Male: All the pediatrician—with kids comes to us today they are all getting heavier. And some pediatricians are in denial just as bad as the parents who are seen bellies on kids, who has seen kids average weight 10 or 15 pounds higher as a 10 or 11 years old then I saw 10 years ago. The pediatricians are in denial, the parents are in denial. They go he is cute looking—not a good idea. I know you are very concern about the explosion of obesity in our kids today, is that true?
Female: Yes, this is an area with—sometimes I get very, very emotional about it because as an old lady of almost 53 years old, I do have a 10-year-old daughter. So, I see a lot of these kids in school everyday over the years that Sabrina has been going to the same school I see the same kids that were heavy six years ago, their school uniforms are getting tighter and tighter as they get older.
When I see a kid that comes into my office that is eight, nine, ten years old and already 40 or 50 pounds overweight—the first thing I want to do really is put my arms around the neck of the parent. 99% of the time the parent that comes in with the child is overweight. I barely really see slim parents with very, very overweight children. I am sure it happens but I do not recall the last time that was the case in my office.
Parents usually say the same thing to me. This is no offense to pediatricians. I do not mean it that way at all. They always say—well I will say to a parent, “Why did you wait so long?” and they will say almost to a fault, “My pediatrician said he will outgrow it, not to do anything yet, you do not want to make a big deal of it because you do not like your child to have an eating disorder.” And my answer to them is the same.
Male: You do have one.
Female: Mrs. Schwartz, if you do think that a 9-year old kid who is 40, 50 pounds or 60 pounds to lose is not an eating disorder I do not know what it is. And I will find myself a new pediatrician.
Male: Because the American Academy of Pediatrics thinks the reason we have obese kids—it is passing through. You are in front of TV, you are in front of game programs on the computer—
Female: But who allow—
Male: It is the culture today it is terrible.
Female: No, it is parents. Listen, listen. On the parent latent life—we have a moral obligation to make sure our children get the best thought in life. We create the environment in which they grow up spiritually, emotionally, physically whatever it is. A 9-year old is not shopping for himself, is not cooking for himself. Now in my house, listen I am not nazi even though some people call me that. They call me the diet nazi, but that is fine.
My daughter does not eat dinner unless she eats everything that is eat on her plate. If she does not eat the vegetables there she is not getting up from the table it is just the way it is. Will I accommodate her by putting a little cheese on broccoli if I have to—sure! But the point is I am trying to give Sabrina the best environment I can in my house. But she had pizza outside? Sure. Does she have chicken things sometimes? Sure, but there has to be that one place that I am in control of what she is eating.
And I do not like when parents say, I cannot control it, you do not understand, what about all my other children in the house, how can I take away this from them? I say, listen that is your problem now. You need to sit down and have the family pow well because you got this one little kid and this happened not too long ago, 60 pounds overweight. He already has hypertension. I said you got to sit down with his older sibling and you and your husband when your kids are not in the house then you got to day this is a family event now. Someone is always not feeling the doctor is a little concern about him, we have to make this choice a family.
One lady said to me, “But my older two boys—they are athlete, they are in great shape and they work because I knew them” that is fine, but they have to eat the potato chips, the cookies, outside of the house. After school you have a problem with your kids. So when all of you get together? When the pediatrician tells you that your son now has diabetes? Will you have a good cry then? Will you like it when your kid gets to be 12 an he is developing breasts because he is so overweight and he is ashamed to take his shirt off at the beach?
I am very passion about this because the other side of the story is this, I always make a point. I see the child alone. See, the first time a parent comes in with the child I will see them both separately and then together. But after that I make it known that the kid is going to be seen by me privately. I make a friend. And these tells me in my encounters, sometimes things that they do not tell their parents. And it is very heartbreaking. It is very, very heartbreaking sometimes. It is not only that kids make fun of them. They are ashamed especially—when it gets to be that naïve in 9 years old that is the first when most schools—I know this is selling at my daughters school we are now for the first time they are changing for gym. Usually when they are little they go to school in their gym clothes. When they start getting to be about eight or nine it is when they have to got to school in their regular clothes and then they change and that is when they see each other without their undershirts on and that is when a of the problems start. They know that there is something wrong. If they have an overweight mother, where are they going to go for help? If they see a mother who is on every month they are on another diet—
Male: So you have to keep a big part.
Female: Who are they going to go to?
Male: It is a family affair.
Female: Yes, that is what we say. We have a big sign n our office that says, “Overweight is a family affair.”
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