If you were (unhappily) overweight as a teen, what could your parents have said/done to help, and what would make it worse?

[pastaandpesto]

DS(14) is overweight. He has an extremely sweet tooth, a penchant for carbs and spends a lot of time online gaming. He walks to school and does do a physical activity a couple of times a week (which we have to encourage), but not enough to offset the fact he is eating too much of the wrong things and is very sedentary.

For background, DH and I have never struggled with our weight. We eat healthily but not obsessively so. So DS hasn't grown up being exposed to to problem eating, at least not at home. His younger siblings are very slim.

DS has recently started eating secretly, and eating large quantities of food in a single sitting. I think he is heading in to the territory of disordered eating.

As yet, I have never spoken to him explicitly about his weight, although I have told him when I think he is making poor choices e.g. buying a massive sharing-sized bag of sweets and eating them himself in a single day (this happens regularly - as an occasional one off I wouldn't make a big deal of it). This obviously hasn't helped because he is still doing it.

I think he is unhappy about his eating/weight (and possibly in general, sadly) and I feel I need to talk to him about it, but I am very, very wary about how to approach it because I know it is such an emotionally charged subject and if I fuck it up I could make things worse. I want to support him and give him the confidence and encouragement to make changes, but I have no idea where to start.

If you recognise something of yourself in my DS, what could your parents have done to help do you think? And what should I absolutely not do?

(just to note, as he has younger siblings it is difficult to completely remove temptation from the house).

Ah that's so tough, my heart goes out to you (and to him too). If you think that he's unhappy about other things, can you set aside the eating as an effect or a symptom, rather than the thing to be cured. I wouldn't even mention the eating, and just focus on the underlying issue of his happiness and self esteem.

Is he being bullied on these games? Needs to move schools to get away from a horrible situation? Struggling with sexuality/self esteem/something else? Negative influences from friends? Can you put limits on the online gaming in favour of something active together? How much 1:1 time does he get with each parent?

I was an overweight teenager, my mum suggested we joined a gym together when I was 15, nearly 16, which she paid for, so we did that. Once I started going to the gym it made me want to look after myself and make better choices about eating. I didn’t always go with her, would go on my own sometimes, but her giving me a lift and us making plans to go together made it easier to avoid temptation of not going.

My situation was different to yours as my mum had a disordered relationship with food (binging and restricting, very entrenched in diet culture) and so I grew up "learning" this.

I started overeating at puberty and became obese. I was actually very unhappy at home and school, so eating was a comfort.

My mum tried to make me diet, talked about her weight, talked about my weight, put a lot of emphasis on physical appearance. I'm sad to say this just made me more unhappy and fat. I felt judged, shamed and not good enough.

It was only when I moved out of home that I started eating more healthy and lost the weight.

I do feel for you as a parent as it's a very difficult situation. I'm not sure what my parents could have done differently except love and accept me for who I was, no matter what my body looked like.

Ah it's hard. I was overweight as a kid too and my parents got it wrong frankly.

They were kind of both not straightforward enough, by not openly suggesting changes or making any changes to my diet (i was given the same portions as my 6'2" dad from being under 10 so I got used to eating a lot), and made it a value judgement, comparing me to someone very obese that they openly had little admiration for.

The thing is that in western culture there is no nice, neutral way to tell someone they are overweight to the point it's a concern.

Perhaps therefore you could address his behaviours and not his weight in the first instance, and make it clear you're listening? As in as more generally how school.is etc but then 'Tom, we've noticed you eating in secret a few times now and also buying big bags of sweets all to yourself. What's going on?' Or 'You know that people quite often eat too much because they're unhappy about other things, or even just got into the habit. If something is bothering you, you can tell us'. He will be embarrassed so maybe do this on a drive or walk. Not in front of his siblings.

You don't mention sport but is he into any physical activities that play to his strengths? PE was horrible as a large child, all about speed and agility where I was strong and had stamina. Maybe he would like to join a weightlifting gym if you can find one with an understanding coach, do geocaching, dog walking for family?

My mum could have stopped singling me out and made changes for the whole family. Instead she bullied me and whenever the whole family had a "treat" she would glare at me if I had some aswell, but she'd never say anything.

She also said I was too fat to be her daughter (that was nice!) but happily posed for pictures with my slim sibling (outing backstory so can't give more info but it was really a really shitty thing to do to a teen)

To be fair my parents did take us all swimming together weekly which was good, I don't know if that was because of my weight or theirs too (my mum.was always wanting to lose weight), and on bike rides, so they did encourage exercise, they just didnt handle the diet side very well In my eyes

Can you approach it the opposite way round? Make the focus to spend less time online/screens?

