Kidshapes: A Guide to Helping Your Kids Control Their Weight

Being overweight in a culture based on thinness is tough on kids, and no more healthy for them than for adults. But as Nathanson, a California pediatrician and author of The Portable Pediatrician for Parents, notes, excess poundage, often treated as The Enemy, becomes another kind of problem when it dominates family life or determines a child's sense of worth. Addressing this charged subject calmly and directly, Nathanson discusses the physical, psychological and social components of weight control from birth through adolescence. Offering objective means of measurement for evaluating whether your child is or isn't ``just right,'' she also suggests ways of instilling healthful eating and exercise habits that will allow children to grow into their proper shape and maintain it into adulthood. Marked with respect for children's individual differences (in personality as well as physiology), Nathanson encourages parents to help their children ``feel comfortable making mostly healthy choices,'' some of which are about exercise and diet. Chapters along the way cover various topics, including the whole milk/skim milk debate and school lunches. $35,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.)