Worried about my daughter page 2

[Urban Forager]

Unless you get your wife on board you wont make any progress, get her to read the PB or watch Sugar The Bitter Truth
Sugar: The Bitter Truth - YouTube. If the whole family eats the same way it wont be a big deal for your daughter.
Now is the time to set up good eating habits. If your daughter gets in the habit of eating processed foods she will have a very difficult time moving away from them later. Changing her palette preferences is crucial.

[zoebird]

Hiyas. I feel like you are getting hammered because your kid ate the normal way people feed their kids until you discovered primal. I don't think that's very fair, really, because you probably didn't know any better. Heck, many of my own family members let their kids "sip" their diet cokes and coke zeros and whatever else -- since they drink so much of it, so do their kids. I'm the weirdo who doesn't let my kid have soda.

Luckily, though, I live in a community where it's fairly common for parents to have their kids on various "clean" diets. Some are gluten free, some are vegetarian, but nearly everyone is whole foods. And we are the "bad parents" who allow our kid sugar about once a week (usually 25g of candy or chocolate). And, we also make natural soda (fermented beverage) o r buy locally made fermented sodas. Or, we do fresh juice with seltzer water.

Families give us the old-tisk-tisk, but you know, we probably tisk-tisk over the number of processed crackers that their kid eats. LOL Or grains. Most of them eat a lot of grains.

Also there might be some people here who tisk-tisk at me because DS is allowed to have rice, gluten free buns, and whatever breads his friend's mother makes. It's usually less than 3x a week, and it's not like he's eating a loaf of bread each time, you know? It's just easier to let him have it than to worry about it.

Thus, my recommendation is as follows.

1. discuss with your partner what a good balance for your family is in terms of "treats" and grains and the like.

2. once you know what this is, you can put some rules around it such as "sodas are a treat for sunday" and you can do things like A. make your own (it's a fun project -- go on youtube and look for videos. it will shock you with the amount of sugar used, but the fermenting bacteria feed off of that; you can also make water/juice kefirs which are sweeter than those horrid kombachas), or B. buy naturally fermented soda, or move to the seltzer/juice mix (1/4 juice, 3/4 seltzer).

3. limit grains and sweets as you see fit. In our home, there are no grains (we do quinoa or millet, and since the millet is local, we usually go for millet which is a seed), but we do have dark chocolate and we are transitioning to making our own (raw cacao, coconut oil, local manuka honey, and whatever else we want to put into it). We do sweets like GF cakes or even candies or good organic gelato on an intermittent basis such as once every month or two. This works for our family.

Beyond this, you need to get and agree upon a clear picture of your daughter's health and well being. she might be a larger girl -- and there's nothing wrong with that. It may be that she looses this weight later, as a previous poster mentioned that she grew to a certain size by a certain age, and that was that. And, you may decide that she is overweight, and as such, you need to make familial changes.

I would recommend, btw, a family walk after dinner. It's something that we do and enjoy a great deal. We also do a long hike before our breakfast (DS has breakfast, we hike, and it's his lunch -- it's technically more brunch like) on Sunday. We do 20 minutes at the park before driving DS to school.

We do this because DS needs to burn off energy -- this helps keep him grounded. He needs to be outside, you know? And guess what? So do we. By doign these things as a family, we are improving everyone's health. It's small things, done over time, consistently that lead to good positive results.

Good luck with it all!

[Sabine]

Since lunch is the meal she eats 'out of your control', I would make it as appetizing as possible so that she doesn't eat (too much) of non-primal things offered to her(as they will be).

Bento boxes are great- kids(okay, maybe adults too!) love eating out of a cool container. Get those little shaped cutters, and cut her fruit and veggies into fun shapes. Have a good fat dip for her to dip into. Have her make a master list of all the good primal foods she likes to eat. Over-pack, so there is always enough 'good' stuff. Even to share. If she likes sushi rolls, make 'em! (I now do sushi rolls once a week for my girls and they love it!) Try new recipes WITH her on the weekends to see if it is something that she would like in her lunchbox. I particularly recommend Heroin Chicken Wings from Dana Carpendar's LC cookbook. A great lunchbox protein that my Littlest BEGS for.

I agree: no soda.

