My daughter,
the recovering couch potato

By Teresa Wagner, M.S., R.D./L.D.

This past summer, I began to notice my daughter was joining the millions of American children who are eating too much and not moving enough. Basking in the glory of three months without school, she spent most of her time in her room watching television and snacking. She did still participate in some sports, but this was not enough to offset her lack of daily activity and all-day access to food. Slowly, the pounds crept on until one day, she noticed her clothes were tighter than she liked.

In the meantime, I tried diligently to get her to move more, encouraging daily walks to the pool with her sister, leaving full access to my treadmill and offering to take her places that provided some activity. She sporadically obliged while her sister did all of these activities plus ran back and forth through the house from the trampoline in the backyard to the basketball goal out front.

That was when it became clear to me that some children are natural movers and some are not. The key, I decided, is finding the motivation that will inspire each child to move. By the end of the summer, my non-mover and I were taking nightly walks together. She liked the social aspect of visiting with me while moving. This not only had benefits in terms of her movement, but also benefited our communication as mother and daughter. I chose this time to discuss how exercise helps to balance calories.

I then tackled the other piece of the puzzle: her intake of soda and snacks. Slowly, sodas, which were only supposed to be a treat, had become her primary beverage while our staples of 1-percent milk and 100-percent fruit juice would go sour in the refrigerator. In a policy statement just last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics encouraged schools to only serve water, 100-percent fruit juice and low-fat milk and I decided to follow this recommendation in my own home. This decision was reinforced later in November, when I read the Consensus Report by the National Medical Association, which encourages parents to role model drinking milk at home. In response, I just stopped keeping any soda at home to encourage and ensure the water, juice and milk consumption.

Other research reviewed by the Consensus Committee showed that dairy foods like milk, cheese and yogurt might have significant benefits beyond strong bones, such as prevention of diabetes and high blood pressure. A growing body of research also suggests that dairy foods may play a role in weight management when coupled with a balanced, reduced calorie diet. Therefore, the snacks that I made available changed as well. Low-fat pudding, yogurt and macaroni and cheese, along with fiber-rich items such as apples and grapes, whole-grain cereal, peanut butter or pizza crackers, popcorn and graham crackers, were just some of the basic food group snacks provided to accompany the healthier beverage choices.

When school started, we found that team sports offered the socialization that was more appealing to my once couch-potato daughter. After making the volleyball team, her increased activity coupled with her dietary changes normalized her weight and got her back into her clothes comfortably. Over Christmas vacation, she actually ran on the treadmill to stay in shape for sports plus we resumed our nightly walks to take the place of the physical demands of the school year and she maintained a healthy weight! She also now makes conscious decisions about balancing her intake of basic foods and extra calories, including limiting her sodas to no more than one per day.

The bottom line is that it takes changes in environment and individual behaviors, supported by small, acceptable steps, to incorporate healthy habits into the lives of our children. To give our young couch potatoes fit futures, we have to educate them on the role of nutrition and fitness in health, while helping them find alternatives and options for each that they will embrace. There are many resources and programs available to assist not only families, but also communities and schools in providing healthy environments for kids to learn life-long, health-conscious habits and reverse the current childhood obesity epidemic.

Teresa Wagner, M.S., R.D./L.D., is the director of Dairy Confidence and Medical Outreach at Dairy Max Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. She can be reached at wagnert@dairymax.org.