Lifestyle journals
A family history of weight issues often comes up in the course of a child’s medical evaluation. But even if it doesn’t, I always bring the subject up, because it goes back to the bottom line for me in treatment, which is that these issues of overweight occur within the context of a family. There may be a genetic predisposition, but there are also numerous environmental concerns. Some of those environmental concerns are certainly related to school and society, but the bottom line is that children come home at night. So I try to use kindness and humor to bring out the fact that a family needs to do this together. I have gone so far as to suggest that a family weigh in together– that each family member get a weight, and that the families come back to the clinic together. These families, believe it or not, do beautifully.
So one of the things I have been doing is having families keep a lifestyle journal, including everything they’ve done to change their lives. For example, how did they clean out the kitchen and make the kitchen cupboard and fridge conducive to healthful family eating? How did they rearrange their house and their schedule so that they could increase activity? We’ll take pictures of where they were each month how they looked each month. We’ll also include their weights, and food, if they want to talk about food. I have families who will glue food labels into their journals, old ones next to new ones. It’s a journal of actually getting back to the root meaning of the word “nutrition,” which comes from a Greek word meaning “to cherish.” It’s a journal of how these families cherish themselves
Jan Hangen, Clinical Nutritionist