Creative Obesity Prevention

Children’s hands and mouths are both heavily implicated in the destructive habit of snacking, so let’s continue with the theme of keeping at least one of those parts busy. Of course, it is technically possible to eat or drink while doing almost any activity, but just because a thing can be done, does not mean it should be done.

Snacking needs to be discouraged, and that starts with parents and other grownups modeling the expected behavior. The culture has normalized the idea of having food or drink within reach, every second of the day. But cultures can change. Parents have the opportunity to create a mini-culture at home. Of course, setting a good example is important not just to prevent obesity, but in every other area of life too.

For instance, parents who hit their kids, and tell them not to fight at school, are standing on shaky ground. When an authority figure does something and at the same time tells children not to do it, feelings arise. Hypocrisy is the fastest and most guaranteed way of losing a child’s willingness to comply with house rules, and indeed to forfeit their respect in general.

Idle hands

There have been many variations of the Henry David Thoreau quotation, “The devil finds work for idle hands.” It is certainly true in the area of overeating and obesity! To supply a child with something fun to occupy their hands is a great step toward eating avoidance. We mentioned the usefulness of jigsaw puzzles, and those are only one-dimensional, so just contemplate how helpful three-dimensional puzzles are. The Rubik’s cube comes readily to mind, but nowadays dozens of types of hand-manipulated puzzles are commercially available.

For little kids, to help their manual skills, a beanbag is nice. How many times (or for how long, if counting isn’t their strong suit) can a child toss it from one hand to the other without dropping it? If there are two kids, how many times can they exchange the beanbag if they both use their right hands? If they both use their left hands? A ball also works for this, of course, but also bounces all over the place. If you’d prefer that the players stay relatively sedate, the beanbag is a better choice. As always, the idea here is to fill up time without filling up mouths.

How about a spoon and a small rubber (or ping-pong) ball? How many times can the child carry it around the room or the yard without dropping it? What about with the other hand? How about walking backwards? If it’s more than one child, so much the better. There is the incentive of competition, but it’s not too rough and rowdy for an indoor game.

Also, indoors, kids can do a fake balancing act. Stretch some masking tape across the floor and let them practice tightrope-walking along the line. Using something longer and more flexible, like string, they can create a twisty, maze-like path on the floor, then tightrope walk on it.

Sympathy for the devil

Normally, screen time is to be avoided, but YouTube is chockfull of videos about how to yo-yo and how to juggle. If you can interest a kid in either of these pursuits, there will be many hours in which her or his hands are not occupied with eating food.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Images by Jorge, Andy Rennie, and Marco Verch Professional/CC BY 2.0

Make the Minutes Count

The basic premise here is that every minute a child spends engaged in a rewarding activity that occupies hands and/or mouth is a minute to be treasured and then repeated as often as possible. Another premise is the importance of creating a family “culture” in which food consumption is a separate and discrete activity, carried out only at certain defined times and in the correct place. This is where parents and other caregivers have their chance to shine, by setting a sterling example.

Ample hydration is a worthy goal that serves both physical and mental health, and if all household members have their own water bottles available at any time, that is all to the good. But random food snacks, no. Sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks, no. Any person, young or old, can live a perfectly satisfactory and fulfilling life without constantly shoveling in food, and grownups can demonstrate this daily, just as they demonstrate other cultural standards like no smoking in the home, or no peeing on the ficus plant.

The multipurpose jigsaw puzzle

Chances are, your home has some jigsaw puzzles sitting around in a closet or attic. If your child has never tried out this form of recreation before, now is an excellent time to get started. But any given puzzle, once solved, loses its mystique. So let’s try out some ways of mixing it up, and keep in mind also that there are potential auxiliary benefits.

First, if there is more than one child, hopefully, the older one will pass along these skills to younger siblings, visiting cousins, neighboring playmates, etc. Second, when your kids are old enough for babysitting jobs, they will be equipped with ways to happily occupy their little charges and impress the parents.

Even if you don’t happen to have any jigsaw puzzles on hand, they can be cheaply obtained at a thrift store or yard sale, or from relatives who feel guilty about throwing them away. Now, you may say, “What if pieces are missing?” And we say, “So what?” In fact, before setting the puzzle for a child to solve, you may want to remove a few more pieces, in aid of the first activity.

Fast-forward

There sits the completed puzzle, but with holes! Slide a piece of thin cardboard, like from a cereal box, under there, trace the shapes of the missing pieces, color them in to blend with the whole picture, and carefully cut them out. Puzzle restoration is a skill that any child can be proud of! The object, of course, is not to become puzzle piece forgers, or even puzzle repair technicians. What matters is the process, the thinking and figuring out how to do it. And using the busy fingers for some purpose other than conveying snack food to the mouth.

Okay, so you put it together. Then what?

Take it apart, mix the pieces up, turn all the pieces to the gray side, and try assembling it again! If that is too taxing, just suggest that the child sort the pieces into piles by shape — edge pieces, pieces with three protrusions or “loops,” pieces with four sockets, etc. There is no particular point to this exercise, it’s just a thing that can keep a child occupied for a while, especially if the parent participates occasionally, even while spending most of his or her time doing something else.

Or, once the puzzle has been completed, carefully turn the whole thing to gray side up, and paint a picture on that side, basically creating a whole new and original puzzle!