Maybe a Fitbit type challenge? Increase step count day on day? Strava challenges? New hobby or sport or focus like a marathon in a month for a charity he is into?

There's so much about the addictive nature of some games and how being on screens helps us to eat without acknowledging what were consuming, plus the dopamine hit that can be recreated with high sugar hits etc.

I know you can't run your way out of what you eat but in general, getting active, getting outside and connecting with people in real life more all have good impacts that may help in a variety of ways with his mood/diet/weight and hopefully set something in motion to help him feel more intrinsically motivated?

DSIL was mercilessly commented on by her mother for her size/weight and what she wore and it inevitably led to disordered eating and low self esteem. It was horrible to witness. The pride that was placed on slimness by someone who was truly unhealthy plus tobacco and alcohol dependent was bizarre to witness.

Having conversations about screen time and associated concerns may be less emotionally loaded?

I have always been overweight .I can remember as a child ( maybe aged around 10/11 years) and going to the corner shop to buy some chocolate but my mum had told the woman not to serve me and I was mortified. I have never forgotten this. I was not hugely overweight at that point but always on the chubby side. My auntie (mums sister) is also obsessed about her daughters and grand daughters weight. She told me on the phone ( I had not seen them for a couple of years due to covid), that my cousin had 'become massive'. When I saw this cousin the next week she was maybe a size 14 if that ! My auntie also said my cousins daughter aged 3 was massively overweight. She was a little chubby. Anyway, it all goes to make me feel very conscious about my weight. My 16 year old dd is a bit overweight now and I have to be very careful what i say as I know she is conscious of it. I just don't want her to lead the life I have with weight dictating everything and spoiling enjoyment. I can't find nice clothes, have not been able to join in with going in the sea or to waterparks as I feel so self conscious. being morbidly overweight ahs really ruined my life and I don't want the same for my dd. She was always really slim until she hit around 15. I think she does comfort eat now. It is really hard to know how to approach things. I have 3 older boys, 2 of whom are extremely conscious of fitness/ weight, and the other who is extremely skinny, possibly underweight and not interested in food. My ds1 went to Uni and put on 4 stone eating junk food but has since lost it all and working in a gym and now very health conscious. My ds is very fitness conscious and limits carbs, stops drinking alcohol etc until he reaches his desired weight. I am hoping with dd that she will just find her own way in managing her weight without me putting pressure on her. I could just not buy any bad stuff but she earns her own money and can just go and buy chocolate etc when she wants to. It is really hard. She does love fruit and eats a lot but I think ultimately she just has a metabolism that puts on weight easily just like me and it's very hard to manage.

His eating is a symptom of an underlying problem. You need to address the root cause. He's unhappy - why?

I put on weight from puberty. My mum has made snide digs and explicitly criticised me for my weight since I was 11. It didn't make me thin or healthy, it just made me feel even more shit, knowing that my value was less than my slimmer sibling.

Its interesting that your post is about your son's weight, not his lack of sociability and general unhappiness.

I was an overweight teen.

There were many reasons. My family isn't "sporty" so I did little activity and our school had an obsession with team sports which made me feel even worse about myself. These days I enjoy parkrun - although I'm slow and a bit overweight - and go to the gym and do lots of walking.

It was also a control thing. My DPs - particularly my DM tried to exert too much control over everything as I got older and food was a refuge.

But I basically got fed up with being fat and starved myself down to an acceptable weight a few times.

I don't know what my DPs could have done better to help. Maybe not be so critical of me - but I'm sure you're not .

DS got very tubby over the first lockdown, but then DH got some weights for the garage and DS14 (at the time) got hooked and now lectures us about healthy eating which I find hysterical.

