For many Black families, the conversation about a child’s weight is anything but simple.
There’s the medical reality of childhood obesity. There’s the cultural understanding that a fuller body can represent health, strength, and being well-fed. There’s the sting of teasing and bullying. And then there are the practical realities: Food costs, parents working long hours, unsafe neighborhoods, limited access to recreational activities, and the stress that can make cooking a healthy meal feel like one more impossible assignment.
The numbers make it clear that this is a serious public health issue.
The CDC reports that about one in five U.S. children and adolescents has obesity. Among children ages 2 to 19, obesity affects 24.8% of non-Hispanic Black youth, compared with 16.6% of non-Hispanic white youth.
Houston’s numbers send a warning
Houston is struggling with the problem, too. More than 20% of Houston ISD students are obese, compared with roughly 16% nationally, according to a 2026 Rice University Baker Institute analysis of Youth Risk Behavior Survey data reported by the Houston Chronicle.
Only 16% of HISD students reported getting the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity, compared with 24% nationally. Just over 40% reported participating in sports, compared with more than 50% nationally.
Nearly 80% of HISD students are economically disadvantaged, meaning the ability to make healthier choices cannot simply be reduced to personal discipline. Access matters.
Understanding Houston reports that about 39% of Houston high school students are either overweight or have obesity, including about 21% who have obesity. That makes the issue bigger than what happens at the dinner table.
Parents carrying the weight, too
Black parents often find themselves caught between cultural acceptance of different body sizes and legitimate concerns about their children’s health. In an anonymous survey published by the National Library of Medicine, one Black parent described the tension this way:
“In our community, being a little thicker is looked at as healthy or normal, but the doctors tell you a completely different story.”
That disconnect can delay recognition of a health problem while also exposing families to another problem: judgment.
In qualitative research, Black parents describe feeling blamed for their children’s weight and shamed by strangers, relatives, and even health professionals. One mother, identified as Jada, said, “Being overweight kind of hurt me. Now I hope my son doesn’t have to go through what I went through. I’m trying to change a lot of things, but it’s a big challenge.”
Another parent, Amy, recalled discovering her weight through schoolyard cruelty: “I never knew I was obese growing up, and in fourth grade, I started being called the ‘fat girl.’”
Those experiences matter because the solution cannot be to make children ashamed of their bodies.
Shame not a health plan
Weight-based teasing can inflict real psychological damage, particularly when children are already navigating anxiety, bullying, or social isolation. Texas Children’s Hospital psychologist Gia Annette Washington, Ph.D., told the Defender that some adolescents dealing with obesity have withdrawn after being overlooked because of their weight. Others struggle with anxiety, depression, or using food to cope with difficult emotions.
And sometimes the shaming begins at home.
“Sometimes we comment on weight at home because we want to toughen them up,” one parent said. “If they hear it from family first in a playful way, it won’t hurt as bad when kids at school say it maliciously.”
It doesn’t work that way. Children don’t need humiliation to become healthier. They need adults who understand the difference between health advocacy and body shaming.
Stress, screens, and empty calories
Parents are also making decisions while exhausted.
“When I’m stressed out, I don’t feel like doing nothing… I don’t feel like standing over the stove cooking a healthy, well-balanced meal,” said a parent in an anonymous survey.
A grandparent/caregiver from that same survey offered an equally familiar confession.
“Sometimes you use the TV as a babysitter when you’re stressed. Like, ‘Go sit down and watch this movie so I can just have 30 minutes of peace.’”
Those 30 minutes can become hours.
Black children spend more time with electronic media than their peers. Dr. Eboni Hollier told the Defender that parents have to be intentional about making physical activity part of the family routine. That doesn’t mean parents are lazy. It means families are living in a society that often makes sedentary behavior incredibly convenient and healthy choices surprisingly difficult.
Food access part of the problem
Houston’s food environment illustrates the larger issue. More than 500,000 Houston-area residents live in food deserts, with many concentrated in predominantly Black neighborhoods such as Acres Homes and Third Ward. The same report cited research showing that more than half of Black households in Harris County experience food insecurity.
When fresh food is expensive or hard to access, telling families to “eat healthier” without addressing access is a little like telling someone to drive when you haven’t given them a car.
Houston also has community responses. Manna House Third Ward Food Pantry, for example, serves food-insecure households in neighborhoods surrounded by food-access challenges. Community gardens, farmers markets, and Black-led food-justice efforts can help make healthy food more available while reconnecting young people with where food actually comes from.
Whole family solutions
The strongest approach isn’t putting one child on a diet while everyone else keeps eating the same way. Families can change together: Cook more meals at home, increase fruits and vegetables, reduce sugary drinks, make physical activity fun, and establish healthier sleep and screen-time routines.
Houston already has programs that can help. School and community interventions have included Bienestar, Students for Nutrition and Exercise, CATCH, CAN DO Houston, and Marathon Kids. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston also provides opportunities for youth to be active and reconnect socially. The organization serves more than 50,000 youth annually through 26 clubs across five counties.
For adolescents with serious obesity-related health conditions, Texas Children’s also operates a multidisciplinary bariatric program that incorporates medical, nutritional, and psychological support. Dr. Munish Chawla, a Houston lifestyle-medicine physician, has argued that healthy eating, movement, adequate sleep, and stress management can help address obesity and other chronic diseases.
Change the conversation
Rather than creating “skinny” Black children, the goal should be creating healthy, confident young people who have access to nutritious food, safe places to move, quality healthcare, and adults who know how to support them without humiliating them.
Parents need resources, not lectures. Children need encouragement, not ridicule. Schools need healthier food and more opportunities for movement. Neighborhoods need grocery stores, parks, and safe infrastructure.
And Black communities need to be able to embrace body positivity without pretending that obesity carries no health risks. The answer is neither shame nor denial, but rather love translated into action.
