsive eating.

MYTH #5:

Dieting Makes Children Unhappy


The Myth: Putting kids on diets only makes them feel bad about themselves and increases the risk of eating disorders.

The Facts: Kids who are obese or overweight are already unhappy, rating their own happiness at approximately the same level as kids with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, according to a University of California at San Diego study. In fact, most overweight people are to varying degrees unhappy. Kids often learn to mask their unhappiness by joking about their weight, struggling to compensate for a constant inner sadness. Some overeat because they’re unhappy, while others are unhappy because they’re too heavy. But lifestyle changes that lead to healthier eating and more exercise will positively affect both physical and emotional states.

Exercise helps improve mood and mental health in a variety of ways. Depression is usually reduced beginning as early as the very first exercise session, and depression continues to lessen as the child works out harder and longer. Many studies have shown that exercise is effective at treating anxiety and depression.

Exercise also produces better sleep patterns. People who exercise sleep longer hours and experience deeper, more recuperative, and more restorative kinds of sleep. And, of course, exercise improves muscle tone, strengthens heart and lungs, and can help make your child more flexible.

The joy kids feel when they lose weight is sincere and real. You’ll know by the smiles on their faces. But change invites resistance. Initiating a fitness program will probably create a certain amount of griping. All of that is natural, and quite temporary. Your kids will soon learn that they’re not trapped in a rigorous regimen requiring enormous willpower or self-deprivation. Meeting together to learn and exercise will enable your family to work as its own support group.

MYTH #6:

Dieting Leads to Poor Nutrition


The Myth: Restricting what we eat will make us unhealthy and maybe even restrict the children’s growth.

The Facts: Some diets can lead to a nutritional imbalance if they completely eliminate or drastically reduce one or more food groups. These kinds of diets could indeed be harmful to growing children and are not recommended.

However, at the family table, you should educate your children about the importance of balanced menus and controlled portion sizes. The whole point is to assure good nutrition by showing your kids the difference between healthy foods and unhealthy foods, and teaching them how to substitute fresh fruits and vegetables for junk food, high-fiber grain foods for low-fiber ones, and low-fat proteins for the usual fatty fare. Show them how to take smaller portions of the foods that are tempting but unhealthy and larger portions of the foods they truly need. Also show them how to stay active in a way that’s fun and rewarding.

This is the path to health, not to malnutrition.

MYTH #7:

Popular Culture Will Win Out


The Myth: It’s a losing battle and a waste of time—our entire family is bombarded with ads and other messages promoting junk food, and we can’t stop our kids from watching TV or being influenced by pop culture.

The Facts: It’s only a losing battle if you choose not to join the winning side. That’s why KidShape teaches self-defense in a health-hostile world.

Yes, popular culture will always be there, tempting you with easy pleasures and instant gratification, bombarding you with ads. But there’s a way to live smart in such a world, both for you and for your kids.

Culturally, the messages are indeed insidious. Food companies air commercials aimed at kids during the early-morning or late-afternoon cartoon shows. Cartoon characters appear on food packages, and even Sesame Street characters are on high-calorie juice boxes. Checkout aisles at supermarkets offer candy and sugar products where kids shopping with their mothers can whine for the things they’ve seen advertised (but you can often select special “candy-free” checkouts). In the cereal aisle, sugary cereals designed to appeal to children are at a child’s eye level, while the healthy plain cereals are on the top shelf.

But even if your children see an hour’s worth of commercials every day, you still have 23 hours a day to counteract that message. Contrary to popular belief, your kids still listen to you more than they listen to the television. And if you limit the amount of television they watch, you’ll limit the commercials they see as well.

The best place to engage the enemy is at the family table, where you are in charge of calorie content, portion sizes, and food served. By teaching your kids to resist the pressures of fast food, junk food, advertising, television, and passive entertainment, you can support and not sabotage your children’s efforts. Remember, you have more influence over your child than a commercial—and, ultimately, you control what they eat and what they want to eat.