Knowing When to Intervene in the Life of an Overweight Child

Talking to an overweight child about being too fat is so touchy that even doctors avoid it. One study of pediatricians found that less than 30 percent bought up a weight issue or even tested a child's body mass index during a health examination. Doctors said they avoid the issue because they feel helpless to treat childhood obesity and because they did not wish to hurt their young patients' feelings.

Parents of overweight children often do not face the issue, either, though for different reasons than doctors give. According to a 2008 study done by the University of Melbourne, parents of overweight children, even the morbidly obese ones, often think of their kids as normal or merely chubby. Among 2,060 parents of obese children in this study, 43 percent told researchers that their children's weights were "just about right," and 37 percent said their children were "only slightly overweight." Research done in 2007 from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health produced similar results: More than 40 percent of parents with obese children ages 6 to 11 described them as "about the right weight."

Part of the reason parents do not perceive their children as overweight might be that the parents themselves are too heavy. Reported in the Journal of Pediatrics, Stanford University doctors found that having an overweight parent was the strongest predictor of obesity in children. In other words, overweight parents have overweight children.

Because doctors and parents tend to ignore the issue, many school administrators in states like Arkansas and New York have begun to send home "weight report cards" that alert parents to their child's problem. However, many parents do not like this approach, fearing that their children's self-esteem would suffer once their schools officially labeled them as "fat."

Great Britain, however, is going ahead with school weight report cards. The British National Health Service is currently adapting a policy that all parents be informed of their child's weight after performing a pilot study of 358 children ages 6 to 7 and 10 to 11 years old. Almost half of the parents of overweight children in this study made positive changes in diet and exercise after being informed that their child was too heavy. Most of the children, even the overweight ones, reported that they did not mind being weighed and measured.

If you are unsure whether your child is overweight and needs intervention, you can calculate your child's body mass index yourself. The BMI is a more accurate measure of your child's health then just his weight. Overweight is a BMI of 25 to 29.9; obese is a BMI over 30.

If you want to help your child lose weight, the best way is to change your own habits. The University of California in San Diego is experimenting with parent-only interventions instead of working with overweight children. Parents in this program shop for healthy foods, eat out less, cook with less fat, serve fewer sweets and salty snacks, and encourage their child to get more exercise. So far this approach is proving more effective than working with the children.

Many parents enroll their children in "fat camps" in a desperate effort to make them lose weight. While most children will lose weight at fat camp, these programs do not work in the long run. Teen weight loss camps or "fit camps" are better solutions. These are programs where a child can develop permanent changes in her approach to nutrition and exercise. These summer camps must have good follow-up care that involves the entire family in order for a child to maintain her weight loss permanently.