I’M A PSYCHOLOGIST – SEVEN WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILDREN TO A HEALTHIER WEIGHT

It is clear that obesity rates are still rising and that excess body weight can be linked to physical illness as well psychological problems such as low self-esteem, low mood and body dissatisfaction. It is also clear that many people have a problematic relationship with food which can result in picky eating, emotional eating, yoyo dieting, binge eating and eating disorders.

So how can we help our children to maintain a healthy weight without giving them a problem with food? I’m a professor of health psychology, and have been researching and writing about eating behaviour and weight management for over 30 years. From decades of academic research – as well as bringing up my own kids, now 23 and 25 – here are my seven top tips. 

Don’t put your child on a diet 

Being a bit overweight as a child is not great. But developing a problem with eating can lead to lifetime of worry.

If your child is overweight then try all the tips below to get their eating back on track but don’t put them on a diet. Going on a diet ultimately means having to deny yourself foods that you want to eat. This can make those foods seem even more tempting and when people break their diet (which they mostly do) they eat even more than they would have done before.

So, limit your child’s food in the subtle ways described below but if you put them on a diet you may find that you have set your child up for a future of struggling with one of the central parts of day-to-day life.

Get a fruit bowl

We often eat just because it’s there, so the best way to encourage healthier eating is to change your child’s food environment. When they are younger, you control the shopping, the money and the cooking so just buy and cook what you want your children to eat.

Cook simple meals from scratch whenever you can, avoid ultra-processed foods (UPFs), add vegetables to everything and don’t buy fizzy drinks, crisps or biscuits if you don’t want your children to eat them.

Get a fruit bowl and fill it with fruit so when they want to reach for something it’s just sitting there. Give them decent portions, but don’t overload them with their first serving and have smaller plates, as a large plate half empty feels like less food than a small plate full of food.

Show them it’s normal and good to be hungry

Children get hungry and will graze on whatever is available. But if there is a set time for meals when they know that they will be fed, living with the hunger and waiting for the next meal becomes easier. Decide to eat at a set time whenever possible, tell your children when and what you are having for tea and ask them to wait, saying: “It is much nicer to be hungry at tea time. You’ll enjoy it more”.

Wherever possible eat as a family. This is the easiest way to set up what is healthy and can help to make eating a normal and stress-free part of the day.

Be a role model – only have seconds if you’re hungry 

Your children will learn by watching you so be a good role model for eating. Be seen to eat lots of fruit and vegetables, eat meals and don’t snack, don’t skip meals and do have seconds if you are hungry but not if you just feel like it.

Also be a good role model for body size. If you are overweight don’t let your child think that this is healthy. And don’t encourage them to think that being overweight runs in your family and that there’s nothing you can do about it. But neither moan to your child about your weight nor celebrate it.

Keep your criticisms to yourself and be seen by your children to be looking after yourself. Eat well and be active and don’t let a culture of dieting pass from one generation to the next.

Pick your battles with teenagers – and talk about diet while you’re driving

In their teenage years, friendships, free time and having spending money get in the way as children can buy whatever they fancy to undermine all your good intentions. What then? The key to adolescence is to pick your battles and not make things worse. So, keep the home environment healthy and make sure they have a decent breakfast and dinner every day, ideally as a family and planned so they know what to expect and when it’s coming.

I would also go for school lunches where possible so they learn to eat what’s there and can’t be fussy – at least it’s better than a bag of doughnuts. But at this stage any direct criticism will simply backfire and create tension. So keep your humour about you and rather than saying, “Don’t eat that it will make you fat” try saying, “Do you have to buy that rubbish – it’s full of sugar and chemicals?”, or, “I’m cooking your favourite meal tonight, so make sure you don’t fill up on junk before-hand” or, “If you save up, how about you and your friends go bowling at the weekend, I can take you there?”

Then, when you are out walking, driving in the car or washing up, seize the moment to have a side-by-side conversation about how everything in their body is made from what they eat and if they want strong muscles and good skin they need to eat well.

In other words, try hard to get your child to eat well, be active and have a healthy body weight. But try even harder to be subtle and sneaky in how you go about this. Giving your child a problematic relationship with food now could set them up for a lifetime of struggle.

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Let them have dessert, but not as a reward

Choose carefully how you talk about food, as the words we use are key to how children view their relationship with food. Speak positively about healthy food saying: “this shepherd’s pie is great”, “this cauliflower is really crunchy” or “these carrots are so sweet”. Soon they will think healthy food is great without quite knowing why.

Use praise to change what they eat – saying, for example, “Well done for trying the broccoli”; “You are good at knowing when you’ve had enough” or telling others “She’s so good at eating vegetables”. The right words can also help children eat less without making them preoccupied with the wrong foods.

Saying “Don’t have that biscuit now as dinner is in an hour; have it afterwards if you are still hungry” is far better than saying “If you eat your dinner then you can have a biscuit”. Buying a small Easter egg and saying “here you are” is better than saying “Here’s a massive Easter egg but you can’t have any until the weekend”.

Tying sweet food to after dinner gives it a time and a place in the day without making it a reward for eating the main meal. In contrast, buying sweet foods and then banning them can make them extra special and set up craving and preoccupation. Also avoid saying, “If you eat your vegetables then you can have pudding”, as this just makes vegetables boring and pudding the best treat ever.

Invite their friends to make exercise fun

We also need to get our children moving more. Build exercise into your daily life; walk to school if possible, walk to the shops or walk around to a friend’s house; have active weekends and holidays; turn the TV off and send the children into the garden; limit computer time; be a good role model and be seen to be active; make positive comments about being active such as ‘Isn’t it nice to be outdoors’; ‘We have lovely chats when we walk’, ‘Parking takes such a long time’.

Make exercise sociable by having their friends for tea and sending them all out in the garden; take them to the park with friends when possible. And taking another family along for weekend walks will stop the moaning. Ultimately, look for ways to make exercise fun. Trampolining, skipping, dancing, climbing trees or cycling up and down hills can be more fun that just running round the park.

2025-03-17T10:36:06Z