underweight teen boy, ideas please,worried..

[everythingsgoingsouth]

Hi, I've also posted this on CHAT, hope that's ok.

My DS is 13yrs. he is 5'8" and just over 6 stone (40kg)!!
he has always been super skinny but recently he has has a tummy bug and lost more weight, he looks awful, and sleeps 7pm to 7am, with a nap straight after school too.He says he is "shattered" all the time.

We have a healthy varied diet, but he only eats small amounts (also has ASD and takes forever to eat a meal, which doesn't help)

GP just says "get him to eat more" yes, like I've not tried!

I use full fat milk and cheeses etc. make sauces for pasta. He just says "I'm full" .Have bought some complan today and he likes these milkshakes, so that's an extra 250 calories a day.

Any other advice /ideas to fatten him up?

[BarbarianMum]

High calory snacks? Then he could eat these between meals (mid morning and mid afternoon). Trick is to keep the calories high without the bulk. Roasted peanuts or cashews, potato crisps, full fat hummous, cheesy dips, chocolate, proper ice cream, breakfast bar type things, geo energy bars - would he eat any of those?

[ElaineFromLondon]

Do you know how many calories he eats a day ?

My 12yr old is overweight and eats about 3000 a day, obviously I wouldn't recommend that much for your son but the more he eats, the more he'll get used to eating more. I would be careful to make sure that he gains weight and not just fat because that would be unhelpful. Good Luck :)

[everythingsgoingsouth]

thanks,
haven't a clue how many calories he has.
for breakfast he has cereal, about 250ml full fat milk,a banana and 2 crumpets with jam or honey. fish oil and multi vits. brilliant start :)

lunch-packed lunch-quite often comes home having only eaten half sandwich and half packet of crisps "i ran out of time"

snack bar and juice when he gets in.

tea- very small amount of meat/fish with veg and either pasta/rice or potatoes. yogurt/mousse and a drink.

[YeGodsAndLittleFishes]

What happens when the body gets so low in weight is it starts to go on auto destruct. There's no appetite, food can even seem poison or bad for you in a perverse way. (I suppose a bit like the way in extreme cold, when suffering from hyperthermia, people cand get a rush of feeling hit and take their clothes off.) In extremes, the person can start exercising obsessively to lose even more weight and self destruct. So your son being tired is a very good sign, help him to sleep as much as he can and gain weight. He can't put on muscle when underweight, so the sleep is good, and a good sign tgat he wants to get better.

So when the doctor said that you just need to get him to eat, then that is the doctor's orders and a medical necessity. Food is medicine. This is his tratment and you are the practitioner!

He needs 3 (or 4) full, big meals a day, plus 2 desserts and 3 (or 4) snacks. He needs 3000 calories a day for normal weight for a boy hus height and in top of that he needs to GAIN weight, so see that as a minimum.

Can he come home for lunch so you can cook him a lunch and a hot pudding and sit with him while he eats it? (This is hard but is the best and quickest way to get his weight up.) If not, can you drive to school and make him eat all his lunch with you in the car. This is a medical necessity, liaise with the doctor and the school. They won't want it to turn into an emergency either.

Pull him out of competitive sports and have him take lifts everywhere until he has got to the BMI average for his height and age. If he is still just as tired in 2 or 3 weeks, take him back to the doctir to check for an underlying cause.

This is what I've had to do with DD. This is all the advice, in a nutshell, that we have had from a year of weekly trips to the eating disorder unit. 'Make her eat.'


You can't make him eat! All you can do is tell him that if he doesn't make himself do it he will end up in hospital being tube fed, and possibly doing permanent damage to vital organs if he tries to be sporty.

You provide the food. Lots of high calorie snacks and big carby dinners and stodgy puds. Don't forget fruit and prunes and drinks, obviously!

Good luck and keep us posted.

[YeGodsAndLittleFishes]

Peanut butter and nutella sandwuches when he gets in, and bigger dinners plus pud and a supper of biscuits/cake and mug of a milky drink before bed?

[YeGodsAndLittleFishes]

Although...you could try him with alternatives to cows milk and lay off the dairy as it can upset stomachs for people with low weight. Try soy/oat/rice/nut milk alternatives and lay off the cheese for a bit to see if that helps.

[Cinnamon73]

I have a skinny 13 yo who weighs exactly 40kg as well, but isn't that tall (yet).
He also lost weight after Norovirus in January and it has taken him 6 months to gain it, plus he grew in that time.

He put the most on when he was at a summer camp. where there was endless supply of treats and food plus lots of sports every day. (Plus I lifted the ban on all forbidden food due to braces, in exchange for a promise to clean teeth meticulously)

My friend has a 15 yo son with ads who has always been underweight, she used to lace everything with cream and butter, and just give him lots of time to eat, sit with him at the table, chat, and gently nudge him.
Is your ds on medication? My friend's son was/is and it meant he started getting hungry late at night when the medication wore off. She would then cook him puddings and feed him ice cream when the younger brothers were in bed.

[lateSeptember1964]

Has the Doctor ruled out any underlying medical conditions. Your son sounds like mine who has Crohns. It could be an inflammatory bowel condition. Might worth you looking it up to see the symptoms. Hopefully not but you need to make sure that there is no other cause. Hope he feels better soon. Its an awful worry as you just want them to eat

[MsRainbow]

My DS1 was shattered all the time when he was 14, he was skinny, but not underweight, and literally had to drag himself back from school. At the same time his younger brother was diagnosed with coeliac disease (after daily vomiting for a month). We got DS1 tested and he it turned out he had coeliac disease as well. It had caused him to have a severe vitamin D deficiency, within a week of being on high dose Vit D his energy levels were noticeably higher. I think you should definitely get him to your GP.

[Bigolbellyfullofjelly]

Did you ever get any answers? I know this thread is really old but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm desperate. Anyhow I have an 18 year old son and he is so sickly skinny. He's lost 10 pounds in just over a year. I can see his checkbones. He's 5' 10 and 115 lbs. I've taken him to the doctor 5 times in 2 years. They've done some blood work like vitamin d, TSH, and Complete blood cell count. He eats but I don't think enough. I press him to eat but he says to stop bugging him. He says he's not hungry a lot. I would say he eats maybe 2000 calories a day. The frustrating thing is that he knows he needs more calories but won't even try. I'm so scared.