CAUSES OF OBESITY, examples (continued)
My second child, in her own words "hates all sports and you can't make me like them". Her three favorite pursuits are reading, playing the piano and watching TV. Not only is watching TV a very inactive pasttime, but it is also one during which she spends lots of times eating chips, cereal, ice cream, etc. The numerous commercials promoting such products certainly don't encourage her to eat healthily. This child is somewhat overweight and would be much more so, I believe, were she not forced by her "mean, terrible, awful mother" to accompany said mother on walks several times a week. She was always a little bit heavier than the other children, but when her father died several years ago, she began eating much more than usual. At the same time, I was working very long hours and her oldest sister was left to babysit. She would yell at Jennifer about eating too much and call her "fatso" and "whale" and similar unflattering comments. Jenn would go to her room and eat three bowls of cereal. Now that I am home a great deal more, and our lives have settled down considerably, her eating habits have become healthier, and she has lost some weight. To the right is a recent picture of her, after having made a serious attempt at getting more exercise and eating less. Now she has somewhat more of a match between her food intake and activity, but, I think the fact that much of her overeating occurred in that late childhood period when fat cells are likely to increase in number, that she has a harder time losing the weight than if her father had died ( and she had consequently begun overeating) a few years earlier or later.
(If you wonder why this picture looks kind of odd, it is because it was taken at The Magic House and she is INSIDE of a soap bubble. Totally off the topic, but kind of cool, huh? Actually, it really IS on the topic. I think for children and adolescents who are overweight it is important to keep in mind that, "Yes, that is a concern, but there is much more to you than gaining or losing weight."
