9 Year Old Girl Loses 66 Pounds
Breanna Bond weighed 186 pounds when she was 9 years old. This was after she weighed 100 pounds when she entered kindergarten. Her doctor said her body would grow into the weight. It didn't and her parents and entire family joined in a eat better and exercise more lifestyle. The result is that Breanna lost 66 pounds in a year by walking 4 miles with the family and walking on a treadmill for another hour a day and limiting herself to 20 grams of fat a day. That is a whole lot of exercise everyday. Breanna's mom said the family had a zero tolerance policy on the four mile walk and they all did it everyday or night whether it was raining or foggy or cold.
Wow. Good on her parents! Breanna looks great, and I'm glad she's gotten so much healthier. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing. More parents need to take note. Obesity is an epidemic in our country.
ReplyDeleteSanity is a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteWhat great discipline. Motivating, kudos to the family !
ReplyDeleteOk, kudos to her parents for making the necessary changes. However, how on earth did she get to be that weight at that age?! That is crazy. And that doctor is a moron. I hope they keep up the positive habits
ReplyDeletei saw an interview with her on another station where she was asked if she wanted to say hello to anyone back home. no. not a single person. how sad is that? she seems very confident and proud of herself. good for her. maybe now a new school, away from the meanies.
ReplyDeleteShe weighed 100 lbs. in kindergarten? Holy moly! I may have weighed all of 30 pounds.
ReplyDeleteHer parents are normal weight, which suggests they didn't spend the first nine years of Breanna's life eating garbage. They also took her to be tested for different medical conditions, so they were clearly concerned over the years.
ReplyDeleteThe poor girl must have the world's slowest metabolism. I hope this corrects itself during puberty, or she'll be battling weight all her life. It's hard to keep up the level of exercise she is currently doing (an hour walking, an hour plus on the treadmill, +swimming & hoops).
It makes me feel guilty. I'm afraid when I see an obese child, I think, "bad parents."
THIS is how you parent. I love this story!
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that the parents did it all with her, went on the walks with her as a family rather than just telling her what to do. I think that probably will be a big factor in her general attitude towards sports and exercise - it's something you just do, rather than it being something you have to do because someone else tells you. As long as it it focused on health and not "being skinny and pretty", it's all good.
ReplyDeleteI saw a show, not long ago, about a man that weighted 400 lb and a 16 year-old boy with 300 lb and they reached the point that the man was at bed rest and the boy was getting there. This is so sad. I guess, it doesn't help the fact that fast food is cheap in the US. In Brazil, you need almost 20 bucks (sometimes even more) for a meal (less in dollars though).
ReplyDeleteBut good for the family to change this situation and helping the girl get healthy again.
My nephew was 120 pounds in kindergarten. Now, in high school, he's 6'4" and skinny as a fence post. Kids are different from adults.
ReplyDeleteThough I am glad the parents stepped in, since after puberty, making changes seems to be much harder. I find it more more questionable about why it's a good idea to share this with the world. I might be wrong about that though.
Wow that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteGood for her! 20 grams of fat a day is not much at all. I hope she can keep it up without having to obsess. Weirdly enough, I *just* read the Jennifer Weiner article in my old Allure this morning called "The F Word". It made me cry. Please read it you guys!
ReplyDeleteIf I could have one wish, it would be that every person on earth could be born into a family that was that supportive, stable, and loving. I don't usually say things like "I'm inspired," but in this case I really am.
ReplyDeleteWow I didn't weight 100. Lbs until I got to high school! Good for her and her parents making a change!
ReplyDeleteGood for her! It's hard enough being a kid (kid's can be so mean!) But having to deal with a weight issue when you should be drawing hearts around your secret admirer's name and wondering what movie you are going to see next etc.... She got results and that will stick with her for a long time! She will probably always exercise now and be healthy for a long time:)
ReplyDeleteMaja with a j said it best. As long as it's not to be thin "whatever it takes" and done in a healthy way, then good for them. It was their fault that she was that overweight to begin with. 100 lbs in Kindegarten? And the Doctor said she'd "grow into it"? What the hell kind of Doctor is that? Don't just blindly listen to your doctor if you're concerned, do your own research, get a second opinion too. Who was buying and feeding her that food to make her so big in the first place? I am glad though that they banded together and made a healthy change for the whole family.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is great! I love that the parents took charge and decided to do something! And I love that the whole family participated. The dad is right, tough love but it's worth it in the end.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that the parents were proactive and that people seem healthier and happier. There's something about the vibe of the mother that catches me up. A hint of the crazy. Just a little whiff of the controlling. I don't know.
ReplyDelete@ jfwlucy...what a sweet thought. ITA.
ReplyDeleteI weighed 95lbs when I was 6 and I wish my family did stuff like this. Good for her parents for recognizing the problem. And fuck the people that shit on her.
ReplyDeleteI think getting healthy is great, but I just hope the reason her parents gave her for starting to exercise and eat better was not that she needed to lose weight. I hope they went about it saying "we're all going to live a healthier, more active life." Because if it's always been about weight, sure that's all nice and good now, but when she's a teenager, she'll start to obsess. I hate to be negative about it, but talking about losing weight to a 9 year old girl is a pretty delicate subject.