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Alan Wat/CC BY 2.0

Every Minute Counts

Parents can always use some fresh ideas, especially ones that do not involve electronic screens. If you still have a set of encyclopedia volumes around the place, try showing kids how to look for answers in there sometimes. Or if there is a special kind of food they like to eat and/or prepare, get hold of an actual cookbook. You never know what sort of odd thing will seize a child’s attention. Maybe the idea of consulting an actual book will grab their jaded, screen-adapted imagination and open up some new world.

The basic message here is, every moment spent by a child in some activity other than eating is a moment to be treasured. As in the previous post, some of these are CNN staffer Katia Hetter’s suggestions, and some are ideas inspired by hers.

The emphasis is on materials and equipment easy to find and inexpensive, although some things should not be improvised. For instance, face painting is a great idea, and you don’t want to be applying just any old goop to a child’s face, or your own, for that matter. It is probably best to spring for the commercial product, which has some kind of obligation to be safe. The feature of this idea is that neither the painter nor the paintee should be interested in eating while face decoration is in process.

The deeper factors

An interested parent could gently enforce such a standard, without making too big a deal out of it. The hope is that parents can lead by example, letting their behavior demonstrate the expected norm, while setting a standard that becomes part of the family “culture.” America has come to accept that every minute of the day is a food-optional zone, and reversing that trend will be a difficult, uphill battle.

By the way, face paint can also be used on hands, to create monstrous appendages. Even feet can be decorated, although it might be best to conduct that experiment outside, especially if there is a convenient hose to rinse off with. Speaking of which, Hetter also recommends the improvised water slide (but follow local water conservation rules!). A plastic dropcloth, which may be had for under $5, or even a few extra-large trash bags can supply some fun, especially in a backyard with sloping ground.

Again, food is incompatible with this kind of activity. Likewise, the water balloon fight. For someone who has never organized one of those before, there are answers to be found. If you’ve got five kids, they can easily use up at least 50 missiles in 10 minutes. It’s good to have an inflatable kiddie pool filled with water as the supply depot for the balloons that are filled and ready.

This article from Camp Beyond offers several creative variants, like dodgeball, volleyball and the water balloon piñata, that really sound fun.

And when the fun is over, of course, the kids stick around to help pick up the shattered balloon shreds and put everything away.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Summer is not completely canceled. Here are 100 things we can do with or without kids,” CNN.com, 07/23/20
Source: “How to Create an Epic Backyard Water Balloon Fight,” CampBeyond.com, 07/15/21
Image by Gail Hampshire/CC BY 2.0

Positive Moves for Parents

The top line is also the bottom line, in the words of health and science writer Kirti Pandey:

Remember, kids do imitate the adults in their lives. Be a role model for them by adopting these healthy habits, and they will too!

To digress for a moment, there is an ideal age where example-setting really sinks in and takes hold. Probably every child goes through a “monkey see, monkey do” stage of imitating what the grownups do. It is all too soon over, so take advantage of it while you have the chance.

Spoiler alert

There is nothing here the average reader has not heard before, and every reminder is worth repeating. For instance, the author says “lead by example,” and although she does not plumb the darker psychological depths, it is worth doing. Kids can spot a phoniness a mile away. It is possible that what sensitive and intelligent children hate most about their parents is hypocrisy. The philosophy of “Do as I say, not as I do” never works out well. The art of demonstrating true leadership includes eating lots of veggies and fruits.

Not surprisingly, Pandey advocates moving around, and not just to prevent obesity:

Regular physical activity in childhood also reduces the risk of depression. Ensure that your kids enjoy at least an hour’s physical activity daily.

Closely related, because the time involved could be used for moving around more, is the admonition to shun electronic screens:

One idea is to set a time for checking the smartphone. It should not be an extension of one’s palm. Secondly, make it a rule: No phone at the dining table. Also, no phones in the bedroom, all gadgets in the TV room or study. Switch off all digital devices an hour before night curfew as the blue light can play havoc with the brain’s sleep and wakefulness signals.

And no sugar-sweetened beverages, and get plenty of high-quality sleep. Exercise is relevant here, too:

Giving children an opportunity to use up their energy during the day and to unwind before bedtime can make it easier for them to fall asleep and stay asleep through the night.

Modeling the desired behavior is crucial. One of Dr. Pretlow’s solutions is to prepare a stockpile of planned distractions. They can be saved via an app in a virtual “Distractions Jar” or written on slips of paper and stuck in an actual jar. Or vase, or empty cereal box. There can be a shared family jar, or each person could create their own. The point is to have a reservoir of ideas to try out when the snacking urge sneaks up.

Distraction ideas could even be food-related. CNN’s Katia Hetter, in an article offering 100 ideas to stay sane during pandemic isolation, offered a couple of ideas that might be useful to stave off boredom and frustration:

Pantry challenge: Pick an ingredient out of the pantry or refrigerator and cook from it. You can look at cookbooks for recipes or check online for guidance. Today’s challenge — or perhaps opportunity — could be that random eggplant from our vegetable delivery bag or the lentils a friend gave me when she moved out of town.

Eat someplace else: Pick another state or country with food you like, cook it and listen to their music during dinner and bring some phrases to the table from that location. This is especially good if you had planned a trip to that place. You’ll be ready to go.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Preventing childhood obesity: 5 things you can do at home to ensure good health of your children from KG to college,” TimesNowNews.com, 06/03/22
Source: “Summer is not completely canceled. Here are 100 things we can do with or without kids,” CNN.com, 07/23/20
Image by Pat Hartman