A fixation with an “ideal” weight range is driving poor advice, including that young children be put on diets. Obesity expert Dr Nick Fuller says he’s seen parents with children as young as six months old being told to restrict their baby’s food intake because they are too high on weight-for-age charts. Fruit is not the problem.
Instead, issues lie in restriction, diets and a focus on weight, says Dr Nick Fuller. Credit: Getty Images “Unfortunately, healthcare professionals are often getting it wrong it comes to our childrens’ weight,” says Fuller, of the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. “They rely too heavily on weight-for-age charts.
And when a child is not falling within the ideal weight for age range, they’re prescribing diets and advising food restriction. This is incorrect and damaging advice.” In fact, Fuller says, such advice may be contributing to the increasing number of children he sees in clinic with obesity, as well as type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders.
Though obesity, nutrition and weight-management are complex sciences, few healthcare professionals have adequate training in these areas. “It’s a very small part of their tertiary education, but it’s such an important part of shaping a child’s trajectory when it comes to health and weight,” says the father of two. “For decades now we’ve been brainwashed to think that if we’re not in a healthy weight range, the way to react to that is to restrict and d.