Help - overweight DS

[MessyNDepressy]

I’m looking for help/advice with my 12 year old DS. He has never been a skinny child but he started to gain more weight after starting high school and having more freedom and he’s now slightly overweight. He is around 5ft 6 (maybe slightly taller) and is just over 60kg which puts him at the 91st centile on the NHS website. I don’t particularly care about the figures etc but I can tell it’s starting to get to him.

You wouldn’t think it looking at him with good fitting clothes on but he carries weight around his torso - he’s got a bit of a belly, some rolls and if I’m being honest, moobs 😞. Obviously in PE at school they have to change and I know he’s been getting a bit of abuse for it which breaks my heart. He doesn’t want to go back to school after the holidays and I know this is a big part of why. His legs/arms/face are absolutely fine and he’s actually pretty fit. He plays sports 4-5 times a week and is fitter than at least half of the skinnier boys on his team. He also goes to the gym a couple of times a week (just recently started) and is pretty strong.

Normally breakfast is a couple of boiled eggs with a bagel and apple juice or tea (no sugar, green milk), a bowl of Cheerios (a massive bowl tbf) or three weetabix. Lunch at the moment is generally two ham and cheese wraps (wholemeal), baked potato and cheese or leftover pasta dishes with a yoghurt and some fruit/veg (cucumber/tomatoes etc). Dinner is usually some kind of pasta dish served with a side salad, maybe pizza once a week, sometimes chicken dippers/waffles/veg for a quick meal. Snacks are fruit (favorites are currently blueberries and watermelon, yoghurts (Aldi split pots), digestive biscuits, croissants/pan au chocolate, oat biscuits - not all in the one day obviously, spread over the week. He does have maybe a muffin or a cake or something a few times a week and sometimes he will have a Greggs or a McDonalds, maybe once a fortnight. School lunches are hard as he goes out and buys his own - I think it’s generally salt and chilli chips or noodles or something pretty unhealthy. He doesn’t really like fizzy juice and drinks a lot of water. He stays with his dad a few times a week and I’m not able to discuss what he eats there. Also goes away every few months for the weekend with family where I know he eats a tonne of crap (like 2.5 tubs of Ben and Jerries this weekend) but it’s not a regular thing.

Can anyone give any advice on if I’m doing anything wrong or could do better? I’m not a great cook, I hate cooking but I will take any advice on board although I don’t want to restrict him as he always seems to be hungry as it is. Or has anyone else’s son been a bit like this and it’s changed naturally? He’s not really hit puberty yet other than a few hairs on his legs and armpits. I am 5 foot 8 and most of the males across both sides of the family are over 6 foot tall - is he likely to just lose it if he takes a stretch? I’ve always been naturally skinny so I don’t understand what he’s going through but my heart breaks for him. He’s such a lovely kid and I know how cruel other kids can be. Wish I could just click my fingers and make it better for him.

All I would do here is suggest he cuts out the takeaways and maybe cuts the muffins down..
The thing is if he's actually pretty fit he may slim out as he hits puberty. It doesn't sound that he's overweight according to bmi? I'm the same height and weigh .ore than that! I weighed that as a teen at the same height and was a uk size 8.. and that was before vanity sizing..
So I'm not sure you should be trying to cut back too much as he's a growing lad doing lots of exercise. It could just be that he's destined go be tall and muscular. You could try upping protein? Use protein bagels, eggs, chicken, ham..
But the suggestions on cutting down on food in general I think are a bad idea as he's not actually overweight and is about to hit puberty. All your saying here is that he's not as skinny as some of the other kids.. but that may just be his body type that he's growing into.

He's 12! He doesn't need a PT and calorie counting. He may be about to have a growth spurt. Chances are what's happening isn't at your house. Can you ask what he eats at dad's in a non-obvious way?

Are people still spouting this rubbish?

Do you know almost a quarter of children are obese at the end of primary school, and that's just England alone?

This is typical Mumsnet.

A mother very sensibly wants to prevent her 12 year old adding to the even worse statistics when he's older, but 'in all likelihood it'll even out' 🙄

Muffins etc pain au chocolat should be cut

Massive amount of calories for zero nutrition

Maybe the weight will drop off as he grows but it is important to subtly set good habits and choices while he is still under your roof. I say this as I realised that my kids have portions of sweet treats that are just too large and frequent. They were also snacking between meals, then not eating full meal when it was served. I am trying to backtrack without causing a complex or causing them to secretly stash/binge. Starting with giving them a “good” snack or serving food earlier when possible.
Can you sneak in extra exercise (let’s take a walk /bike ride to ..the shops, post box , aunties house , swimming pool, park, school. Ditch transport as much as possible, try and keep him moving, offer healthy snacks (veg sticks, cheese , other proteins) before he reaches for other snacks. Make sure all meals have carbs, veg and protein and add extra veg/salad to fill the plate. Does he cook with you?, seeing the ingredients can help to understand the nutritional content and calories in food items. My DC know that every meal should have carbs, protein and veg, if they leave something, I tell them that they haven’t eaten much e.g protein and why they need it. Has worked a treat so far, cleaner plates all round.
It doesn’t sound like he particularly overeats. Can you discretely calculate calories in versus calories used (plenty of apps). I was surprised to find that my calories used was much lower than the average women (wfh, short height, moderate excercise, middle aged). Helped me shift a few pounds just by slightly reducing portion sizes and cutting out notionally empty foods like crisps, sugary cereals, beer.
I note he is doing regular sports but maybe these aren’t intensive or prolonged?

