As parents, we don’t want our kids to worry about their weight. They have their entire life for that, right? But…but…it’s still important for them to have a healthy weight.
Having a healthy weight means they can do the things they love more easily (running at recess, playing sports, climbing stairs at water parks, etc), reduce their health risks of developing preventable diseases (like high blood pressure or sleep apnea), enjoy higher self-esteem, and more.
And frankly, enjoying a healthy weight just makes life easier! It means you can choose your clothes based on style rather than fit, meet your friends at a pool with fewer insecurities, and walk parks, neighborhoods, or even theme parks without struggling to keep up or catch your breath.
I can speak to this topic from personal experience as a mom. Plus, I earned my Bachelors of Science degree in Health and Exercise Science, so I can also tell you what the latest research has to say on the topic!
Are you wondering how to help a child lose weight without making them feel bad? Let’s talk about it!
First of all, don’t sweat passing phases.
Sometimes, weight gain is just a passing phase. Kids tend to grow out before they grow up, so they might put on a few pounds before shooting up a few inches.
Before my daughter hits a growth spurt, she tends to eat bigger meals, sleep in later than normal, and experience some mood swings. This kind of weight gain is all part of the very healthy process of growing up.
During these times, I try to make sure the meals and snacks she’s eating more of are healthy and balanced. (Binge away on fruits, veggies, and proteins, girl!) I also point it out to her as a phase, rather than treating it like her new, permanent lifestyle. “You’ve had a bigger appetite lately! I bet you’re about to grow a lot taller!”
Now, if extra weight gain sticks around longer, or becomes part of an unhealthy lifestyle, then it may be time to increase your support!
Focus on healthy foods first.
While regular physical activity plays a huge role in affecting your child’s weight, healthy foods should be your first step. (1) You don’t have to burn off unhealthy food you didn’t eat in the first place. (2) Healthy foods will give your child the energy they need to boost their physical activity levels.
There are a few ways you can go about this…
Make eating a mindful practice.
Studies show that when you eat while watching TV, scrolling devices, or playing video games, you tend to eat more and make less healthy food choices. So make eating a mindful experience!
Don’t allow your child to multitask while eating, even if the multitasking seems useful, like enjoying a snack while doing their homework. Pause what they’re doing, put meals and snacks onto plates and into bowls, and allow them to just eat.
Not hungry yourself? Sit down next to your child anyway! My daughter has told me so much about her day while she’s munched an after-school snack and I’ve kept her company at the kitchen table.
Move family dinners away from the TV (even for movie night!) and onto the dinner table. Ban devices, focus on your food, and visit as a family while you eat. This is a practice that will benefit so much more than just your child’s weight!
Provide lots of healthy food choices.
One huge advantage you have as a parent is that you decide when fast food is an option and when it’s not, and you control what meal and snack options are available in your home!
Ensure every meal starts with protein and focuses on balance. Sure, it would be ideal if you could cook up a nutritionist-approved meal with free-range baked chicken, whole grain rice, and farm-fresh vegetables, all in precisely-measured proportions. But you know what else would work? Adding some meat to your spaghetti and sneaking veggies into the sauce.
And don’t pile your pantry with unhealthy snack options. It’s okay to have a favorite junk food splurge here and there, but focus the majority of snacking on healthy foods like fruits, veggies, proteins, and whole grains. Think:
- apples or celery with a thin spread of nut butter
- watermelon slices
- frozen grapes (great on hot days!)
- cucumber slices dusted in Tajin or dipped in salsa
- carrot sticks with hummus
- cherry tomatoes
- string cheese
- hard-boiled eggs
- low-fat Greek yogurt
- cottage cheese with pineapple
- turkey roll-ups (roll a slice of deli turkey around a thin slice of cucumber or a pickle)
- protein shake
- raw almonds or walnuts
- roasted chickpeas
- air-popped popcorn with a mist of olive oil and a sprinkle of garlic powder
When your child doesn’t have loads of unhealthy choices available to them, they’ll get creative with what they do have. (Ask me how I know!)
Pause seconds.
My child is capable of eating a sandwich and a side and then immediately demanding seconds, insisting that she’s staaaaarving. Rather than telling her that amount of food is more than enough to fill her belly, I tell her to give that food time to reach her belly.
I remind her that our bodies need time to catch up, and that overfilling our body can make us feel sick. Pausing just 15-30 minutes before eating more allows her to experience and assess her true fullness, and sometimes makes her forget she ever requested seconds in the first place. It also allows you as a parent to acknowledge their needs (either real or perceived) without making them feel bad about it.
