Get Your Overweight Child Moving

I was a fat kid.  I didn’t start out fat.  Looking back at photos of myself just days after being born, I look seriously undernourished, but that didn’t last for long.  Between fourth and eighth grade, I was a fat kid and generally unhappy about it, miserable actually.  Because no one in my family ever exercised—both my mother and her mother thought exercise was a few minutes of dancing around the living room—I had very little help with my problem.  The only thing anyone had to say was, “Don’t eat so much.”

Sometime in eighth grade, I received my first book on how to be a better me.  It was Farrah: An Unauthorized Biography by Patricia Burstein.  It told you everything you needed to know about feathering your hair, applying make-up and exercising to get Farrah’s body.  The diagrams, which were little better than stick figures with big hair, were my first education in exercise.  I did the exercises religiously at night after everyone else had gone to bed. 

I don’t know if it was the exercising or some natural shift in my body shape, but eventually I lost weight.  I went from a size 16 plus in kids to a size 9 in juniors.  I was still pretty much regarded as a fat kid, but I felt better about myself and had started making exercise a regular part of my life.

Through the years I’ve lost weight many times using many different exercise and diet programs.  I’ve also gained the weight back as many people do.  Sometime around 35 I realized that I had to do more than exercise, I had to watch what I ate too, if I wanted to keep my weight down.  At this particular moment, I’m overweight—by about 50 pounds—but I’m still exercising.  Even if I never lose another pound, the exercise helps me manage my cholesterol and blood sugar, it keeps my heart in shape and helps me relax. 

Passing It On

At the moment, though, it’s not me that I’m worried about.  It’s my daughter.  She’s ten years old and weighs 140 pounds.  Wow, right?  My oldest daughter obviously inherited her weight management genes from her father’s side.  She’s lucky to keep the scales hovering around 100 pounds, and she’s twenty.  My youngest, sadly, inherited her weight management genes from my side. 

It kills me to watch her go through the same things that I went through, and I’m worried that her organs and joints might suffer permanent damage.  I want to help her, but I don’t want to start restricting her diet too radically.  Besides, we can’t be with our kids 24 hours a day.  When they’re at school, they make their own choices about lunch, and I can guarantee that my daughter never eats a vegetable at school.  She’s also old enough now to be in the house by herself for the few minutes before I arrive home from work; I’m sure she grabs a cheese stick or two before I get home.  And when she’s at a friend’s house, what am I going to do?  Tell her to eat a salad while everyone else is eating pizza? 

In lieu of purging my cabinets and refrigerator of everything with empty calories and never grabbing fast food on a busy day, I’ve begun talking to my daughter about good food choices and trying to work out with her.  That’s my main goal—to get her moving.  Unfortunately, I live in the northeast, so summer is short.  When we do have nice weather, my daughter and I will take walks or hit the pool for a couple of laps.

For the dreary winter months, I’ve tried to come up with some exercises—drawing on my vast experience—that will be fun and that we can continue doing for as long as we need or want to.  One of the first things that I did was buy two exercise trampolines.  I keep them in the living room, and we jump on them during commercials.  (You’re not surprised to find out that we’re couch potatoes, right?)  Here are a few other suggestions.

Ball Twists

I’m not sure where I saw this—maybe on a basketball movie.  Standing back to back with one person holding a regular playground ball, twist and pass the ball to the other person.  Keep going until tired or laughing too hard.

Ball Over Unders

Since the first ball exercise was so much fun, I thought maybe we could go up and down instead of side to side.  Standing back to back again, but with enough room not to knock each other over with your butts, pass the ball over your head and then bend over and reach for the passed ball between your legs.  I’m not sure, but I think you should do one set starting as the person passing overhead and another set being the person to start off passing between the legs.  Try it and see if you thing it’s different.  Continue until tired or until someone splits their pants. 

Ball Hula

Sitting on a yoga ball rotate hips in circles in one direction and then in the other.  Maybe you could download Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho for inspiration.  The intensity of this exercise can be increased by adding some arm movements or even just holding your arms up while rotating.  Continue until tired, or until you fall off the ball.

Tootsie Rolls

This is a holdover from the Richard Simmons days.  Sitting on the floor with your legs out in front of you and together, just roll from side to side.  You can also move back and forth across the floor while rolling. 

Dance Party

Just turn on the music and move to the groove.  Alternate slow songs with fast songs and you’ve got your own version of interval training.

Try a lot of different things and keep the ones that you and your child have the most fun with.  That will help you stay committed to regular exercise.