11 year old DD wants to lose weight

[Corwen]

I'd like to approach this with as much care and advice as possible. DD wants to 'get thinner'. I don't know her weight/ height or BMI and I don't want to weigh her right now but she is wearing plus size school clothes and is quite chubby. I would say it's got to a point where it's making her less active and is a bit of a vicious circle.

My first thought and the first thing I said was that she is perfect as she is and that we must be careful if she does lose some weight to do it in a healthy way. I told her she's beautiful exactly as she is.

Dd has always loved food and has always eaten with great enjoyment. She likes cooking, watching cookery programmes, and she hates to feel she's missing out. She has an older brother who doesn't like many foods, is skinny and also growing fast and needs a lot of carbs as carbs are the main foods he will eat. This leads to dd eating too many carbs as I can't easily treat them differently without her getting upset.

I have been concerned about DD's weight for a while but attempts to give her a healthier diet and more exercise (whilst never mentioning my concerns) have only led her to feel she is being treated unfairly and have led her to eat in secret. To address that I have tried to increase her protein and fruit and veg intake so she feels fuller and I have stopped trying to limit intake so much as it was having the opposite effect- making her find ways of getting more food constantly.

This is the first time she has mentioned her weight and wanting to do something about it. I am aware of the danger of eating disorders and this is uppermost in my mind due to a young girl I know being in hospital currently with anorexia. However I know childhood obesity is not ideal ether.

I am reluctant to make a GP appt as I don't want her to think there is a big 'problem'.

I can't currently find a form of exercise she enjoys but I know this would be the first thing to look at.

We struggle to improve the diet and exercise for the whole family due to the fact we have an extremely picky eater and we are very busy with work and extra curriculars that are much loved and can't be scaled back easily.

Advice and experiences welcome.

It sounds like you’re handling it well and reassuring your daughter which is great. However if she is overweight you do need to take action. Maybe focus on the health aspect rather than weight, and join her in eating healthily and exercising explaining you want to stay healthy to?

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you really need to get a handle on diet now - teenagers are cruel. I know life is busy but you really need to prioritise this. Losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise. Exercise alone is not enough.

Batch cook so that you only have to re-heat on busy nights, and maybe the picky eaters will just have to be less picky - this is more important.

I'd just educated her about nutrition and exercise and let her lead the way in picking a healthy way to reduce her weight a bit. If she likes food and cooking this should be fairly easy, there are lots of tasty, healthy dishes she can make. I'd cook something healthy for the family and then give the fussy one a plate of plain pasta or whatever they eat rather than giving them the same thing.

Thanks @DrunkenElephant. Older brother's picky eating was maybe understated. He would rather not eat indefinitely than eat a normal healthy meal. He has ASD sensory issues with food. This is not going to change. He's also growing very fast and does a sport that makes him very hungry. If I don't serve him a massive portion of carbs at least twice a day he will lose weight - he's skinny already. Acceptable carbs are extremely specific too. This is one of the biggest problems for DD unfortunately

I coped with my daughter being overweight by focusing on her teeth. I asked the dentist to talk to her and he obviously didn't mention her weight but he did say to her that he would see her in six months time but in the meantime he didn't want to have any fruit juice or soda or sweets. When he saw her the next time she was in that habit and had lost some weight.

@determinedtomakethiswork thats interesting I'll definitely consider this. She doesn't actually have that much sugar though, I think it's carbs that are the problem.

I can't currently find a form of exercise she enjoys but I know this would be the first thing to look at.

No, it wouldn’t. It’s the amount she eats that’s a problem, unless she’s about to start training for a marathon. Start with reducing portion sizes. She’s never going to need the portion sizes that her brother does. Women and girls generally can’t eat like teenage boys without putting on weight.

I was a fat kid in a skinny, hollow legged family (many years ago). If her brother has to eat carbs but she can't manage them as well, I'd suggest you explain that to her. Obviously your ds needs specific food arrangements but to her it possibly looks like brother gets whatever he wants and she doesn't. It is shit being the fat kid, don't fob her off.

