Get Fit With Larysa Blog

“Mom, Why Am I Fat?”

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

Making headlines this week is Georgia’s new controversial campaign to help end childhood obesity in their state- which ranks #2 in pediatric obesity (2nd to Mississippi).  The campaign is a $25 million, 5 year effort to shock families into recognizing and acting on the severe problem (which is a major understatement). It launched this week with disturbing posters around Atlanta of obese kids asking questions like, “Mom, why am I fat?”  Many are outraged by the posters calling them “horrifying” and “majorly disturbing”.  Rodney Lyn of Georgia State University’s Institute
of Public Health claims, “This campaign is more negative than positive and the ads can hurt the very market they’re targeting.  We know that stigmatization leads to lower self-esteem, potential depression.  We know that kids will engage in physical activity less because they
feel like they’re going to be embarrassed.”

Wake up and smell the Skinny Latte Mr. Lyn!  It’s a major stigma for kids to be fat!  These kids are already depressed, embarrassed and hitting rock bottom.  The most immediate
consequence of being overweight as perceived by the children themselves is social
discrimination.  Remember how you felt being picked last for the kickball team?  Magnify it
by like a million. And I can tell you from over 20 years of experience in working with obese
kids that they are screaming for help.  The whole point of the ad campaign is to reach the
only target audience that can help these kids…their parents! Most parents of these
children are:  1. In denial that their kids are fat  2. Have no idea how being obese is
affecting their kids psychologically.

As for #1, most of these parents are overweight themselves and in denial about their own
weight.  Statistically, if one parent is obese a child has a 25-50% chance of being fat, if
both parents are overweight the number jumps to a staggering 75%!  Chalk it up to genetics
but I have yet to see a child obese from eating too many carrot sticks.  Realization is the
first step in helping these parents and quite frankly, the pamphlets in pediatrician’s offices on normal bodyfat percentages and weight in children are doing bubkas.  These
parents need a good shaking and these ads are accomplishing just that.

In regard to #2, this is not necessarily a parent’s fault (although as a parent myself I’d
have to have my head buried under some boulder to not realize my son or daughter was depressed or hurting).  Children are so embarrassed by being ridiculed and harassed at school and out in society that they hide it…internally and physically hide their bodies.  Most kids that I work with are home schooled because they were so badly teased because of their weight that they couldn’t face going to school.  The ad campaign succeeds in making a parent put him/herself in their kids’ shoes and to actually feel the ostracism that their kids feel.  Tell a parent that her kid will develop Diabetes by age 20 and you’ll be met with a blank stare…tell that same parent that their child is hiding in the bathroom crying because kids just called her a “fat pig” and see how fast it hits home.  Which is what it needs to do. In my experience, this is the catalyst that causes parents to finally make permanent changes in unhealthy habits and lifestyle.

According to Linda Matzigkeit, vice president of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, “It has to be harsh. If it’s not, nobody’s going to listen. Parents are in denial.  Nearly 1 million Georgia kids are overweight or obese.  This is a medical crisis, and I say if you don’t believe me, come visit our hospital and see the kids we are now taking care of — that more and more have Type 2 diabetes, have hypertension, need knee replacements — and it’s breaking our heart to see these adult-type diseases in the children that we serve.”

Absolutely, 100% agreed.  Overweight kids aren’t offended by these posters…it’s what they’re thinking in their heads everyday, all day. And to the parents who are offended…good.  Mission accomplished.  Apparently they’ve had their eyes closed to the 1 million kids walking around their state suffering on a daily basis.  Now it’s time to really help these kids.