$125 value in 11 year old dollars?

I don't really know what's "normal." The problem is that it seems to be idiosyncratic, although the general trend seems to be somewhat genetic.

My dad was little until his sophomore or junior year of high school. My brother was little until high school. I was little until high school.

We all were a little pudgy until we grew out of it. (And then the pudge tried to come back, because we kept trying to eat like we were still growing like mad.)

The Boy seems to have inherited some of this; he gets behind on the growth chart (to the point where they sent us to an endocrinologist), and then just shoots up.

Our girls have always been little string beans, with Yaya being relatively smaller than Keetah. (She's two years older, but only a little taller.) (Why they weren't concerned about her height, but freaked out over the Boy's height, has always seemed kinda gender-bias-y to me.)

My advice is, talk to your pediatrician if you haven't done so already, and make sure Mo has healthy food available, and help him get exercise. (All of which you're obviously doing; I'm just rooting for you.)

Lean protein.
Lots of fruit and veggies.
Lots of "good" fat (nuts, avocados, peanut butter with real peanuts and real peanut oil, etc.)
Whole grain carbs, but not too much.

Water, water, water.

I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to ditch sugar substitutes, because research indicates that they cause cravings that they don't satisfy, so you end up eating more sugar in other products.

We limit the amount of juice that the kids drink, because "natural fruit juice" just tends to be grape juice with flavorings. (Grapes have a huge amount of sugar in them.)

Correction to this post....



should read

Thanks DrewDad.

We don't really know the growth cycle of his family. I knew his other mom from the time she was about the age he is now. She remained short and heavy. I met his other dad when he was an adult. He was tall and thin.

His doctor has never commented on his weight. He's been at the high side of normal since toddlerhood. (There were some early food issues but that's another story.) Mo has an upcoming sports physical so I'll use that time to talk to his doctor.

Good idea. (And generally a good post from DrewDad.)

To back up a little:

This started out as just about the title question ($125 value for an 11-year-old), then stuff about what the bet would involve was mentioned, I don't really have a clear picture yet of the whole situation though.

My assumptions:

Mo's currently overweight, and you're concerned, and would like for him to lose weight. He's a competitor and motivated by wagers, so you brought up a wager re: his weight and he was receptive, you're just still trying to figure out terms.

What I'm not sure about:

Have you identified ways for him to lose weight? That is, have certain methods worked in the past and he just doesn't want to do them now, and you want to motivate him to do those things?

What is the marker for winning the bet? Losing a certain amount of pounds, or body fat percentage, or inches, or...?

Your assumptions are correct.

Really what I want him to do is think about what he's eating and why. Is he really hungry? Or is he maybe just thirsty? Would a glass of water take the edge off his hunger or does he really need to eat?

I want him to carry that type of thinking when he's not at home -- when he's at friends, especially those friends who can eat an extra 2,000 calories in snacks and not have it show up on their bodies. (For the record, I think these thin junk food swillers are much less healthy than Mo - thin does not equal healthy.)

He is getting older and is out and about much more. I have no control over what he eats in those situations and, really, I don't want to have to control what he eats -- he needs to control it -- and he needs to recognize that he needs to control it.

That's what I'm trying to motivate him to do. I want him to ask himself "Is eating this worth it?" enough so that it becomes a habit.

I see.

A lot of this is familiar to me too. (And I agree that thin doesn't equal healthy.)

One thing I use a lot is from Michael Pollan's "Food Rules." (Which I do recommend highly, not sure if he'd find it interesting though.)

Are you hungry enough to eat an apple?

If no, you're not hungry. (If yes, go ahead and have an apple -- start there.)

We've also talked about allowing time to digest -- E.G. is a really horrible example there, he scarfs his vast quantities of food super-fast. When sozlet asks for seconds right after finishing, we tell her to wait a bit and digest, let her stomach catch up to her brain. (You don't feel full until a while after you actually are full.)

We usually have salad with meals, if she maintains she's still starving she can work on her salad for a bit and then if she's hungry after 5-10 minutes, she can have more of the main dish (pasta or whatever).

The nausea thing is actually really useful (never thought I'd say that), that's definitely helped. For example: A couple of weeks ago, she went with a friend to a local fair, just the two of them (no grown-up chaperones). She had money for dinner +, I trusted her to use it as she saw fit. She had a hamburger, funnel cake, something else (chips?), Sprite, and a bottle of water. On a scorchingly hot day.

The friend came over for a sleepover after the fair, sozlet barfed about half an hour after they went to sleep. (Friend slept through it, thankfully.)

Then she was fine, but it was a pretty clear cause and effect.

The next week she went to camp, where she could buy as many milkshakes as she wanted, and the food was generally on the unhealthy side, and it was scorchingly hot the whole damn time. (Like, over 105, heat warning, stay inside if possible hot.) She asked for a banana with every meal, had copious amounts of water, one milkshake the whole time, no soda, and had no problems whatsoever. LOVED camp. (Whew.)

Anyway, that's a digression.

In what way would Mo win the bet?