I was over weight from about 7. I have struggled being overweight since then. I am in late 50s and have always been overweight
my parents didn’t know what to do back in those days. My mum was overweight but she was also 6 foot and I think she didn’t adjust portion sizes for me ever- I had 2 elder db and I got what they got…as a very young child that maybe as ok but clearly as got to pre pubescent it wasn’t.
I saw one of my own sons pile on the pounds. I felt helpless to stop it. It happened in his mid teens and by then I had very little control over what he ate or level of exercise he took- he was active but ate secretively. He is very tall and large frame (size 15 feet and extra wide fitting for instance) so that didn’t help in judging what he should be eating. I’m horrified at it now as he’s in 20s and still bigger. The other son is skinny. I don’t get why 2 kids eat the same growing up and then one seems to spiral out of control. We always cooked from scratch, loads of veg, fish etc.
I am not convinced any parent can control a child’s weight once they get into their teens. I don’t think a parent of overweight child can reduce their weight unless the child themselves is motivated to do it. Just like an adult. And just like an adult if you as parent try to do anything to take control or intervene it’s likely to lead to more emotional eating. Yes, get good quality food in terms of diet in the home, and really focus on portion control sizes on meals you serve .
I think the only other thing that struck me on previous suggestions is to encourage activity by joint participation. Gyms weren’t a thing when I was a girl, but if my mum had suggested it for us both, as previous poster said, then that may have helped a bit. Don’t suggest anything that you would not need to do or be prepared to do.

DS was overweight at that age. I had to handle it very carefully as he was extremely sensitive.

I never once mentioned his weight. We chatted about healthy foods and nutrients and what various foods did for you. We discussed how sugar can give you energy and mood swings and dips. We also set ourselves little physical challenges like going swimming once a week and upping our lengths until we reached a kilometre and then a mile. He got a fitbit and aimed for 10k steps a day.

He's now very slim. He did that himself. In lockdown year he decided to get really strict on portion control and treats. He went a bit OTT at first but he's fine now. And he is obsessive about getting his steps in. He does 20k a day.

One of the worst thing my parents did was have unhealthy food in the house. To this day I have no idea why they bought it. I’m afraid that despite having slim siblings, you just can’t have junk in the house.

Can I suggest something like CrossFit or peloton which has a gamification element for exercise?

Teenagers want to know that they are loved for who they are rather than who they should be.

I think the best thing you can do as a parent is to praise and encourage your child, and keep any instructions/criticisms to a minimum.

Your boy sounds unhappy and it may be that there is something going on at school. Or it may be more generalised anxiety. I don’t think you can force it out of him but you can be the soft place to fall and the source of comfort and kindness.

Thank you for everyone for your replies and insight, I really do appreciate it.

Just to elaborate on the mental health aspect - I don't think there is anything as serious as bullying or identity worries going on (although I am well aware I might be wrong on this). He has mates that he plays with online and (according to DD who is at the same school) is always with friends at breaktime and seems to be laughing etc. He doesn't meet up with them regularly outside of school but that seems to be quite normal now, or at least not very unusual. He is academically bright and so does okay despite not working terribly hard. He basically just doesn't particularly like school and so feels quite 'meh' during term time, and I think he uses food to cheer himself up, which I can understand. And now I think he is aware that he is doing it, and feels crap about it, so it is a bit of a cycle.

I'm really taking on board the message about not being critical or drawing attention to what he's eating. He's not stupid, he knows it isn't great for his health or his weight, and so pointing it out in order to make me feel better (by feeling that I was "doing something") is clearly counter productive.

The idea of it being a control thing is interesting. I know he would say we are to controlling because we lock all electronic devices at night (always have done this) and monitor what games etc he is downloading. We also keep an eye on his homework diary and check in with him if he misses an assignment or doesn't seem to have revised for a test. That kind of thing. To be honest I feel that actually we do pretty much the bare minimum of what would could be called responsibly parenting. But addressing the screen time issue would mean exerting more control, not less. So its a difficult balance. I don't feel we are getting it right but there again I don't really know what right looks like.

I am reflecting a bit on why it is an issue to me (apart from generally wanting our kids to be happy and healthily). My own mother has always been hugely and openly disparaging about people who are overweight. She was/is a very unhappy and insecure person with a terrible self-image, but has always prided herself on the fact that at least she isn't fat and raised three slim children. There was definitely the narrative that people who are overweight lack self control only have themselves to blame. So I think I have subconsciously absorbed the idea that DS's weight is my fault due to some parenting failure and is a problem that I must fix.

Gosh you are not alone in having been raised with unhealthy messaging about weight. It’s a minefield out there, we are literally bombarded with messaging that slim = good and fat = bad. And your parents are of another era when there was less awareness about the impact of such messaging on mental health.

Whatever the cause of your boy’s overeating, I think we need to accept that our teenagers have had a pretty tough time of it during the past two years and this will manifest differently in everyone.

