Weight management measures are best effected while they are still in the tweens (primary school age range) when they are still more likely than not to listen to you.
For any such programme to be effective, it must be led and overseen by the diligent and disciplined hand of a concerned parent.
Metabolism
Understanding what metabolism is would help in our appreciation of what a weight loss programme does. Metabolism refers to the process by which the body converts food calories to energy needed to perform various tasks, like pumping oxygen to muscles for our daily activities like walking, running, playing physical games, etc.
"The process of metabolism establishes the rate at which we burn our calories and, ultimately, how quickly we gain weight or how easily we lose it," says Dr Robert Yanagisawa, MD, director of the Medically Supervised Weight Management Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.
Factors affecting rate of metabolism
Another key point to note is that not everyone burns calories at the same rate. Further, many variables contribute to your child's metabolism, including age, gender, muscle mass and heredity.
- Age: Metabolism naturally slows by about 5% per decade after age 40.
- Sex: Males generally burn more calories at rest than females.
- Muscle mass: The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate.
- Heredity: "Some people just burn calories at a slower rate than others," says registered dietition (RD) Barrie Wolfe-Radbill, a nutritionist with the New York University Surgical Weight Loss Program. Adds Dr Yanagisawa: "In some rare cases, a defect in the thyroid gland can slow metabolism."
Weight and metabolism
A key point to note is this: the more weight you carry, the higher your metabolic rate is likely to be.
"The simple fact is that the extra weight causes your body to work harder just to sustain itself at rest, so in most instances, the metabolism is always running a bit faster," says Molly Kimball, RD, sports and lifestyle nutritionist at the Oscher's Clinic's Elmwood Fitness Center. That could also explain why your overweight child appears slightly out of breath compared with other normal weight children.
With respect to the effects of a diet on an overweight person, dietition Kimball says: "That's one reason it's almost always easiest to lose weight at the start of a diet, and harder later on. When you are very overweight your metabolism is already running so high that any small cut in calories will result in an immediate loss."
And why is it so easy to regain weight after you have worked hard to lose it?
"When you lose significant amounts of body fat and muscle, your body needs fewer calories to sustain itself," says Kimball. This means if the same rate of food intake is maintained after a diet, the extra calories go straight back into weight gain.