It's never a habit with food, but will power.
If you've noticed that by the end of the day, will power depletes, and you only crave and give into pleasure and impulses.

In the morning, I have the will power to avoid donuts and only sip coffee, during lunch, to avoid that fatty and scrumptious Fettuccine Alfredo. But at the end of the day, I'm too tired to cook myself dinner, and so I just order out most of the time.

Luckily my dog forces me to run around blocks for 2 miles every day. My German Shepherd doesn't let me sleep in, and she always wakes me up at 4:30 every morning barking at me till I put my running shoes on.

Your method of $125 seems to be adjusting truthfulness with enticement to create a reality out of wishful-blindness reality. It may likely as well fail.

If I were you, I'd sign the kid up for a sports team, and let the kid eat without counting calories.

There is no such thing as will power. There is only motivation.

You must be a believer, then, that free will is an illusion.
Motivation is looking for a situational reason, while will power is a self-relevant construct as a means to control your behaviors.

Will power is a self-system, and goes something along the lines of doing what one said would do, and working hard, regardless of the outcome. It is a primary part of conscience and help people to exert extra effort to reach actions that are not immediately desirable.

Your idea seems to be from a new variety of determinism on the basis of some new research in the neurological field. It has been in dispute by other studies, and it is too early to draw very strong conclusions with such research.

As long as free will exists, will power exists.

If you read any of the thread you'd see that exercise isn't the problem. He already plays on several sports teams in addition to his constant for fun athletic play.

11 year olds aren't known for their will power. I'm not about to rely on will power. But I get your point. Still, I think most behaviors boil down to habit.




What?

I haven't worked out all the details of the bet.

I'll probably set it up as losing a percentage of body weight. A certain percentage for him and a higher percentage for me -- something realistic but that would give him the advantage. I'd probably leave the end date open.

"Your method of $125 seems to be adjusting truthfulness with enticement to create a reality out of wishful-blindness reality."

What I'm saying is to reduce conflicts of interest. If you match your interest with the kids interest, you can get a more meaningful message across to him. So you get what you want, and the kids gets what he wants. Material things is one way to go, but there are other creative things which can leave an impression on him for a lifetime, instead of the time period of the bet. My parents always involved me in growing and tending vegetable gardens, they practiced what they preached, and they taught me to cook healthy homemade foods from scratch. So ya, habit goes a long way, and as a grown up I still prefer and definitely do eat more home made foods than eating out.

Gotcha.

I don't really have a better idea, but I worry a bit about measuring the weight loss in pounds. Sozlet got way leaner than she had been, but I don't think the numbers ever went down. She just got taller without gaining much.

That's a good point.

While I don't want to set a specific end date I was thinking "by the time school starts" would be a loose end date. He's not going to grow that much in 8 weeks.

We do have a garden and he does help work in it. We live in the city so it's a small garden. He knows how to cook and we don't use packaged foods. Never have. I think I've instilled good habits. But I'm not the only person he is exposed to. The older he gets the more exposure he will have to others.

I want him to develop a habit of questioning himself about whether he's making a good decision. At this point, I don't have a problem attaching a reward to that.

I think that's a skill that will come in handy when it comes to drinking, drugs, sex, whatever.

Personally, I could care less if we have free will or if we're just wet robots. I feel like I have free will.

But will power is an illusion. You resist temptation by being motivated to do so, not by exerting an effort of will.

TTFN

Well I believe it's all in the head.

Willpower is easily depleted when you see that it is is fixed and limited, but when you believe that willpower is self-renewing, well then you work hard, and are energized to work more, and you see that when one temptation can be resisted, the next one can be better resisted as well. Then you successfully exert more willpower, and so on, and so on.
If you think that willpower does not exist or is limited, you then try to find signs of fatigue, and when you find it, you procrastinate and slack off.

Motivation (ambition) and willpower (drive), goes hand in hand, and both are required to accomplish difficult goals. Ambition without drive makes anyone a lazy sloth, a man confined to words and thoughts but no action.

Ambition and drive are different? Who knew?

This reminds me of my German friend who has similar problems with her 12 year old boy, but he has a terrible sweet tooth and buys himself a stash daily without his mother knowing. Plus he has a granny near by who feeds him tons of Danish and cakes.

boomer, I really think that an 11 year old one doesn't put much emphasis on weight/food in general, no matter what the incentive/bet is. Girls are of course a bit different there, but we also had a period where Jane would just eat and eat and eat and when we addressed the issue and worked out a different meal plan, she went the other way and hardly ate anything for a while which freaked me out even more.

sozobe made some excellent points: have a salad before a meal, or fruit as snack, drink a large glass of water - no soda! (I never have soda in the house) Cut down on snacking in between meals or switch to protein bars and you'll see the problem disappears by itself.

In a year or so, Mo will have a growth spurt and be at a different weight again.

I know.

My intention with this thread was not to ask for diet/nutrition/exercise advice. I just wanted to know what might be the equivalent to $125 to an 11 year old. Really. That was my only question.

Even though I haven't promised anything, I did float the idea by hm and he's really into it -- trying to negotiate a deal.