Family not on the same page ?

[Callmeben]

Hi,

first, im new to this forum and found it while looking for an answer to my question. While i couldn't find an answer, i decided to post in my question and see how it goes.

I am the dad of two kids (7 and 10) which my son (10) is overweight and my daughter is probably around 22 BMI as well as me. My wife is also overweight.

the problem is that i really want my family to be eating healthier and practice sports and such but i'm struggling to make them interested in any. My daughter does Dance class but it is only once a week and do not practice. We go to the park, go out, etc.. but i feel that we need a little more.

My wife does not really help since she would feed the kids chips/chocolate/milk etc just before bedtime. I tried to talk to her but i got the feeling that she didn't like me bringing this up. The kids does not refuse and sometime i caught my daughter saying to her mom that she was hungry and this is a few minutes after a complete supper.

Yesterday i gave my 150% to make my son walk on the treadmill for about 30 minutes (it was raining outside and we got our gym) and bought a 'Just Dance' game for my daughter but today, my wife did a supper which literally is telling me that she does not want me to change their eating habit.

I can't let this go and i wish she would help me with this but she is not.

I need advice, ideas about how i can make my family change their habit.

i'm writing this in a rush since i need to leave but please let me know if you have any questions that would help you.

thanks !

 

[JamieAlison]

The older you get, the more health issues you have the more you weigh. Diabetes. Stroke. Heart attack. It is not worth it. No matter how delicious a meal is. If SHE doesn't want to workout and change her life then YOU can start doing it yourself. Concentrate on you and your kids and 2 things will happen. Either she will start following along OR she will be left in the slow lane and set herself up for an unhealthy life. So I recommend that you concentrate on YOU and YOUR KIDS. If she tries to feed them more food, put your foot down and tell them no. Someone has to wear the pants and it should be you. Hope this helps.

 

[123xyz]

If I were you, I'd probably just start with myself first. Lead by example. As you get healthier and more fit, your kids and wife can see first hand how good it can be. I think the most important thing is to sort out the nutrition before exercising. Because if that's not in place, the exercising won't help much either. If you can prepare delicious and healthy meals for yourself and show your family that it is possible to be very satisfied with healthy foods, you can initiate small changes that will have a larger impact in the future.

Forcing kids or even adults to exercise is not really helpful because in order for it to work, they have to want to do it. They need to know and also feel the positive benefits exercising can bring. Otherwise they're just going to resent people forcing them, they'll start to associate exercising with something negative they don't want to do. Make healthy eating and exercising fun and desirable for yourself first, then hopefully your family will follow. Good luck!