2023-05-12 16:04:18
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — The author of this article, Michel Ekar, is the author of several books that have dealt with adolescent development, with middle school students, their parents, and their schools for 20 years, in order to help children navigate the early teenage years, which are always confusing. , but often painful, and sometimes hilarious, but the realization of this comes late.
Most of the signs of social and developmental expansion that we acquire during adolescence fade over time. We stop holding a grudge against the kid who bullied us in class, or we stop forgiving ourselves for bad haircuts, failed friendships, and difficult attempts at fame.
But it can be very difficult to recover from a problem more related to our physical development.
Children are supposed to continue growing into adolescence, so the change in a child’s body during that period should not be a cause for concern. However, it causes adults to become very anxious about weight, health, and self-esteem.
Children’s changing bodies have always worried them. Experiencing so many changes in the short period of precocious puberty, they subject themselves to constant evaluation and comparison with their peers to see if their body development is normal.
“Anxiety has increased over the past two decades,” Ekar notes. “I’ve seen parents become more concerned about how their children’s bodies will change during early puberty. When I give lectures on parenting, I often hear adults express concern and fear that their children are starting to get too much.” weight during early adolescence.
“The parents I work with, whose children are physically active, engaged, smart and happy, worry about their weight because they are fuller than their peers,” she added.
Why do parents focus on weight? I think the reason is in part because the general handling of body image at the national level has reached the point of insanity. Over the past year, two new approaches have further complicated this issue for children.
Remember Jimmy’s entire opening monologue during the Oscars that made Ozempic and its weight-loss properties a household name? Whether it’s social media or the mainstream press, thin bodies and weight loss are subject to evaluation. It’s obvious to the young teens I know that celebrities have embraced a new way of slimming their bodies.
Persistent messages about being thin and fit are beginning to pose a risk by overexposing children to models of health and wellness that are otherwise difficult to achieve.
In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently changed its guidelines for treating children who are overweight, because the biggest concern for many parents is their belief that their children’s weight is bad for their health.
While the opposite is true. Parents preserve the health of their children when they do not comment on changing their appearance.. Here is the reason why.
Our children have to gain weight
In addition to the first year of human life, we experience the greatest amount of growth during adolescence. Between the ages of 13 and 18, most teens’ weight doubles. However, weight gain remains a sensitive and sometimes scary topic for parents who fear gaining too much.
On average, all young men develop between the ages of 12 and 16. They may grow a full foot in length and gain between 50 and 60 pounds. Girls are growing between 10 and 14 years old, and may be over 10 inches in height and between 40 and 50 pounds at this point, according to growth charts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Control.
“It’s completely normal for children to gain weight during puberty,” Dr. Trish Hutchison, MD, a board-certified pediatrician with 30 years of clinical experience and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told CNN. She continued: “About 25% of growth in height occurs during this stage, so as young people get taller, they will also gain weight. From the age of two or three, children grow at a rate of about two inches and gain about five pounds a year. But when they reach puberty, that doubles.” This number is usually.
New guidelines about children and weight
The American Academy of Pediatrics released a revised set of guidelines for pediatricians in January, which included recommendations for medication and surgery for some children who fall into the obese range.
Washington, D.C.-based registered dietitian Elizabeth Davenport noted that its 2016 guidelines addressed the prevention of eating disorders and “encouraged pediatricians and parents not to focus on diet, nor weight, but to focus on health-promoting behaviors.” .
“The new guidelines make weight the focus of health. And as we know, there are many other health criteria,” she added.
Do doctor’s messages about losing weight harm teens?
Davenport said what worries her is that children may misinterpret pediatricians’ advice about weight, absorb incorrect information, and turn into disordered eating.
She said: “A child can certainly interpret this message as not needing to eat a lot, or that something is wrong with their body and this leads to a very dangerous path.”
Weight may be an important number
It’s not that weight isn’t important. “We need to know the weight of children and teens,” Davenport said. She continued, “We, as dietitians, are not against children’s weight because it is a measure of how they are growing. If there is anything to do with the growth curve of an adolescent, it means that we want to look at what is happening. But we do not need to discuss weight in front of them.”
In other words, weight is data. It may or may not indicate something that needs to be addressed. The biggest concern, according to Davenport, is when the baby isn’t gaining weight. This is a red flag that something is wrong.
“Obesity is no longer an energy-in/energy-out disease,” Hutchison notes. “It is much more complex, and other factors, genetic, physiological, social, economic and environmental, play a role in that,” she stressed.
She said it’s important for parents and caregivers to know that “having obesity or being overweight is not an indicator of poor parenting. It’s not the child’s or adolescent’s fault.”
How do parents protect their children?
Parents need to work on their children’s weight gain, but they also need to protect their children from caregivers who don’t know how to communicate with their patients about weight.
In her experience, Davenport said, “Part of the trigger for her patients’ eating disorders has been a doctor telling them that there is a problem or concern with their weight.”
Hutchison said doctors and other health providers need to do better.
“We all have a lot of work to do when it comes to talking about weight,” she added. “We need to treat every child with respect and without (judgment) because we don’t want children to think there is something wrong with their bodies.”
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