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Obesity
Can Be Prevented From Birth by Doing an Excellent Job of Feeding
Auburn, Jan. 16---Parents
today have gotten the message: Children are getting fatter, and it
is up to parents to do something about it. As a result, parents of
big children or even normal-sized children who eat a lot hold back
on food for fear the child will get fat.
 "Such
tactics backfire," says Ellyn Satter, the author of several
books, including Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense.
Satter will be the featured speaker Jan. 30 at a four-hour workshop
during the Nutrition Education Program (NEP) annual meeting in
Auburn.
"Children who don't
get enough to eat or even fear they won't, think about food all the
time and overeat when they can. We have
known this for a long time clinically, but now the research is
backing it up. Children of all ages infants to teenagers
whose food intake is restricted or who restrict themselves, get
fatter not thinner."
So what is a parent to
do? "Trust them," says Satter. "Give them the help
they need to eat well and grow properly. Obesity can be prevented
from birth or by doing an excellent job of feeding. Children are
naturally accurate and resourceful at eating the amount they need
and growing in the way nature intended until grownups spoil it.
Infants can eat well and grow properly when parents feed on demand.
A toddler or preschooler will stop in the middle of a bowl of ice
cream if he has had enough. Will you do that?"
Satter illustrates,
sometimes parents, as well as babies, have interference. Consider
Kenny, a chubby 3-year-old who was so food-preoccupied that his
parents called him a compulsive eater. Kenny's eating and weight
problems started at birth, when he was so seriously ill that his
parents feared he would not survive.
"If an infant is
ill," says Satter, "feeding problems are virtually 100
percent certain because anxious parents get pushy with feeding. Most
children will fight back and grow less well when parents get pushy.
Kenny went along. He ate what his parents wanted him to and, at
first, grew well. But Kenny didn't stop there. By the time he was
2½, he was too fat. At that point, his parents tried to restrict
him. Kenny constantly started begging for food and, when he got it,
ate like he had no stopping place.
Kenny's natural food
regulation ability had gotten undermined twice when he was
an infant, his parents
tried to get him to eat more than he wanted and after he got
"too fat," they tried to get him to eat less."
Satter reassured Kenny's
parents that he could recover his natural ability to regulate if
they would take some risks in feeding. She taught them her division
of responsibility in feeding: Parents are responsible for the what,
when and where of feeding, children are responsible for the how much
and whether of eating.
At regular meals and
snacks, Kenny could eat all he wanted. Between times, he would be
refused food handouts, including requests for all beverages except
water.
"At first Kenny ate
like there was no tomorrow," says Satter, "and his
parents' worst fears were confirmed. But after about 3 weeks, his
food begging and gorging went away and Kenny started eating like a
normal child a lot one time, a little the next, waiting by the
table for a snack one time, too busy for it another."
After that, it was up to
Kenny's parents to hold steady with feeding and let nature take its
course. Satter emphasizes that children tend to slim down as they
get older. The fat baby, toddler, preschooler or even first or
second grader, has no greater risk of growing up fat than the thin
one.
However, not all
children slim down. Fatness is normal for some. But massive fatness
or a marked increase in fatness is not. Some children get
fatter than nature intended them to be.
Kenny's story
illustrates that restricting food intake can make children gain too
much weight. At the other
extreme, Satter has seen some children get too fat when they are
overfed. However, she emphasizes, this is unusual. Children
ordinarily resist overeating. If they are overfed, they won't get
hungry as soon or won't eat as much the next feeding.
She also sees children
getting too fat because of stress. Studies show stress on children
has increased enormously. When children are under stress, they don't
talk about it. They act out their feelings by being defiant or
wetting the bed or refusing to go to school. Some children react to
stress by eating too much, being less active and getting too fat.
For such unhappy children, food restriction is definitely not the
solution, because it would only increase their stress. Instead, it
is important to identify the source of the problem and resolve it.
Then the child can go back to eating and growing normally.
"Keep in
mind," reminds Satter, "that having regular meals and
snacks and saying no to between-time food begging is not restricting
it is good feeding. Given optimum parenting, children can grow
up to get bodies that are right for them.
"We can't make
children be slimmer than what is normal for them, but we can be sure
we are doing all we can to allow them to grow well. That will free
us up to accept them for who they are and to help them feel good
about the body nature gives them."
SOURCE: Ellyn Satter,
Author, Lecturer and Registered Dietitian.
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