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.

And just to add I find it really interesting to hear from posters who went through weight struggles themselves as children/ teens. I was a dancer as a child/teen and was very slim and I have kept slim even though I'm quite sedentary nowadays by eating small portions. For me that's quite easy. I went in early with 'let's just reduce portion sizes, increase veg and protein and cut out sugar and white carbs' when Dd started to put on weight but it hasn't been so easy for her, and impossible for me to enforce now she is this age. I think it will be more a slower learning process where I'll have to support her to figure it out herself

Also comparing what other people eat or even what you eat just isn’t helpful as body types can vary so much even within a family. One Dd is short and curvy one is tall literally a head taller than her sister Both slim but the shorter one is going to need to be more careful than her sister yes not fair but the way it is.

What about doing a month long UPF-free family challenge? You could work on a meal plan together, get her excited to eat healthy and expand the family palate.

Also, re: the fake meats. There is really nothing healthy in them. We keep them as a treat meal.

What about a Fitbit and aim for 10000 steps a day together ?

Just reading through replies again.

borrow my doggie! Never heard of this she would LOVE it. And yes I agree part of the value of exercise is just that it's not time you're grazing or thinking about the next meal

breakfast muffins: never made these but will research. Aren't they stale by the end of the week though? That reminds me I've never made overnight oats and have been meaning to try this for myself. Just need to buy suitable leakproof pots as I leave v early and eat breakfast at work

@MattDamon yes I agree I don't like the vegan sausages. It was part of my 'increase the protein' strategy but perhaps they need to go. We are otherwise v low UPF so not much to change at home, however out and about is another story.

@fruitypancake she has a Fitbit actually but I've been very reluctant to set her goals, would much rather find something she finds enjoyable. Unfortunately I can absolutely not manage that many steps at the moment due to my own health issues and also time/ lifestyle constraints. But hopefully that will change in time... my work life gets less intense in the summer months

@TheaBrandt comparing anything personal is unhelpful and a recipe for unhappiness but I guess that's what you do when you're young. I used to do it a lot and it never led to anything good!

This is really tricky as she is at the age where a probable big growth spurt will be on the horizon and puberty can mean increased hunger to prepare for this. Fats are very important for growth and brain development so Greek yogurt, nuts, avocados etc. Perhaps change up some meal offerings without mentioning anything about eating ‘more healthy ‘ food. Don’t swap too many things for raw veg and salad as she is still growing. And also girls do need an increase in calories and will want to eat more ( it’s not just boys) I think you would be wise to tread carefully as Eating Disorders are sneaky and horrible.

I am a person who can't handle carbs, I was also a fat kid and am now a fat adult.

I'm doing really well losing weight by reducing, not eliminating, but reducing carbs.

I would recommend having pretty much the same meals but with small swaps, so if you're making spaghetti bolognaise then serve up a smaller portion of the spaghetti and add some green beans to fill out the plate and give a good low carb veg.

If making a roast, do some roasted broccoli and adjust the portions again so she has more of the broccoli and less of the potatoes

If making tacos have less taco shells and more filling in the shells she does have, cook some mushrooms or beans to add to her portion to make it more filling without changing the flavour.

If having a fried breakfast give her more of the mushrooms, beans, tomatoes, eggs and less of the bacon, sausage, hash brown, toast.

I was a little chubby at around 12. Looking back, my mum 'let me' do an active hobby (ice skating). I thought it was a treat. I think I remember the carby after-school snacks we had changing as they were 'too expensive.' No crisps, have an apple. That kind of thing. I just grew out of it as my height caught up to balance my weight. I was then quite a skinny teenager but I'm glad there was an intervention before puberty properly hit, and also that I didn't know about it.
I had another mildly chubby phase in my first year of university (living on toasties, vanilla lattes and wine) and was able to deal with it without getting funny about it, possibly because of the earlier experience.
I think it is most important to teach your daughter that it's not about a 'quick fix' as that's a way to get into disordered eating. It's a rebalance. You can discuss the unfair reality that teenage boys can eat like monsters and remain rail thin. Her needs are her own and nothing to do with her brother.
The practical side is that most neat carbs need to go to get a result so you need to explain what they are and suggest/get alternatives in for her.

I'd like to stay away from restrictions and instead teach her about intuitive eating and get her involved with making her food healthier - further reducing UPFs and increasing her wholefoods, you say she loves cooking so get her involved in some projects like making your own sourdough, kefir, and ferments growing some micro greens and herbs. Challenge her with getting as many vegetables as possible into a single dish. Find ways to make the food delicious as well of course. She might enjoy finding some recipes to try online.
This might be something that can make healthy eating something special for her that's not focused on her brother's needs.

