How to Help Your Overweight Daughter

When confronting a child's weight problem, many parents overlook the importance of self esteem and instead focus on weight issues. It would seem logical to be more concerned about a child's health than her self esteem. The fact is that nurturing her self esteem will have more permanent results than focusing only on the current weight problem. A girl who thinks well of herself will accomplish more, make the right choices, be a good parent and more likely a healthier person. Children who are made to feel low about themselves, will undoubtedly live down to that expectation. If a child feels that the most attention she gets refers to her weight, then that will be a negative reinforcement.

There are ways to help your daughter with her weight and still nourish her self esteem. First of all, if you are overweight, it will be much harder to get your daughter to keep her weight down. It doesn't matter that you were thin at her age, got heavy from pregnancy, etc. She will only see what you are now and you are her role model and the most important person in her life. Think about working on your own weight problems and be an example for your daughter. Always complement your daughter on how nice she is dressed, her hair, etc. Regardless of her weight she is beautiful and if you can see that then surely she will. The way she carries herself will make a great difference socially. Make sure she has lots of nice clothing-that fit well, not baggy. She shouldn't feel like she must hide her body.

Rather than dieting, you should teach your daughter how to eat a healthy diet. Since there may be tension about this, seeing a nutritionist will be helpful. Your daughter is more likely to argue with you but she may listen better to a professional. Remember to focus on health, not weight,. The goal is to be healthy and not gain any more weight, but losing weight should not be discussed. Make a menu plan , get her involved with the cooking, and stick to it together. Don't weigh her, leave that for now. She can check her weight when she sees the nutritionist.

Never encourage your daughter by saying how good she will look when she loses weight. You are really saying she doesn't look good now. Always focus on health, or if she is having physical problems, like running out of breath, you can talk about that.

Exercise if a must. The ideal would be do sign her up for a group sport. Otherwise, anything that is physical that she will do should be encouraged-even if it's walking around the mall. When you are with her, take the steps-not elevators, park further away from where you are going. Swimming is an all round perfect exercise so if she will swim, take her to the pool as much as possible.

If you think there is a strong emotional component to your daughter's eating habits, you may consider her seeing a therapist. Sometimes a divorce, a special needs sibling, a traumatic event, etc. can be the root cause of changes in eating habits.

These are some suggestions, try them out and remember to never be critical but always praise and encourage.