I Put My Kid on a Weight Loss Program and I'm Proud Of It
A few years ago, when my son was 11, he was diagnosed as overweight. Doctors said he needed to do something about his high BMI, but other than telling him that he could no longer eat the foods he enjoyed, like bagels and French toast, they didn't offer many solutions. We both left the doctor's office feeling frustrated. My son said, Mom, I'm never going to another doctor again.
At home, I started putting restrictions on what he could eat, which just made him angry. My other son could eat whatever he wanted without gaining a pound. Our family was fighting about food all of the time. I would Google "weight loss for kids" but never found any realistic options.
As a parent, it's very scary to realize your child has a serious problem and you don't know how to fix it. You know they're getting teased at school and facing discrimination by their peers and teachers. You know that if their weight problem continues in adulthood, they'll face discrimination by employers. That's not even to speak of the health problems associated with obesity. It's really hard to not be stressed out when a doctor tells you your child's BMI is too high.
Looking for solutions
It was hard discussing my son's eating habits with him in a way that he wouldn't interpret as criticism. I realized there were very few weight-loss programs for children, and those that were available were expensive-our local program charged $3,500-and required in-person visits. What 11-year-old boy wants to talk about his weight in a group setting?
Calorie counting is dangerous for children because it can lead to obsessive behaviors similar to those of people suffering with anorexia.
I did look into weight-loss apps like My FitnessPal but quickly realized there's a good reason they're off limits to people under 18. These apps revolve around calorie counting, which is fine for adults but very dangerous for children. When I showed one of the apps to my son, he said, "Mom, I could lose weight by eating five bags of potato chips a day." He wasn't saying he was going to do that, but you can see how that mentality would be harmful. We need children to continue eating nutritious foods during their weight-loss journey so that they can keep growing. The other potentially harmful side effect of calorie counting is that it can lead to obsessive behaviors similar to those of people suffering with anorexia.
I emailed a longtime friend, Thea Runyan, who was the lead coach at Stanford's Pediatric Weight Control Program for 12 years, and asked if there was a way my son could complete the program without having to attend in-person meetings. She said no, but that exchange started a dialogue. Eventually it became clear to me that there was an opportunity to do a similar program remotely. This was in 2014 before digital health had really become popular. Thea and I ended up licensing with the Stanford program and founding a mobile system that uses apps and remote health coaching to help children establish better eating habits.
A better way
Our company is called Kurbo, and it offers all of the same benefits as an in-person program but in a digital environment. We use the traffic light diet, which was created in '70s by Dr. Len Epstein. The idea is to help kids learn what's healthy and what's not. For example, orange juice may seem like it would count as fruit but it's just as calorie dense and sugary as Gatorade. We teach kids the basics by using games and get them to track what they eat in categories: red, yellow, and green. (Green represents low-glycemic, eat-all-you want foods like broccoli or carrots, yellow is for "proceed with caution" foods like eggs and whole wheat pasta, and reds are foods to limit: cheese, candy, sodas.) Kurbo doesn't involve calorie counting. It gets kids to reduce their "red" foods really slowly, by about 7 percent a week. By contrast, adult programs like Weight Watchers get you to lose weight really fast because they know adults are more likely to stick with it if they lose a lot of weight up front. That's not safe for kids.
Health coaches take the "food police" role away from the parents so you don't have to be the bad guy.
Once Thea started working with my son as his health coach, she told me, "You are never again allowed to tell him what he's going to eat or not eat." I remember him coming downstairs one morning and having two Girl Scout cookies for breakfast. Before, I would've gotten mad at him but this time he just looked at me and goes, "Mom, they're my red for the day." And that was it-he had decided with his coach how many reds he could have in a day. It made for a much better relationship between us.
A lot of parents start getting scared when their child is overweight, and they start restricting foods. This usually makes the child angry, and they begin either sneaking food or using food as weapon against their parents. The kids who use Kurbo are assigned a health coach who is trained cognitive behavioral therapy, behavior change, and family dynamics. They check in with their coach once a week over Skype, and can text them whenever. They can talk about upcoming road-blocks, like a friend's birthday party where they know cake and ice cream will be served, and how to handle it. The coaches take the "food police" role away from the parents. Because helping your child lose weight is similar to trying to teach them math: You could do it but you want to bring in a teacher or a tutor so you don't have to fight with them. The Kurbo coach's job is to hold the kid accountable, give them advice, and to take the stress away from the family.
A lot of parents start restricting foods, which usually makes the child angry; they begin either sneaking food or using food as weapon against their parents.
Initially we envisioned Kurbo as a consumer business, sort of like a Weight Watchers for kids, but we've since realized that, in additional to individual families, there are many other people who are concerned about the weight issue in our country. According to the American Heart Association, one in three kids in the U.S. is overweight or obese. Employers in this country spend $14.3 billion on healthcare for overweight children. Overweight kids have more doctors visits than their healthier counterparts, they have more allergies, get sick more often, and miss more school days. It's estimated that childhood obesity will eventually cost society over $1 trillion dollars if all of the children who are overweight today become obese adults. We've learned that businesses are willing to pay for Kurbo as a benefit for their employees. We've starting to work with Medicaid and the Department of Defense to provide to Kurbo to low-income families and those on military bases. It's one way to address the childhood obesity issue in an inexpensive, scalable manner.
Today I'm proud to say that my son no longer has a weight problem. He's very healthy and has a much healthier relationship with food. Our family is much happier. My daughter, who's now in college, wrote a letter to her future self when she was in 8th grade and opened it last year when she was a senior. She had written, "my family fights about food all of the time." When she read that out loud we all laughed. Thankfully we were not doing that anymore!
Follow Woman's Day on Instagram.
You Might Also Like
