What Motivates Kids to Lose Weight? Samantha's Sweatsuit

Samantha is a typical 13 year old girl who started the program 9 weeks ago. She continues to stay motivated, writes in her journal every day and reduces her red light foods. She struggles a little bit with getting her exercise points every day (her goal is one hour a day) but is working hard. I sat down with Sammy and her mom last week after class to go over her progress. She is progressing at a very healthy weight and at 9 weeks she has been able to reduce her BMI by 6%,  which is great [the average BMI reduction is 6-7% after 6 months in the program].

I asked her, which we often do, "what motivates you to continue to make change". She looked at her mom and said, “Can I tell her?” and her mom said, "Of course!"

 She told me that when she is done with the program, she wants to go clothes shopping and get new clothes – and not just any new clothes. She wants a cute sweatsuit that she can wear on the plane to visit family over the summer. Normally this is an expectation that I try to manage and perhaps even discourage but in this case it seemed fine.  She reassured me, without prompting, that this was not the main reason she was in the program but it was what motivates her when she feels discouraged – after all, as Sammy said, clothes are very important in 7^th grade…