Diabetes, Sugar, Heart Attacks and Child Obesity

Diabetes, Sugar, Heart Attacks, and Child Obesity

My mother had a real scare recently when she went to see her podiatrist about a toe injury. The physician told her that he could barely hear the pulse in her feet because the neuropathy had gotten so bad from her diabetes.

Well, the only way neuropathy can worsen is when your diabetes is not under control. My mother knew that she had been eating poorly for quite sometime, especially over the holidays with her sugars raging in the high 300s and 400s sometimes. This news rather scared her into a formulaic change in her eating and exercise behavior. Although it was a potent dose of bad news, it seemed to be the only way to stop her bad choices. She has lost 8 pounds in the past 3 weeks. She and I have lost the same amount of weight.

I see this kind of news happen over and over again in people who come to me for help. They try and try on their own. They seem not to have the will to stop doing whatever it is that have to curtail, until some kind of terrible warning signal from their bodies presents itself. Why is this so?

You know when you see an active teenager eating pizza for dinner almost every night what goes through your mind: he or she will definitely come to the day when that pizza will become fat and that kind of behavior will no longer work? Why doesn’t this message stay clear in our heads when we try to manifest the same kind of poor behavior? We see our tummies bulging. We feel our stomachs protruding. We know are clothes are fitting. Yet, we continue to swallow the wrong food daily and don’t make time to exercise or take care of ourselves.

This is the time to wake up from the dream. We aren’t twenty anymore. And it has come to our attention that even our youngsters are not able to take the burden of poor diets anymore.

There are children who eat poorly and gain weight from a young age even though they are active. They just eat the wrong food, not enough vegetable—primarily because they don’t like them and their parents don’t force them to eat anything with vegetables in it—and then also they probably don’t get enough protein to compliment the high portions of simple carbohydrates. This will make for an overweight child every time.

I have a dear friend who has a problem child who will only eat pasta and potatoes. The child is beautiful and lovely, but is ten and already overweight for her age. The mother is distraught, because no matter what she tries, she can’t get her daughter to eat anything but pasta and potatoes. I believe the friend told me her daughter watched a movie about how meat was made. After the move, the daughter never touched meat again. That was after she decided vegetables were too green and beans were too slimy. I think the only thing the girl likes on her pasta is butter. She won’t even eat tomato sauce. She does, however, eat fruit, which isn’t going to help the girl’s glycemic index at all. But eating fruit will help give the daughter some much needed vitamins.

I have worked with children like this. You have to do a lot of hiding food in things to make kids eat vegetables. One thing I taught this friend to do is to mash cauliflower instead of mash potatoes and see if the daughter noticed the difference. She didn’t. I told her to make potato soup and use a broth that had a purée of chicken and celery and diced shallots. So, the potatoes are visible, but the meat and vegetables weren’t. In fact, puréeing is a great option for the pasta eater as well. She could make a light butter sauce with a pureed mixture of a couple light colored vegetables (not too many) and some steamed turkey or chicken, then cover the pasta with it.

The truth is, if you have to get creative when it comes to getting good food in a child. And when it comes to getting good food into your self, you have to be down right dogmatic. You tell yourself: Do this or you’re going to die early, get fat, and or get adult onset diabetes, which will produce heart problems, high blood pressure, and a myriad of other organ problems, not to mention self-esteem issues and depression.

So, let’s make a plan this New Years to start off healthy and stay healthy. If you need help with a good plan and need some motivation, I know of a great hypnotherapist who can get you on the right path.

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Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.

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