These types of interventions were often delivered by multidisciplinary teams, including pediatricians, exercise physiologists or physical therapists, dietitians or diet assistants, psychologists or social workers, or other behavioral specialists.I'll bet, a veritable bonanza for middle/upper class professionals. Well, we owe them a living don't we? And so do children, donating their minds and bodies for the effort.
Ob industrialists are wont to tell us of the purported percentage increase in this or that version of their stupid term 'obesity' so they shouldn't be shy about the percentage increase in the diversion of funds into this money-for-nothing slush pile. I'll bet its epitastic.
In order to collar more unwilling vics, the industry wishes to "screen" children from ages 6 years upwards to see how many it can requisition for what it dubs, "Comprehensive, intensive, behavioural interventions".
Don't all rush at once.
Basically it's,
...individual sessions (both family and group); provided information about healthy eating, safe exercising, and reading food labels; encouraged the use of stimulus control (eg, limiting access to tempting foods and limiting screen time), goal setting, self-monitoring, contingent rewards, and problem solving; and included supervised physical activity sessions."Reading food labels" demands a serious education. And stimulus control is not "limiting access" to anything, it's altering your ability to switch off or curtail your response to stimuli. That suggestion is about removing the stimulus, without addressing the potential for response. You'd rather get rid of say a phobia that just remove or avoid the trigger/stimulus.
This is all too familiar, like 'obesity' cults favourite attack the response to hunger, but not the hunger itself.
The reason they give for insisting on a minimum of at least 26 + billable hours is their "evidence" [lols] shows any less is even more useless than the minimal effects they have the effrontery to claim make this all worthwhile.
The proper response to this would be come up with stuff that actually works, but if they were interested in that, they wouldn't be in this.
That's not all though, the real jam in the doughnut is turning your kid on to drug abuse or "phramacotherapy" as they prefer. Clearly shy of their own actions. The prospect of targeting ethnic minority children is something folks need to pay attention too.
Pass that on to the unsuspecting.
I don't know about you but six years old was around the time I was beginning to become aware of eating and weight. The notion of me being put on drugs at that age is staggering to me. There are two aspects to falling prey to drug abuse, now or in the future. One is susceptibility the other is the worship of pills as something to take as some kind of holy sacrament regardless.
Drugs are introduced in any instance possible just for the sake of it.
Drugs impose strain on the liver. Their wild mis-use sets people's minds to that direction and is a long-term risk factor for organ damage. 'Obesity' wallahs are fond of invoking 'addiction', they seem desperate to make manifest their favoured legends about fat people-as they always do.
Weight is an issue of anatomical function, neural and endocrinal. The real answers lie in altering metabolic processes through pathways we can create/connect/exploit through conscious access. The focus is on physiology not 'behaviour', character or intangibles.
This is an idea that is still in advance of our current expectations.
So alternatives?
Well, teaching children to meditate is a good idea, for their general neural and physical health. Teach them to clear their minds of all thought, pick a spot on the wall/ceiling and focus on it. The key is to return attention to that spot when it drifts, without force or frustration. A couple of minutes a day to start off with is fine-if they are jittery.
Up to 20 minutes is fine. Meditation is not a treatment by the way, its a practice that tends to help support health, its a form of mental hygiene.
Gaining control of your mind is good for resisting definitions others may seek to impose for their own gain. It also can help with lifting and resisting excessive demands on your child's energy, something that can distort hunger, especially at times of hormonal flux.
Do not under any circumstances identify your child as 'obese' or 'with obese'. Your child is always a child. A little human person, never, ever, ever a disease or "person with their own body mass." If you feel up to it, make that clear to any professionals that you do not wish to support or be involved in such terms or pathologising your child in any way- whether you use their help or not.
When it comes to hunger teach children to respect theirs by not forcing them to override or cheat theirs. Encourage them to try various things in a spirit of adventure, but don't bribe or make them eat things they really don't want to. If its about things like veg, make them tastier.
Keep a relaxed and positive attitude around eating and food. Explain that it supports the greatness that is them *grin*. You don't have to be a godbotherer to say some form of grace-expressing gratitude for your food before you eat it. And do not get them involved in this good/bad food or talk about food as 'junk' or 'shit'. Some food is fun, silly food for snacks other food is more nourishing sustaining food.
Still other food is about celebrating occasions or seasons.
Explain to them in terms of useful, appropriate times to eat this or that kind of food. Tell them about where food comes from, about things growing from the earth, point to plants you see around, even weeds in the pavement/sidewalk, to help explain.
Talk about how food gets turned into the state you buy it in.
Check out people like Ellen Satter, food justice folks who work with children and urban (and rural) gardening. Most of the good ones don't harp on 'obesity' its irrelevant to people who care about real things. Put food into context, its ultimately just food, fuel, it's not physiology. It's certainly nothing to fear. Altering the body shouldn't depend on it.
If a child genuinely seems to have excessive hunger-check by observing them and gently questioning how their hunger feels before, during and after eating. How do they feel about being and not being hungry?
Explain that some people's hunger function is more excitable than others, and that you will work together to help their body bring it down to a proper rhythm.
Don't label them 'eating disordered' or pathologise them or anything like that. Talk about their fears and reassure them that you support them in finding ways to check it. Dispel anxiety, don't create it.
Teach them to calm themselves before, during and after they eat-on top of in general, even if its just something like counting down from 10-1.
Deal with other anxieties or worries they may have about themselves and life in general help them achieve a better state overall.
In case it needs saying, don't allow your child to be turned into a little pill popper on the orders of those who are clearly no longer in charge of themselves on this issue. Be prepared to be the voice of reason, defending your child against fanaticism.
I genuinely cannot see how they will get away with this sort of quackery without being sued at some point, but that's a risk factor they need to consider.
Remember, all any of us signed on for was to become slim nothing more and, many fat adults are ex-childhood 'obesity' cases. It didn't work then and it won't now.
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