You know how they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Well, apparently so is fat and we all know that love is blind, so I guess that's why so many parents can't see that their kids are fat, but they are. A recent study published by Pediatrics found that parents nowadays are more likely to see their overweight kids as being "healthy" than parents in the previous decade. Now, before you go dismissing this as some boring study findings, if you are a parent this stuff matters because pediatric obesity can lead to a host of health issues and if you can't even figure out that your kid is fat then you most likely aren't going to swap out bad habits and instill good habits simply because you don't SEE the need to.
So how is it that parents aren't noticing that their kids are fat and what can we do about it?
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What's going on is that as child obesity rates increase, children being overweight has become the new normal, we've become used to it. Dr. Jian Zhang of Georgia Southern University, the author of the study I'm referring to, says:
We rarely compare our weight status against an absolute scale or a number recommended by doctors. Instead we compare to what our friends, neighbors and co-workers look like. If we look like most of others, we of course perceive that we are just fine. As the prevalence of pediatric obesity has tripled within decades, the socially accepted ideal body weight may also be shifting accordingly.
In other words, if your kid is overweight, but so are the other kids that you see, then you are more likely to think that your kid is at a "healthy" weight. So what can you do if you can't trust your own eyes? Plain and simple: talk to your pediatrician. Your pediatrician can let you know if your child is at a healthy weight and if not, they can also help you come up with a plan to get your child to a healthy weight.
It's important to note that this isn't about shaming you or your kids. It also isn't about giving your kids unnecessary body issues and making them stress out about being "skinny." It's about keeping your kids healthy and encouraging healthy habits for a lifetime.
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