Summer is coming, and she is old enough to do an experiment, tracking how she feels- let her choose the symptoms and stats she wants to track, need not be weight- while eating pure primal for two weeks. Maybe she could even do it for science fair! Doing it as an experiment, rather than 'this is how it is' and relating it to how she feels, might convince her that she WANTS to be more primal. Over the year that I have been doing primal, both my at-home children, have gradually fewer grain/legume items, just because there is such better stuff around. At 6, she still has plenty of time to make a gradual transition. (Though not on the soda!)

[meloroaster]

I would try to make her some non-junky treats! Of course there is always friends houses etc but if you focus at home on healthy eating it will make a HUGE difference. Check out Mark's snack page but also blogs like paleomg. she has some amazing treats in there (includes maple syrup and honey though) that you would have no idea are pretty healthy! i love the klondike bars...plus full of good fat and actually satiate you.

also, don't put too much time pressure on this. it might take awhile but slow and steady is always the best way. good luck!

[Annieh]

Hi Mauler, congrats on your own weight loss and health improvements. You are doing great. You're also off to a good start with your wife and daughter in reducing soda and having a primal dinner together. I would encourage you to keep going, this is a journey you will all get there one step at a time, and remember you are a few months ahead of them already so you will need to be patient.

I feel that the next thing to address would be your daughter's breakfast. What is it like now? Could you tweak it to offer a little more good nutrition and a little less anti-nutrition. Eg if she has processed cereal and skim milk, can you move towards plain rice bubbles with whole milk and a sliced banana. If it's whole grain toast with margarine and jam, could you give her thinner slice of white toast with more real butter and natural peanut butter, or make it into french toast using beaten egg, milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon and the tiniest bit of sugar.

Eggs make a great breakfast if she'll eat them - maybe scrambled eggs would appeal to her? If not, don't force the issue just yet. However, if you're having some and share with her, that might really sway her.

The best breakfast of all would be leftover dinner. Today my 12yo dd had steak and vegetables, and butterfried potatoes washed down with a cup of hot chocolate made with all milk, 1t of sugar and 1t of cocoa. She would have eaten rice bubbles and yoghurt (50:50 greek:flavoured) if I had not prepared it for her though. Even though she is 12 I am willing to do this to see that she eats well, especially as she won't be home till 6.30pm tonight.

Best wishes to you all.

PS The next thing would be her after school snack. This should be fully primal (definitely no soda and chips) but something that feels like a treat for her to come home to eg truffle balls, homemade berry smoothies or icecream, fresh fruit... A midway treat is rice bubble slice - butter, honey, ricebubbles. Not fantastic but not dreadful either.

[eKatherine]

Something to keep in mind is that if there's something she really likes that is healthy and she will eat over and over again for lunch, it's okay to give it to her every day. Adults often get bored with what their kids are enjoying eating and end up packing a lunch that the kids won't eat instead.

[bostonwolf]

I'd start with packing her school lunch. School food is horrible.

Unfortunately this does not mean she will eat it.

[Megatron]

I can't get past that you 'cut down' on your 6 year olds soda habit. Unless you mean the occasional treat at a restaurant. If all there is to drink is water or milk, she'll eventually get thirsty.

I'm so glad you are trying to do right by your little girl. She has a whole long life ahead of her to eat right and care for herself. Serve healthy simple meals- and that's it, save for a treat now and again. When I was a kid we got ice cream on Sunday after a long hike- which we complained about, but eventually learned to enjoy (we pretended we were pioneers on the Oregon trail ) It's great you're keeping her active- with proper diet I am sure you can make a big difference.

Also, kids get body image issues real easily, and words hurt, a lot. I would keep stressing that the whole family is going to be healthy, not thin, that she's a great kid, and that you are so proud of her for trying new things. Best of luck.

[notlupus]

Once she hits middle school she'll get teased for it and slim up. Happened to me. I'm the skinniest person in my family because I saw my fat parents and realized I didn't want to spend my life like that.

[eKatherine]

Once she hits middle school she'll get teased for it and slim up. Happened to me. I'm the skinniest person in my family because I saw my fat parents and realized I didn't want to spend my life like that.

I was teased constantly starting in middle school right through high school. I never lost an ounce.

Fat-shaming is not an effective weight loss technique to apply to other people. If it was, no one would be fat.