Get them involved in preparing and cooking healthy food choices.
Nothing gets buy-in faster than involving your kid in the process, whether it’s cooking healthier family meals or landing on a regular physical activity the whole family can enjoy.
Ask your child to choose a healthy recipe for your family to try. Invite them along to peruse the fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. Tell them they are the best potato peeler in the entire world and watch them take pride in joining dinner prep. (Hey, it worked with Devon Sawa!)
Don’t bring calories into the conversation.
I know a few people (even some close friends!) who would disagree with me here. We want our kids to be fully informed about their health, right?
But numbers like calories, grams of fat, or the number on the scale, tend to trigger self-consciousness and shame. Eleven-year-olds shouldn’t be counting calories; you can’t convince me otherwise.
Instead, focus on broader health concepts:
- “Let’s add some protein to this meal! That will make you stronger!”
- “I added some chopped spinach to the sauce so we get more vitamins to stay healthier!”
- “This meal feels too processed. What fresh, whole food do you think we could add to it?”
- “Colds are going around right now. Let’s be sure to eat healthy so we don’t get sick, too!”
These small changes in wording are still creating awareness around healthy behaviors and building healthy habits, but without pushing our young children into taking on adult responsibilities.
Ramp up regular physical activity.
Of course, regular physical activity plays a huge role in maintaining a healthy weight! Here’s how to ramp up your child’s physical activity levels without making it feel like a punishment.
Help them find active activities that they actually enjoy.
If they don’t enjoy it, it won’t become a part of their lifestyle unless you’re around to enforce it. And most kids would never choose to walk on a treadmill or lift weights.
Instead, consider walking the dog, shooting hoops in the driveway, or riding their bike or scooter around the neighborhood or a local park. Some kids will enjoy exploring new nature trails on a hike. Others would swim at the YMCA every day if you’d let them.
While we don’t want to enforce too much screen time, the internet can actually be our friend here! Google their favorite athlete’s workout plan and test it out together. Make a game of trying one new online workout trend a week…or learning one new TikTok dance!
Make it a family affair.
A great way to get your child more active without making them feel singled out is to incorporate more active family time.
Start a family tradition of taking a short walk together after dinner every night…or maybe shooting hoops in the driveway before bed. Announce that you want your family to spend more time together, so you’ll be going on a hike together…or for a jump at the local trampoline park…every first Saturday of the month. Buy a gym pass that offers a wide variety of activities (walking tracks, weights, basketball, volleyball, swimming pools, etc.) and allows your whole family to attend together.
These healthy habits and activities will allow you to be a good role model for your child, support the physical health of your entire family, and invest quality time together. Win-win-win!
Incorporate more movement into daily routines.
Ask any mom, anywhere, and they’ll tell you they spend less time sitting than any other person in their family. They’re working, cooking dinner, cleaning up after, and running back and forth between all of the people who need their help.
But…why? Why not involve both overweight children and your entire family in more “running”?
Give your child more tasks that require standing, walking, and light exercise throughout the day. Ask for their help in the kitchen, send them to take the trash out, enlist them in mowing the yard.
You can also ask them to walk to the mailbox rather than driving by it on your way home, park farther from store entrances, and walk grocery stores together rather than having groceries delivered. All of these little movements add up over time and will help to encourage a more active and healthier lifestyle.
Limit screen time.
Duh. This one is obvious but needs to be said.
Set daily limits. Set “hours” when screens are allowed and/or when they’re not. Enforce regular breaks from screens.
While I don’t like to use exercise as a punishment, this is one area where you could frame it as balance. “If you want to earn an extra 30 minutes on your tablet, you need to spend 30 minutes playing soccer with your sister. That’ll help balance sitting and staring, with moving!” Just make sure if you enforce that rule, that you do so with all of your children, so your overweight children don’t feel singled out.
Don’t ignore the psychology!
Even as adults, weight issues can carry a heavy mental and emotional load. Making sure you’re enforcing the right mindset will make the difference between giving your kid a complex or setting them up for a lifetime of good health.
Focus on health, not weight.
The goal shouldn’t be to hit a certain number on the scale, but to improve their overall physical health and subsequent quality of life, right? So nix the word “weight” from your vocabulary.
Rather than saying, “We need to lose weight,” try shifting the focus to, “I want to improve our health,” or “I want us to feel better and have more energy,” or “I want to get stronger!”
But how can we praise their progress (a very necessary and effective part of any weight loss plan) if we’re not constantly measuring our child’s weight?
