No 7-year-old should suffer the kind of crushing headaches typical of a stressed-out, 40-something executive. “He was coming in every day complaining of a headache,” remembers Dallas mom Yvonne Strange Harmon. “And I know for a child … to come in and complain about a headache every day, something’s wrong.”
She was right. A physical exam showed Royvon’s whole body was thrumming from the effects of high blood pressure. At 57 pounds and not yet 4 feet tall, the boy, whose mother describes him as “solid,” was already medically obese. Doctors put him on medication and directed his mother to watch his salt intake and his weight. But the pounds kept creeping on: 15 more pounds over the next year and another 15 by age 8.
It was a call from Christy Turer, M.D., formerly an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, that brought things to a screeching halt. At 9 years old and 114 pounds, Royvon was not only seriously overweight, he was pre-diabetic, as well. “All I could do is cry because I wasn’t fully understanding,” says Harmon, recalling her disbelief at how out of hand things had gotten and her panic as to how she would manage this new threat to her son’s health.
A family lifestyle change, rather than a prescription one child must struggle through alone, is the healthiest and most effective strategy for weight management.
Risks of Childhood Obesity
Of course, Royvon’s poor health was no fluke. Seventy percent of obese 5- to 17-year-olds show at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We know that when your child’s body mass is above where it should be, at the level of what we term overweight, they’re more likely to have one or more risk factors for heart disease — even in the toddler period, even as young as 2 years old,” Turer says. “We know that at the line for [childhood] obesity, which is a little bit higher, that they’re more likely to have two or three or more of those risk factors.”
Turer assured Harmon that Royvon’s situation could not only be controlled with medication but actually reversed with a healthy diet and enough exercise. With renewed determination, Harmon doubled down on healthier food plus more activity, and Royvon’s health finally began to turn around. As the numbers on the scale shrank, so did the alarming blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
Clean Living Over Dieting
The single best way for overweight children to lose weight isn’t a specific diet plan. To no one’s surprise, it’s healthy nutrition and an active lifestyle, something doctors, nutrition experts and even the first lady have been telling us for years. And it’s also something parents implicitly understand — at least according to a new research study, which is the first to examine what parents find works to help kids manage their weight.
The study, co-authored by Turer, reveals that parents generally feel overloaded and unaided by diet plans and counting calories, preferring instead specific ideas about what foods to fix and how to get kids to eat them. They want simple plans that emphasize serving sizes that kids can judge for themselves instead of calories parents must track for them.
And, as it turns out, Mom does, in fact, know best. A family lifestyle change, rather than a prescription one child must struggle through alone, is the healthiest and most effective strategy for weight management.
Getting the Whole Family on Board
But for Harmon, getting Royvon’s brothers to buy in and not undermine his efforts by eating unhealthy foods around him was trickier than getting Royvon himself on board with the plan.
“Let it come from them, because if it comes from them, then they will definitely follow it much more.”
To combat this type of resistance, Turer recommends gathering the whole family to develop a strategy, including relatives and caregivers who influence the overweight child. Help the family understand that healthier eating and an active lifestyle benefit everyone. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to skip sugary cereals, sweetened drinks and juice,” Turer says. Ask for ideas on how to work better nutrition and more activity into the family’s current lifestyle, turning the prescription from “the stuff we have to do for our brother or sister” to “the way our family does things now.”
The same kind of input and buy-in is just as important for the overweight child, too. Ask kids for their own ideas on how to reach goals like eating more vegetables, says North Texas dietitian Zarana Parekh, RDN, LD. “Let it come from them, because if it comes from them, then they will definitely follow it much more,” she says. “Then commit and be respectful of their needs.”
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Get Moving as a Family
As we know, the other component of a healthy weight is an active lifestyle. And like healthier eating, it’s a goal that experts all say is more easily and effectively achieved together as a family.
Cicely Isabell, an exercise specialist at Texas Health Fort Worth Fitness Center, suggests staying active within the framework of the kids’ individual activities. For example, take a ball or Frisbee to play with during one child’s soccer practice. Another trick: pedometers or Fitbits for the entire family. “Who gets the most steps for the day?” Isabell suggests parents to propose. “Who gets the most steps for the week?”
Making these efforts a natural part of family life keeps them sustainable over the long term, which is exactly how kids who packed on pounds are going to lose them again. It takes time — time for the kids and persistence from their parents.
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Healthy and Happy
For Royvon, persistence paid off. Once his BMI dropped to borderline territory between healthy and overweight (a process that took years), he was able to stop his medications. Today, at 14, when he’s not on the field playing football for his team at school, he’s on the court shooting baskets for fun. “He loves to show me his stomach because he says he has a four-pack now,” Harmon says with affectionate laughter. “Yes, he has a four-pack now, so he’s working on his other two ‘packs.’”
Packing up his unhealthy habits took the whole family’s support, but Royvon turned the corner when it counted. “They were amazing,” Turer says proudly of her patient and his family. “They really did it together. He is now just on the cusp between the healthy weight and the overweight range, off all drugs; he’s on no blood pressure medicine, no diabetes medicine. He inspires me.”
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This article was originally published in October 2014.
Illustration: iStock