@Corwen From the sounds of it, they way you have handled it so far is great. I understand your hesitation around booking the gp appt however, if your daughter has approached you about her weight and it's obviously bothering her, the most important thing you can do is have open, honest conversations. As long as the communication channels are open then your worry over eating disorders is far less.
I have a terrible relationship with food (to be fair it started when I was 4 and would hide my school lunch in my wardrobe instead of eating it, that carried on until I was 18 and met my now husband and moved out). one of my driving factors was how my parents 'brushed' my worries off. I am 25 now and have since spoken to them about the situation and they see what happened very differently to how I see it. They thought the way they were handling it was avoiding it being a big deal when it was already a big deal to me and I was desperate for help, I wanted and needed that support.
If she enjoys cooking lean in to that. Teach her about nutrition, exercise and all forms of health, including mental health because it's going to be mentally tough and if she is secret eating well that's already a mentality she needs help with.
Personally, I think diet and exercise should be a conversation in every home, regardless if people are young, old, healthy, unhealthy etc. It's just as important as hygiene, manners etc all the other things parents teach their kids so I don't know why it's become so taboo.
Your daughter knows you're on her side, it'll sadly be other kids that are making it a problem, better to get on top of it before she's in high school

Does your dd have access social media?

Ahh I see, apologies I didn’t consider that.

What are her portion sizes like? Can you give us an ideal of what typical meals are so maybe we can suggest tweaks for her?

@MrsMohi thank you this is very helpful

@GrazingSheep no absolutely no social media and very little screen time

Having struggled with my weight a lot while younger I honestly think portion sizes are a massive factor. I used to enjoy eating “until I was full” which looking back is a terrible habit

if the other child is insisting on (and needing) something that is really carb heavy that’s fine but it doesn’t mean she gets the same amount. He gets what he needs (within reason) and everyone else looks very carefully at their portion sizes. Don’t single her out, but single out the son if you have to.

That was me as a kid although I didn’t have open dialogue/feel able to share my concerns with my parents, so well done you.

I will say that as an adult I’m still fat and DO have disordered eating, so not doing anything isn’t necessarily going to avoid an eating disorder. Definitely, definitely help her (which it sounds like you will of course, so, great). She’s already sneaking food - that’s disordered eating.

Can you up your exercise as a family? Eg a weekend walk. Or go out for an evening walk 1:1 now that the evenings are lighter. Bet she’d love that 1:1 time.

i think you can treat your children differently and you need to get over that tbh. They are different people with different needs - why should your son’s pickiness be catered to but not your daughter’s issues? Just another perspective to think about.

As she enjoys cooking, can you get her to cook healthy balanced meals and help her understand nutrition more?

Can you all eat the same except ds so dd sees she’s eating the same as you? Also, get her fully involved in meal planning. Fill her plate with protein and veg and a little carbs then maybe build in a walk after dinner, just the two of you so she gets time with mum and exercise while letting food settle so she’s less likely to “need” dessert. Focus on healthy eating rather than a diet.

I would get her into rugby, she'll get fitter, gain friends but at the same time there is a role for every body type the strong and stocky are as valued in the scrum as the gazelle like are for running and scoring trys. It's a fabulous sport for girls self image.

Girls generally start in the younger age groups if they have siblings or parents that play or they join at Secondary age when they've had a taste of it at school so it's not like other sports where they've been doing it for years and years.

The girls game is generally slower than the boys and is considerably safer than it was in years gone by but if you are worried she can just do touch rugby without the contact. It's a cheap sport too we pay £70 for the year and training gear is heavily subsidised the only expense really is boots, mouth guards and in our case prescription sports glasses as you can't wear normal ones.

Why is what her brother eats affecting what she eats.
He can have whatever you think is appropriate. She doesn’t need to have the same does she? Surely she is old enough to understand the many differences between her and him.

@DrunkenElephant she is vegetarian but will eat pretty widely. Today she had half a brioche bun for breakfast as we were in a massive rush, then she had her packed lunch early as breakfast was too small - this was a flask of wholemeal pasta with a veggie bolognaise with loads of veg, soya mince and crumbled feta. I had the same it was yummy. She also had crisps because we have a once a week on Saturdays rule for crisps, and a pack of 3 dark choc rice cakes from pret. Water to drink. Later she had an M&S pasta salad with spinach and pine nuts (yes I know too much pasta but she'd seen her brother have one last week, got upset and I had said she could have one this week). Then we got home and had a big salad with asparagus and runny egg on top.