If my mother had stopped feeding me sugar - think kitkats, breakaway, blue ribband, gold bars, club biscuits etc, or crisps - think Monster Munch, Wotsits, Skips, etc, for breakfast including glucose tablets on the way to school and hadn't sent me to school with 2 pork pies with a massive dish of ketchup, or 2 cornish pasties when I went to high school...I might be a bit thinner.

She massively overfed me.

Because of her I have no idea about portion control as an adult, sometimes I eat 3x what I should, others I eat hardly a thing.

She wouldn't teach me to cook, thankfully. Everything made in Home Ec lessons went straight down the toilet or in the bin.

Actually modelled a healthy lifestyle

My parents were funny about my weight but they were chocolate fiends, who loved takeaways, a little bit overweight themselves and didn’t do anything active

why on earth would they have thin, active DC?!

I was, and still am, overweight, since about the age of 10. I ate secretly and binged (I still do eat secretly from my husband, but don't binge as badly anymore, through sheer willpower). I'm not sure why, exactly, although I also became depressed as a teen so probably an emotional link.

I had a tall, slim brother so we had snacks in the house, although I could and did buy my own with pocket money. I did plenty of sports and exercise, but because I was eating badly I just stayed overweight. I then got billed as I got older which made the comfort eating worse. In my teens my mum took me to Weight Watchers and we tried two gyms, but to no avail. She wasn't horrible about it at all, but I think was ill-equipped to help me change.

I would suggest trying to talk to him, but not about his weight, per se. Perhaps mention he seems a bit sad, let him know you're there to support him, perhaps share your own story of being sad as a teen and how you changed it around.

And I do think you should get rid of unhealthy snacks in the house. Disordered eating should be viewed as an illness. It is very difficult to get away from because, unlike alcohol or drug addiction, you cannot stop eating.

I feel at root two things would've helped - focusing on building self esteem (could be by doing nice things for others that he gets praise for), and better coping strategies for negative emotions. Strong routines around good that make you feel good always helps. Strong routines in general where you don't binge on gaming, or any other addictive behaviour can help overall.

I don't think you should say anything about food or weight (believe me he is very much aware of it without anybody pointing it out) just work on building his self esteem and making him feel loved and appreciated for being him, he will eventually decide for himself whether he wants to address it. I think the only thing I would do is choose healthier snacks to have in, eg baked crisps rather than fried (twiglets are baked and made with wholemeal flour so more nutritious and take longer to eat than a pack of walkers normal crisps, pom bears have half the calories too) just don't make it obvious. If anything mentioned just say trying to choose healthier options for everybody. I was always much bigger than my older brother and have had a lifetime of disordered/comfort eating not helped by my mother's constant not so subtle comments on my size!

Ooh, just read your update about locking gaming and checking homework🤔 I've brought up 3 boys and by 14 I would not have been that controlling. Their homework would have been their own responsibility by secondary school unless they asked for help and I would have told them time for lights out but not locked their games stuff away. To me that amount of control by that age would be saying I don't trust them, maybe eating is something he feels he has control over. I'd politely suggest it's time to let him grow up and be more autonomous.

With the devices/screen time, I have always said to my DS, it's your responsibility but if it starts impacting your sleep/behaviour/school work we will put restrictions in place. Maybe I've been lucky but they've grown up to self regulate really well, eldest is 18 now and has a good balance of screen/being active in the gym, bike rides etc.
Youngest is 13 and inclined to be a bit more slug like but we just encourage him to be active, he loves going to the skate park and will go for a walk or bike ride if we chivvy him along a bit.

I was put on a diet aged 12 by my well meaning mother and have never managed to achieve a healthy relationship with food. My body image is awful but I try really hard not to pass it on. Again I never say no to any food but try really hard to encourage moderation. So I might say, do you think your body needs that cookie right after dinner? Do you want to wait a bit and see how you feel? I'd never ever say you can't have that cookie its full of sugar/calories.

I don't know if that helps at all and I'm not saying it's the right or definitive approach but it does seem to be working so far. Good luck OP it's very tricky to navigate without creating issues.

Same with homework, I check in fairly regularly, do you have any homework? Do you want to go and check? Let me know if you need any help. But ultimately it's up to them to learn to work to deadlines and face the consequences if they don't get it done.

We had a school medical check on Y9 and I was told by the nurse I was over weight (which was true and I knew it). I told my mum about this and she got very defensive and said it wasn't true and I was fine. As a kid I had fry ups or pizza for tea on a weeknight and only had a meal with vegetables on the weekends.

So I would suggest making positive changes for the whole family and actually discuss the sweet eating with him.