I give myself some great advice, but I seldom follow it. I have promised myself to work out twice a week, and then I have promised myself to not gorge on food. Summer holiday came, and I have not worked out twice a week or have kept to my new healthy life style 100 percent. I blame the “all you can eat” morning buffet in the hotel. I find it hard to stop eating. “What is better than an egg and bacon sandwich? Two egg and bacon sandwiches!”

I don’t eat much with people other than with my husband and daughter, purely because I feel judged. And my point was proven when I had an ice cream on a hot day. Somebody commented “I thought you were on a diet?” I’ve never felt so hot eating an ice cream. I want to change my lifestyle, not be a slave of a diet and be unhappy doing it.

Food aside, I have started using my CPAP machine every night. Since I have gotten overweight I struggle with sleep apnea, and frequently stopped breathing in my sleep. The machine has been gathering dust for the last four years as I was reluctant to use it. I have been using it for two months now and I would not sleep any other way. A week ago our power ran out in the middle of the night, and the machine turned off. I woke feeling like I was suffocating. The next day I was tired and ate so much sugar it gave me a migraine. Food choices are a daily battle; some days I win, and some days food wins.

I have another secret hunger: shopping. This is always been a love of mine, and China has not changed that. It is hard enough though to get clothes that fit as a regular size person, but plus-size people have a real hoot finding stuff to wear.

I have tried online shopping and 75% of the time the XXXXXXXXL is too small. So I have a secret stash of plus size clothing which I can wear when I am skinny. Then sometimes clothes do fit, but you have to enter strange words in the search engine like “Big Fat Sister Clothes” – one of my personal favorites.

I have my secret shopping sprees where I “forget” I am plus-size, and still try to wear an XL top from Zara. In the harsh light of the dressing room, I struggle to get into the stretchy tops that looked too big hanging in the store. I’m happy that I shop by myself, and nobody is there to witness my embarrassment and pain.

There is also the happiness when H&M is newly restocked, and I find a shirt in a size 46!I don’t care how it looks, I am buying it. Sometimes I get a bit lucky and find XXL stretchy men’s pants at Uniqlo. Feeling joy about this is also sad and embarrassing. Beijing is not ready for cute-looking plus-size women.

My only extreme joy in shopping are clothing auctions where international woman gather with their clothes they don’t want, and have a great night filled with laughter and wine. I buy everything that fits me even if it’s not my style, gaining many new friendships along the way.

Photos: Pauline van Hasselt

You can in good conscience put your toddlers to bed by 8pm as a new study finds a close relationship between bedtimes and obesity in teens. “Earlier bedtimes were protective against obesity,” Sarah Anderson, an associate professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University and author of the study from the Journal of Pediatrics, told TODAY.

The study shows an almost 50 percent drop in risk (ten years later) in toddlers who went to bed before or at 8pm. However, the study does not indicate waking times or that later bedtimes are a direct cause of teen obesity. This study only shows a relationship. The researchers looked at data from 977 children in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development that examines child care and development as a longitudinal study.

An association between earlier bedtimes for kids and healthier weight at age 15 emerged; later bedtimes were related to increased risk of obesity. Only 10 percent of children who went to bed at 8 p.m. or earlier were obese, 16 percent of children who went to bed between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. were obese, while 23 percent of children who went to bed at 9 p.m. and later were obese. This was the same for both boys and girls.

Here’s one tried and true tip on getting your kids to bed on or in time:

Structure
“Your child will benefit from the structure and rules you set regarding bedtime limitations. In fact, having firm rules can ease – not cause – anxiety in children. Make sure you explain the new bedtime rules to your child. When you, the parent and/or guardian, are consistent with the bedtime rules, your child will understand what to expect, learn self-control, and adapt. In fact, they will learn to like the predictability of the sleep routine, but the initial few days need some determination on your part to succeed. It is also very important not to lose ground during holidays and vacations. All adults involved in bedtime routines should agree to act similarly so the child is not confused and learns not to push limits with one or the other adult.”

What do you think about the new study? Comment below.

sourced from clevelandclinic.org

Photo: momsmagazine.com

the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity recently published a study that found children in China who are mainly looked after by their grandparents are twice as likely to be overweight than those who are cared for by their parents. The study also finds that children who have grandparents “live-in” with the immediate family have 70 percent higher risk of being overweight than those who only live with their parents.

 “It’s not uncommon for three generations to live under one roof in China. Many parents rely on grandparents to look after the kids when they are at work, but this can be a problem especially with China’s one-child policy where on child has up to four doting grandparents,” says Dr. Peymane Adab from University of Birmingham.

Nana’s and grandpa’s love are packing up the pounds on China’s “little emperors and empresses.”

The biggest problem there, according to the study, is that the old generation doesn’t seem to recognize obesity as a problem. The grandparents who have gone through the wars know exactly what it means to be hungry. For them, “being fat” is extraordinarily auspicious, and it can never be bad, or unhealthy.

Growing up deprived, the grandparents are more than delighted to see that their grandchildren’s environment is a radically different setting from them, where there is more than adequate supply of meat, dairy, and oil.

“The grandparents give their grandkids food as a form of love,” says Dr. Adab.

"My mother loves seeing my daughter getting big," a woman from Guangzhou told researcher, "I tell my mom not to feed her so much meat and snacks and she should learn swimming, but my mom doesn’t buy into what I say."

Instead of blaming the grandparents, the study believes that educational programs on nutrition and healthy diet offered to Chinese grandparents will make a change.

"Grandparents do care about their grandchildren; they do want them to be healthy," Adab says. It’ll just be a matter of convincing the older-generation that affection doesn’t always have to come in the form of chicken nuggets and red bean doughnuts. And that a trip to the park can show just as much love.

China has become the second fattest country in the world, with 23 percent of boys and 14 percent of girls under age 20 considered overweight or obese. Overweight is defined as having a body mass index, or weight-to-height ratio, above 25. A person is considered obese if his or her BMI is 30 or more.

Photo: jeffdjevdet (flickr)