9 and a half stone for 5 foot 6 doesnt sound bad though

I'm 5'6" and weigh 9.5 stone and I'm not overweight at all. Are your measurements right?

Look at the studies done regarding putting children on calorie controlled diets. It causes more harm than good unless the child is already obese. Putting kids on restrictive diets is actually shown to INCREASE the liklihood of obesity in adult life.
Obviously general healthy eating amd a good amount of activity should be encouraged..but children shouldn't be trying to lose weight. Just encouraged to have a healthier approach with more movement and less sugary snacks. And it's not nonsense that often some kids will appear slightly chubby looking just before they hit puberty.

Get him doing more exercise. Only way and reduce food

Who's talking about putting kids on restrictive diets?

Use your imagination, there are plenty of ways to make his food intake healthier without doing that.

Again, more Mumsnet silliness.

You could keep an eye on portion control. 2 wraps is 350 calories before you even start adding the cheese. Pasta, oven chips, cheese are all things you can easily eat twice as much of as you think. But I'm only saying this be ause you specifically asked for ideas. There's every chance it's stuff he's eating at his dad's or at school.

I wouldn't be too worried at 12 anyway, he could well be prepping for a growth spurt and stretch out. Also could the moobs be gynaecomastia? Very common in puberty and normally resolves by itself.

What an appallingly unhelpful and judgemental comment

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. I definitely don’t want to start calorie counting or dieting or anything like that, I just want to introduce healthier food and hopefully guide him to make healthier choices. He is really into his sport so hopefully looking at it from that point of view will help a lot.

I will swap bagels for wholemeal toast for breakfast or weetabix/shreddies/porridge and cut out the apple juice, although he doesn’t have that often. I will need to look at better lunch/dinner options - like I said I am definitely not a cook so that’ll be a bit of a learning curve for us both. We have probably had more takeaways etc than usual over the past few months as I have been struggling a lot with my mental health and it’s just been easier. I will cut this down to once a month which will be much better for my bank account too. He goes out for school lunches although he has limited funds so there’s only so much he can buy. I don’t want to stop him going out as all his friends do and I don’t want to ostracize him.

Would it be worth changing to low fat cheese/butter/whole grain pasta? Are things like Activia yoghurts healthier?

Can anyone recommend healthy snacks other than fruit/veg? I know not snacking would be the best way forward but realistically he is a growing pre teen and I think he would struggle with zero snacks. We have a shop, Greggs, take away and cafe 2 minutes away from us and he has his own money so I don’t want him being hungry at home and just going there and hiding it from me instead. I thought I could maybe give him a snack basket with healthier options and when it’s done for the week it’s done? Obviously things like fruit and veg etc will always be available. Are there such things as healthy biscuits? Is popcorn healthy?

In terms of exercise he has three two hour + training sessions a week plus two one hour skill specific sessions. He also does a good hour or so at the gym for twice a week. He does work hard and it’s quite intensive but he probably doesn’t move enough outwith of this. He does walk home from school but they are on summer holidays just now.

Sorry for all the questions, if I’m being honest I’ve never had to worry about what I eat at all due to a good metabolism, as long as I’m eating fruit and veg I eat whatever I want so a lot of this is very new for me. It will be a bit of a learning curve for us both but I’m sure small changes will help him and can only be good for me. Unfortunately I’m not able to have this conversation with his dad, I have tried before and he has became abusive so I just have to hope that DS will learn better habits and stick with them.

I dont think you need to calorie count at all. Or resort to low fat stuff.
Healthy non UPF snacks:
nuts
cheese slices ( not Babybel)
Greek yoghurt with berries or a bit of honey
Sugar free peanut butter

I don't think biscuits are healthy unless home made but a child should certainly be able to have some! Mine certainly do. Perhaps just keep a watch on how many.

Well done OP - the good news is that he's not hugely overweight so a few relatively minor changes will make him healthier, and probably help him shed a bit of that weight.

I also think, if he's hungry, rather than snacks, light meals in between are better - so around here that's things like sourdough toast with peanut butter, or a couple of fishfingers in the air fryer then into a wrap or those leftover waffles from breakfast I mentioned earlier. He might make a chicken or cheese toastie sometimes too. Actually, overall, the airfryer can be useful - sometimes I make and freeze (or buy pre-made from the supermarket) things like little tarts/pies that can just be cooked straight from frozen in the airfryer. Again, they're not necessarily low calories, but they're far more filling, with nutrition, and less likely to have him eating sweets/chocolate.

