Gentle Weight Loss is a healthy way for children who are obese to lose weight.
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Gentle Weight Loss focuses on:
- Very slow weight loss with long term maintenance
- Savoring food rather than fearing it
- Eating food only when you are hungry and only until you are satiated
- Self respect rather than self abuse
- Understanding the brain’s response to food
- Throwing away the scale
- Finding enjoyment in your life
- Using your body well
Gentle Weight Loss is part of the anti-diet movement. Leaders in the movement like Geneen Roth and co-authors Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch call it Mindful or Intuitive Eating. It is based on the premise that the unhealthy cycle of emotional eating, guilt, and berating oneself leads only to irrational food restriction, negativity, unhappiness, and fuels another cycle of despair, self hatred, and giving up. Dieting is the opposite of gentle weight loss. Dieting creates unrealistic boundaries and rigid rules. Dieting puts people in categories: Fat or Skinny, Good or Bad, In Control or Out Of Control.
Gentle Weight Loss is a healthy way for children who are obese to lose weight. It cares about the mind first and the body follows. It focuses on a child’s strengths, not weaknesses. It teaches children to listen to and respond to their bodies’ needs. It helps them understand and work through emotions, not run away from them.
Nice post, the Idea of your Gentle weight loss really sounds good.
Thanks Joseph!
I am a CDE (diabetes educator) and would like to put in a grant application to a local source that would target (obese) families with(obese) children —-eg you’ve got learned behaviors as well as food choices in the home— but it’s only a small($500) grant—-so I’d like to do a restaurant dinner program with positive presentation along lines of discussion topics here—–any suggestions on sources of resources for such a program?
I guess I’m thinking I’d like them to walk out with just a few ideas they feel would be workable for them —- eg a way to substitute water/no calorie drinks for pop , and ALSO ways to encourage child’s self esteem…
Thoughts/suggestions/direction is welcome
Hi Laurie,
Your program sounds wonderful!
I highly recommend grabbing a copy of my 17 Tips For Healthy Weight Loss guide in the upper right-hand corner–it’s an overview of a more holistic approach, which might help you identify what areas you want to focus on.
Jan Chozen Bays is a GREAT resource. She is a pediatrician and has written extensively on MIndful Eating. You can find some of her writing here on Psychology Today .
Sugary drinks are a huge obstacle…I’ve been brainstorming ideas that I think might actually work for kids–one thing I’ve thought of that I haven’t had the time to flesh out is making a ‘fruit punch’ with an herbal tea, sweetening it with sugar and over time, incrementally lowering the sugar amount, and then diluting the ‘punch’. Thinking of it as a slow wean, rather than cold turkey. Just a thought.
Please let me know how everything turns out–are you planning on doing some kind of post-evaluation? I would love to hear about your outcomes!
Stay in touch!
Thanks for releasing this blog , very helpful
I embrace the idea of gentle weight loss in my business. I think it’s so vital that children have a good attitude about being healthy and they don’t have this fear of dieting and being “fat”. If your child needs to lose weight, they should be excited to be healthy! Thanks Meaghan for a great post.
I couldn’t agree more. Took a look at your program–it looks fantastic. Great to know there are others out there with a healthy attitude for child weight loss.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on celebrity weight loss surgery.
Regards