$125 value in 11 year old dollars?

I enjoy food as most here know, it's sort of a hobby mixed with need, but I'm anti diet, strongly anti diet. I remember that Soz is too, or used to be. So that's why I was going on about any food talk not being medicinal, or even pushed. Just information from time to time. Even that I'm not sure about.

Has he shown any inclination/interest re cooking? Many, of course, who don't give a damn about food or nutrition, lead satisfying lives. But if he has any tendency to like cooking, that would be a place where you could talk about what is filling and healthy. Uh, oh, the word healthy. But, you know what I mean.

I glad he likes the way he looks, that's half the battle, to use a cliche.

He cooks a bit. He likes to cook dinner about once a week but he usually makes tacos -- not the healthiest food around, but well cut up some melon or mango to go with it.

We eat a pretty healthy diet, most of the food in our house is ingredients. He's just hungry all the time.

I thought about you last night. We went to "Cartlandia" for dinner -- it's a pod of about 20 food carts. They have a huge variety of things to try and I know you would enjoy it there.

you don't necessarily want him to lose weight - but you want him to be more fit

perhaps the challenge, in part, could be him researching ways to change his muscle/fat balance - he'll need to find out how to determine his current ratio - find out what can change that - explain to you how to implement the changes, i.e. what foods are filling and not high in sugar calories, what exercises are good for building lean muscle mass ...

if he doesn't meet some specific fitness target (i.e. 15 % decrease in body fat), he'll lose access to something non-food that he desires - and I'd suggest the thing he loses access to is something like t.v/internet/x-box

each step he reaches on the way to his target, he gets credit toward the $125 total he needs for the thing he desires (the research might be a $10 credit, working on setting the target $10, finding you 10 good recipes AND explaining why they're good $20, and then $5 per % of body fat lost - I know this isn't $125 in total ... just ideas)

they're all things he can do and I'm pretty sure none of them are harmful

You're right, I would.

Tacos I have known and loved - I think of them as pretty healthy.

Adds, I've never had any anti-health quivers about your cooking, your food always sounds great.

Really good approach there, ehBeth, and besides that it sounds right. Brava!
Well, I dunno re what he loses if he doesn't make the mark - but the general concept of your post I think is brilliant.

I HATED mowing the lawn, and I had to mow the lawn. We had one of those old push mowers and my dad, who was otherwise mechanically pretty good, was unfamiliar with the concept of oiling it and sharpening it, as was I at ten years old, and trying to push the damned thing was like Sisyphus rolling his rock up the mountain. Get him to mow the lawn twice a week thru September. Don't oil the mower. He WILL lose weight.

Actually it's the opposite -- he's fit, and amazingly strong, but kind of fat. I want him to lose weight.

I like you're idea, it seems perfect for an adult, but.... I don't know.... I guess it seems a little too body conscious. I don't want him to think I'm criticizing him or his body if I'm paying him to change it.

I know that's what I proposed but making it about all of us, instead of about his body, just feels better to me since he's only 11.

He loves mowing the lawn.

If fact, two years ago he saved up his own money to buy a push mower.

He's weird.

I will definitely agree with you there.

He does seem fit to me, remarkably fit like in the 99th percentile, and I'll just say most of the food he eats is nutritious, look who is his mom. The starving business may actually be as you say, common to growing boys, and growth may make this an obsolete question.

Interesting..

I'm off in looloo land here, but I tend to think of body fat now as from carbs (not the low glycemic ones, and I saw a report recently where eating a goodly amount of the low glycemic makes up the best 'diet', as opposed to cutting out carbs). Are there any useless carbs (high glycemic) to cut out in some subtle way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index

so you are encouraging your 11 year old child to gamble?

why not make it a reward rather than a bet....like for every pound he loses he gets $10 (unless you don't want it based on weight - I could see that you don't want him to have an eating disorder) - but instead of betting him - say he gets $10 for each day he rides his bike x amount of time.

Or maybe say he comes in starving and for every piece of celery he chooses over something that is less healthy - he gets a reward of $x - you could even make this a learning experience where as he has choices for each choice that is better over another he gets more money.

Yeah I did too.

This is actually a really interesting topic to me, something we've struggled with a bit as well.

Sozlet was always thin to way too thin until she had her surgeries (adenoidectomy, tonsillectomy, etc.). I've since read about weight gain being linked to tonsillectomies. At any rate, in the six months or so after that she gradually gained weight, until I kind of had to admit she was overweight. (It was gradual enough, and I was so used to thinking of her as a stringbean, that it didn't really register at first.)

As part of my general anti-prejudice teachings, we'd had talks about fat. Not being judgmental, different reasons for people being overweight, being overweight doesn't necessarily mean being unhealthy, etc.

So, she was overweight, but was profoundly unconcerned about that.

I was though!

So that was super-tricky, trying to get her healthier without giving her new body issues.

I did focus almost entirely on exercise, but started talking about balance more. Not dieting (you're right, osso, re: my opinions there), but more "sure, you can have that, but have some fruit too." I was helped along a bit by the fact that her nausea issues are exacerbated by bad diet -- if she has too much fat/sugar/ salt when there are other risk factors (heat, exercise, dehydration, lack of sleep), she'll likely get nauseous. So I could put it in that context, but also just talked about healthy diets (usually in a more positive way -- this is good, not this is bad).

I also started talking about different kinds of fat. I have a bit more fat to lose to be at my ideal weight (though I've already lost a fair amount, and maintained that loss), and I've talked about that -- how belly fat specifically is linked to health issues. (I.e. someone who has flabby arms but not a lot of belly fat is healthier than someone with belly fat but thin arms.)

Then as she started losing weight (well, she didn't really, she just grew and didn't gain much more weight), I started saying that she looked healthier. Usually within the context of how strong/ fast/ etc. she was getting, too.

She's now pretty much right where she should be -- not too thin, and hardly any extra.

She seems to have gotten through this without any body issues. We'll see.

So tricky to navigate, though.

I read a thing semi-recently -- not sure if I remember enough to find it back -- about part of a parent's responsibility being to get our kids through to adulthood at a healthy weight.

To me the weight thing is a non-issue as long as he is active and eats healthy. In the next few years he will grow, as I did when I was about ab0ut his age, six inches.
As far as the "bet" goes, I would suggest that , if he loses he agrees to immerse himself without any complaint for a time in a subject that he currently has little interest in: cooking, art, music, language, poetry, auto mechanics, etc.

That doesn't sound like Boomer.

This is a good point too -- I went off a bit on general musings, but I'm talking about avoiding serious/unhealthy overweight than a little extra. I do see kids suddenly sprout upwards and lose "baby fat" in the next couple-few years.

He's already 11, not only 11.


He can probably be lean and fit, instead of fit and kind of fat, but that's something you probably need to talk to the family doc about.

If lean and fit is an option, are there any sports he enjoys that work better with a lean type of muscle? competitive cycling or swimming? not that he has to participate as a competitor, but to encourage him in those sports

present it as something he's doing for the family - nothing wrong with everyone being involved - get everyone's muscle/fat ratio tested and challenge everyone



on the flipside, if he's always going to be fit and bulky - it wouldn't hurt to talk to the doc or a nutritionist about how to make sure he's the best kind of fit and bulky


he's definitely not too young to be made aware of the food choices he needs to make to prevent the onset of diabetes - given the last photos I saw of him, I don't think it's too soon - and he's not too young to be aware of the implications



how do you propose to find out if he's losing weight without him wondering why you're checking his weight (and I still don't think weight should be the issue)