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Every fourth child in the Czech Republic is overweight, a large part of them deal with a more severe form – obesity. Although experts are sounding the alarm, only a minimum of facilities that focus on treatment work in our country.
Hundreds of children go to the Křetín Children’s Hospital in Blanensko every year. In addition to adjusting eating habits and including physical activities, doctors also – figuratively speaking – look into their souls.
Psychologist Veronika Ondrová has been working at the hospital for 10 years. According to her, overeating often depends on the psychological state of the individual. “Emotional eating is a big topic. Food is often related to another problem,” he explains.
He adds that the causes are individual and doctors find them out during interviews with children and their parents.
“With smaller children, it’s usually a question of inappropriate habits. With age, excess weight is more reflected in the inner world. Sometimes an overweight child is not accepted by the team and eats it all the time and his problem gets worse. “Sometimes food can be a form of self-soothing for a distressed child,” she says.
According to her, it is important to convince children that losing weight will help them and that they can handle the complex process. “I work with children in the form of motivational interviews. Motivate them and keep them in the process. We set realistic goals. Two main lines of motivation are important,” he enumerates.
First of all, he discusses with the children how losing weight will be good for them in life. “This is purely an individual matter, a subjective motivation. Sometimes they want to do a sport in which their weight limits them. Other times, they may want to integrate more into the team. Or they want to dress differently,” describes the psychologist.
At the same time, it is necessary to instill confidence that the child can lose weight. “We work to make the child believe more that it will be possible. Almost everyone loses some weight here. The axis of self-confidence is strengthened by experience here. I then discuss a lot with my parents about how to follow up on it at home,” he adds.
According to her, it is not necessary to measure the success of the treatment only by the number of kilos lost. Adds an example of a repeat client. “Today she is a satisfied college student. Even if she gets a little stronger, she has found hobbies, friends. In addition, being slightly overweight does not threaten her health in any way,” he says.