@Rainallnight look up anorexia. It's not a case of weighing up obesity vs anorexia at all. You can be diagnosed anorexic but still be 'overwight'

You can freeze the muffins I believe, I’ll try and find the recipe we use.

You really sound like a great mum trying to tackle this head on.

This is excellent advice.

Thank you @DrunkenElephant

I like the idea of rebalance @rainbowbee

@Ratfan24 I am also feeling like staying away from restrictions and also not changing things with any sense of urgency. It's quite hard to improve on our UPF intake at home (save ditching the sausages). We actually grow a lot of food, cook everything from scratch including own sourdough, own yogurt, own pesto with fresh basil, we even made soft cheese at one point. We rehydrate beans and pulses and pressure cook them. Honey comes from the allotment.... but all of this seems to make for example an M&S packet of salad and a packet of crisps all the more desirable when we are out, and I can't bring packed lunches and say no to other stuff all the time without adopting a pretty extreme position in relation to her friends. She's out a lot both socially and for extra curricular activities.

anyway, lots of things to ponder on this thread and tweaks I can make fairly discreetly as well as having more discussions with her about body positivity and healthy habits

Meant to say M&S pasta salad.

we had (wholemeal) pasta again tonight 😂

Does she walk to school and back? Does she need so much protein if she’s not exercising? It’s very hard to get the balance right my dd has an ED. You are approaching it sensitively which is good . I would cut of the fried breakfast just give cereal and again it just seems like portion sizes from the sounds of it. I know if May upset her that she can’t have what her brother has but it’s tough you are doing it for her own good so you have to toughen up with that side of it.

@Whippetlovely we live on the same road as her school. So yes she does walk but not far! Not much scope for naturally increasing exercise. She loves cycling we will do that again as soon as I can manage it and it stops raining!

11 year olds really shouldn't lose weight but grow into their weight iyswim.

It's very normal for pre teens to gain weight as puberty requires a lot of energy to kick start it.

My dd was similar age 11, also said she wanted to be thinner and by age 14 had developed anorexia. If I knew then what I know now I'd have thrown the scales out and worked on my dds confidence.

The biggest risk factor for a child developing anorexia is weight loss which unfortunately most parents do not realise until it's too late.

Also meant to say, sorry your dd has an ED. It is so hard to get a balance especially when the world is full of UPFs and images of unrealistic women. My dd hasn't even started on being exposed to all that, she just wants to be thinner like the other girls at school and to have straighter hair. I also know from another girls' mum that her several of her friends are envious of DD's extracurricular skill and the attention she gets through it but she doesn't know that and wouldn't believe me if I told her. They all compare themselves negatively it seems 😞

@MattDamon yes I agree I don't like the vegan sausages. It was part of my 'increase the protein' strategy but perhaps they need to go. We are otherwise v low UPF so not much to change at home, however out and about is another story.

LOL. Richmond vegan sausages are not high in protein and neither they, brioche or rice cakes v low in UPF.

Can you show DD an eatwell plate aimed at children similar to this one and work together to meal plan?

@Citrusandginger Lol to you too! Fair cop on the Richmond sausages however if you had read my posts you'd know the brioche is probably only the second time she ever had it. I don't know if it's technically non UPF but it's got about 4 ingredients and it's from an eye wateringly expensive French bakery near where I work. I bought it because DS won't eat breakfast and fainted at school recently and we are trying to tempt him with soft beige foods as that's the most likely thing he'd go for. I'm not likely to keep buying it at that price. I don't actually think that further restricting 'bad' foods is helpful, it just makes them more attractive. Your plate diagram is very much how I already construct meals at home. Thank you though.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies thank you for sharing I am sorry your Dd is unwell too. I also had an ED for a time in my teens, mine was linked to (undiagnosed) autistic burnout. I am taking onboard what you've said.

But being overweight at school is as much a contributing factor, if not more. You're not saving her by not engaging. Trust me, this was my mum's philosophy and I still have very disordered eating decades later.

I really appreciate it feels stuck between a rock and a hard place so it's great you're taking action.

Diet is so much more crucial than exercise but
one thing I wish I'd had growing up was couch to 5k. I couldn't run very far at all and it is very embarrassing being a fat kid. Do it together and build her stamina.