Rather than assigning a number to them – weight, body mass index, body fat percentage, circumference measurements, clothing sizes – and measuring progress by that number’s movement, focus your praise on the results of their healthy choices.
- “You’ve had a lot more energy lately!”
- “Wow! You’re getting so strong!”
- “Holy cow, you’ve never run that fast before!”
- “Wow, you used to struggle to walk this far. Now you’re zooming past me!”
- “Look at those muscles you’re building!”
- “You could never jump on the trampoline this long before! Are you going to stay out here forever?!”
This kind of wording will praise their efforts, motivate them to continue, and do it all without planting the seeds of body dysmorphia or an eating disorder.
Find substitutes for the reasons they’re really overeating or under-exercising.
This entire process might make you realize that your child isn’t eating because they’re truly hungry, but because they’re stressed, depressed, or even bored. Or you might learn that it’s not that they don’t want to play outside more, but that they don’t feel like they fit in or have anyone to play with.
By addressing their underlying triggers, you can help them develop an overall healthier lifestyle, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Focus on building up their confidence and self-esteem.
Building your child’s confidence and self-esteem will give them the self-confidence and self-discipline they need to make healthier choices and lifestyle changes. And while an effective weight loss plan can help boost your child’s confidence, it should never be their only means of doing so.
We wrote an entire post on how to build confidence in kids and highly suggest you make it your next read!
Be a good role model.
Kids aren’t stupid. If you preach one thing, but practice another, they’ll see right through you to know that you’re targeting their weight. Being a good role model when it comes to your physical health, diet, and activity will not only convince your kids of what you’re telling them to do, but also provide them with a positive example that they can emulate.
In case you haven’t caught on yet, the tips in this post will work for everyone, not just young children! So don’t be afraid to take the journey along with your child. In fact, I promise you’ll be glad that you did!
What does the American Academy of Pediatrics have to say about healthy weight?
While it’s helpful to read about others’ experiences and tips on the internet, it’s also important to be aware of what the experts have to say. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made some significant updates to its guidelines in early 2023 regarding children’s weight issues and childhood obesity.
How does the the American Academy of Pediatrics define “healthy weight”?
The American Academy of Pediatrics uses “body mass index for age” percentiles as their primary screening tool for young children and teens (ages 2 to 19).
As you’re obviously aware, children’s bodies change super rapidly as they grow. So unlike an adult, where a specific body mass index number (like 30) determines if you’re overweight, a child’s body mass index is compared to other children of the same age and sex.
- Healthy weight: 5th percentile to less than the 85th percentile.
- Overweight: 85th percentile to less than the 95th percentile.
- Obesity: 95th percentile or higher.
- Severe obesity: 120% of the 95th percentile or higher.
- Underweight: Less than the 5th percentile.
While obtaining my BS in Health and Exercise Science, I learned both in the classroom and in the field that body mass index is an imperfect measurement in many ways.
In both adults and children, it doesn’t take into account factors like muscle mass, bone density, or fat distribution. In children specifically, it doesn’t factor in growth spurts or puberty. So…take this number as you will.
How can you find out your child’s body mass index for age percentile?
The best way to find your child’s body mass index for age percentile (and to assess their physical health in general) is always going to be by talking to your child’s health care provider. But there are other ways to learn it outside of a clinical setting, too!
- CDC Growth Charts: Your child’s doctor uses CDC growth charts, which can be found on the good ol’ internet, to track your child’s height and weight. What matters most, though, is that your child is following their own “curve” consistently. This is where a dedicated health care provider can come in handy with your medical history!
- BMI Calculator: You can use the CDC’s Child and Teen BMI Calculator, but remember that it’s only a screening tool. It doesn’t measure body fat directly or account for muscle mass.
How does the the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest approaching childhood obesity?
Although they provide BMI measurements and calculators, the AAP emphasizes that health is about more than just a percentile. They recommend focusing on these lifestyle pillars:
- Nutrition: Increasing fruits, vegetables, and fiber while reducing sugar-sweetened beverages, highly processed foods, and fast food.
- Physical Activity: Aiming for at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.
- Sleep: Ensuring your child is getting enough sleep, since poor sleep has been linked to weight gain.
- Screen Time: Limiting sedentary screen time.
And there you have it…how to help a child lose weight without making them feel bad. Did I miss any important tips or tricks? Be sure to share them in the comments!
And friend? You’ve got this!
P.S. Are you trying to eat less fast food as a family, but haaaaate cooking? We feel ya! Download our FREE ebook of 40 stupid easy recipes that will save you MAJOR time and effort, while keeping your family happy! Get yours HERE.
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