ReplyDeleteHer parents are good people in my book! So so nice to see a *positive* story regarding overweight children losing weight.
ReplyDeleteGood job, I hope this girl will see this as a lifetime of health and not struggle
ReplyDeleteLike Jolene said hope it's in all the spirit of we're getting healthy and not making her lose weight.
ReplyDeleteThere are ways to do it and ways to not. I just hope that her family did it a valid way and not an anorexic way because she is a child and will pay for that when she gets older too.
ReplyDeleteHer mother seems obsessed with it though, and that's a scary thought, no matter what kind of weight she has lost.
Seeing as she was overweight, it was all about weight. Losing weight was getting healthy in this case. Not about being attractive at all but to save her life in all aspects.
ReplyDeleteYou can be average and go to the gym to gain muscle and flexibility and be all about improving healthy but when you're fat, you have to lose weight. Like the father says: their life is at stake. There's no tiptoeing and being PC about obesity. It's different when average women are called fat and are pressured to be size 0 but that's not the case here.
These days you can't talk about 'losing weight' because people might think you're vain (which is wrong?) and associate it with being pretty while those people maybe just NEED to lose weight first to become healthy. It's all connected either way, if you live healthy, you can't be obese. Healthy food combined with exercise will not make you obese unless it's a medical disorder.
I'm fat myself and am sick of people enabling my behaviour (it's ok to be fat, you look gorgeous, why lose weight?) but will snark at thin people and tell them to 'eat a burger'. Why? I'm losing weight and becoming healthy and nothing people say to enable me will beat the feeling of getting up in the morning and feeling energized and not tired and depressed from eating fatty foods and sugar.
I was 175lbs in 7th grade. I was severely depressed as a preteen and gained almost 100lb in 2 years. To say I was teased and taunted is an understatement. I was 17 when I lost the weight.. By walking every day, some sort of strength training and a low fat diet. I lost 70lbs .. And transformed my life. For years I would run into people and they would freak out when they recognized me. This was when shows like Jenny Jones was on and my friends would all tell me I needed to go on one of those " look at me now " episodes lolz .. I'm so glad I did it and I'm so glad I've kept it ( for the most part! ) off.. I was fat for the majority of my important pre and teen years and that left some serious scars and self esteem issues.. I'm so glad this little ladys family helped her before it got too late! In her honor I'm heading to the gym:)l
ReplyDeleteGood for her and her family. I was a fat kid and still am a fat adult--and my dr had me on diet pills in the 4th grade. My mom would put me on programs of various kinds but she would just drop me off --nothing ever stuck. I hope this creates a life-long healthy lifestyle for this child--not something she is battling but a way of life she embraces.
ReplyDeleteVery supportive and loving parents.
ReplyDeleteThe show doesn't mention if she has siblings but it shows the parent's intelligence and conviction that they made changes as a family and didn't keep junk food in the house and make up a separate plate of grass for Breanna. They made a true lifestyle change and everyone wins. Very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteIncredible! What's really neat is that the whole family did it together. Very cool.
ReplyDeleteLooked up that "F Word" article from Allure another commenter mentioned. Loved it right up until the last sentence.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allure.com/allure-magazine/2012/10/fat-the-f-word
So good to see a story about parents doing something positive for their child.
ReplyDeleteI read an article about a mother who found her son was putting on way too much weight and it turned out that he was eating the right things but too much of them. Good items gone awry!
It is great they did it as a family. I have always been fat (with the odd slim time in between). At the moment I am doing meal replacement to try & get weight off & so far I have removed 4.7 kilos. I don't know what the equivalent is in pounds. I hope people take note of how much exercise and how strict a diet she is on to keep the weight off, even with doing the right thing it can be very difficult for a naturally large person to take weight off and keep it off. I hope she stays healthy for life, and well done to the interviewer who kept saying healthy and not slim.
ReplyDeleteWonderful for all of them! She is a beautiful girl!! Her parents showed her alot of love v
ReplyDeleteWow. This kind of gave me the creeps. My mother made me go on my first diet before I was 10 and I went on to struggle with weight/jojo/diets and body image issues all my life.
ReplyDeleteIt seriously disturbs me how the focus is all about her body and not about her being OK just the way she is, being smart, a decent human being etc. I shivered at how the moderator went on about how she "looks great".
Yes, I know she was an unhealthy size before. That is not my point. I hate how society is so obsessed with LOOKS and how to fit a certain image. If I were those parents, I would have made sure that she gets all the medical help she needs but above all, making it very clear that she is great NO MATTER WHAT SIZE.
P.S. Excuse the language bloopers... I'm not a native speaker and some things I write may come across as very strong because I can't phrase them any better.
ReplyDeleteWas it just me or did the dad seem like kind of a dick?
ReplyDeleteArtemis, i swear i honest-to-god stand up and applaud your comment! WOW. i'm one of those that gets told the 'eat a sandwich' line all. the. time.--and it truly gets annoying b/c those saying that to me are usually the very same ones enabling their heavy friends to continue thinking their unhealthy & dangerous obesity is perfectly fine and they should love themselves like that. i've never understood this. so thank you for blowing my mind in the best possible way and reminding me that enabling is wrong at ANY end of the spectrum. your comment was truly awesome and i absolutely love your attitude!
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