Typical school days will be breakfast: vegan Richmond sausages with fried egg and a piece of toast (this is part of my more protein campaign however I haven't managed to lose the piece of toast). Lunch: hot flask of something involving lots of veg, protein and either brown rice or brown pasta. Yoyo bear. Fruit. Tea: this is where it goes wrong as she will always want the chips/ pasta/ white bread that DS lives off.

@Usernamewassavedsuccessfully yes I think I'm just going to have to explain (again) that girls and women just can't eat like teenage boys can and not skirt round it and appease her

This is really interesting. OP, my DD is four years behind yours, with a massive appetite for carbs and no apparent off switch. She’s not currently overweight but headed that way. I’m terrified of her having her having an eating disorder and spend a lot of time weighing up obesity vs anorexia 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Rainallnight yes it's a hard one to weigh up! Both eating disorders and obesity are very debilitating if not deadly. Overall I'm more worried about causing an eating disorder or causing yoyo dieting than about obesity however her mentioning it means I can now have more direct conversations and hopefully that can help if I approach it right

It doesn’t sound like an awful diet to be honest (there’s certainly worse!), so portion size is probably the way to go. You can reduce her portions gradually without discussing it, especially if you increase the veg as you reduce the carbs. Don’t go as far as thinking carbs = bad though, they’re an important part of a healthy diet.

I’ve had similar discussions with my own DD, who has decided that she wants to “get rid of her tummy”. I’m all for supporting her to be healthy but I am scared of her going too far, or of feeling constantly miserable/ not good enough. I got quite blunt with mine when I noticed that she was trying to skip meals. I told her that I would help her make healthy choices but that I wouldn’t help her to do something harmful or unsafe. I got her involved in meal planning, she gets choice and control of what she eats, but I manage ingredients and portions.

It is so hard, because they need different things at different moments. One day your trying to coax them to eat because skipping breakfast and lunch isn’t healthy, a week later your suggesting that maybe a whole pack of custard creams after dinner isn’t really a great choice either. It is so difficult. I’m aiming for confidence boosting and gentle steering in the right direction, I hope that’s enough.

@SimpleJoys thanks yes. Tried reducing portions and she did lose some weight for a while (or grew out of it) but it then seemed to lead to secret eating and her obsessing about food. I decided I'd reduced them too much without adding enough protein - she's always eaten plenty of veg. I also felt I was always the one saying no to her and yes to her brother and that was causing a lot of resentment. So I kind of gave up on portion sizes and decided to feed her more healthy food in the hope it led to less ferreting around for snacks

Those are quite big meals unless the portions are tiny. She's having three full meals a day? Sausages and eggs and toast... I wouldn't be eating pasta for lunch after that breakfast...in fact I'd probably skip lunch.
If you really can't cut out the pasta ( I love it too) then cook, cool and pop in the fridge. Reheating it lowers its glycaemic index ..basically makes it healthier for not gaining weight.
Make the meals smaller, and be honest... if she's asking you to help her lose weight then help her stabilise and grow out of it. If she's needing plus size clothing then you do need to tackle it now. Exercise is great but it actually has minimal effect on weight loss (unless you are running marathons)
Her brother's food needs are not a reason to not help her tackle her weight... she's old enough to understand that what he needs and what she needs, are different.
Anorexia is always a worry, but it's fundamentally about control... I say that as a parent of a now adult child who has ARFID, ASD and has been hospitalised and tube fed when her weight hit critically low BMI. By you making healthy, consensual changes now, it is much less likely she will go down that path.

Yes, I agree we need to cut down on portions. Maybe if we can have open conversations about it now it won't lead to so much resentment and comparisons and secret eating

If she’s into cooking and cookery programmes can you ask her to research some new meals? Perhaps that way she can control a little of her weight loss.

Sausages aren’t great, neither is a fried egg. Can she come up with something else for breakfast that she would like that’s balanced. I’d say it’s not the toast here, potentially it’s the content of the sausages and the egg, particularly if fried in oil or butter. Toast is fine but make it whole meal. Small changes can make a big difference.