Very occasionally I'll make muffins and my view is that for a growing, active, teenage boy a homemade muffin, even if it does have a bit of sugar in it, is fine. Similarly, I make oat bars which are packed with nutrition so I'm not getting worked up about a little bit of sugar for this demographic. (the oat bars are super easy if you'd like a recipe and you can freeze them which is handy).

More "snacky" things - definitely popcorn is a better choice than crisps or sweets.

Also, is he going into year 8? I just remembered that Ds put a bit of his weight back on in Year 7 because of the freedom to eat whatever he liked at school but then lost it pretty quickly when he realised that the canteen pizza or meatball sub for lunch every day wasn't a great choice! Also, although he was active, he hadn't quite got to the point of being out and about for hours with buddies which has now kicked a lot more - they roam a bit further on bikes/skateboards, they get together with bigger groups etc. eg they went to an amusement park last weekend - at 12, I wouldn't have allowed that without me, but now me and the other parents were okay with it. Which means a day out roaming around the park and generally being abit more active vs sitting on their butts watching a screen.

I agree about the odd homemade muffin or flapjack doing no harm if OP has time.

I cut down on all bad carbs for my lad and upped protein and fruit and nuts.

Whole grain pasta is definitely better, and full fat dairy. Only buy plain yogurt and have fruit, oats (not instant) seeds and honey to add. This all has fiber to fill him up and cultivate good gut bacteria. If you can get a bread machine and use wholemeal spelt flour it's a lot better than bagels or cereal.

Unfortunately he eats a lot of unhealthy food but there's only so much you can with lunches and his dad.

oh have a day off.

Ask 99% of people with disordered eating where it started, they will say childhood. As parents we have a duty to educate our children on nutrients our body needs, however calories & discussions around a child being overweight can be detrimental.

no child has completed growing. A child needs education on nutrition not a diet camp.

I'm reading with interest as I was going to post the same thing. My ds has become fat. There's no polite way of putting it. He had a little rounding of his stomach for a while but now he has rolls of fat when sitting down and moobs. I feel like I work really hard at this, I cook from scratch almost every day, never get takeaways, don't keep chocs or crisps in the house. But I've left my eye off the ball somehow about how much he is eating. He admits he never feels full and does very little activity. I can't see the activity levels changing too much so we really need to address the diet. I witnessed a family member become obese as a child and saw how my family claimed they would just grow out of it, while we all had access to cupboards of treats and massive portions of every meal, praised for asking for doubles. My sibling is morbidly obese now. Doing nothing and putting your head in the sand is what a negligent parent would do. This absolutely has to be addressed ASAP and taken extremely seriously. Allowing your child become obese is like giving them a disability. I move mountains in other ways to make the best life for him but have allowed this happen which could affect him physically and emotionally for life. I'm so embarrassed but am planning a major overhaul for everyone as this can't go on.

Why do you keep highlighting the word child?
Childhood obesity is a problem and tip toeing around it doesn’t help anyone. There are sensitive ways of addressing it but basically calling it puppy fat and saying all will be fine is not helpful to the OP or her son who is getting picked on to the point he doesn’t want to return to school.

No one seems to acknowledge puppy fat on MN.

My son was like this. By 14 he was 6ft and ultra thin. I nearly took him to the gp. He stretched out as they all do. He’s 6ft 5 now and still very slim.

I used to be a teacher. I’d teach quite a lot of chubby little boys in years 7 and 8. Then l wouldn’t see them until Y10, and they’d have grown about 2 feet and lost all the plumpness. Time and time again.

Is it because they suddenly shoot up and lose puppy fat? Or is it because they adopt different habits as they want to fit in with their peers? Teenager years is the time when children want to be part of their peer group. The fact this boy is distancing himself is a big worry in my opinion

You only mention fruit and a side salad in your example. I'd try really hard to get him on board with increasing veg intake. The veg is high volume to calorie so should reduce the amount of less healthy things he can eat. Challenge him to eat 5 portions of veg a day. Get him involved in cooking veg based meals, it has the added bonus that if you hate cooking, he could take on a couple of nights a week! If your dislike of cooking to holding you back look for things like the frozen diced onion, or cubes of butternut squash etc to take away some of the prep.

How often does he buy his lunch on a school day, the takeaway options you list could easily be adding a huge amount of calories. I appreciate you want him to be in with his mates but maybe look at the places he's going to and work out if there are any healthier options you could guide him toward. Or could he take a packed lunch and go with them to buy a sugar free drink or something.

Regardless of whether he losses the weight in a growth spurt, some of his current choices aren't going to be healthy going on, so breaking those habits now, will help him staying healthy in the future.

It’s because they shoot up.

Teens inhale crap. Even when it’s banned they sell it to each other in school.

Highlighting the word child because we are talking about one. I agree childhood obesity is an issue & I’m saying adults need to be sensitive about how it’s dealt with.

children grow taller all the time, so weight can fluctuate. 5ft 6, 60kg For an adult is deemed a healthy weight…and for a child the 91st centile, so 1 centile over “normal weight” so we’re not talking about obesity are we?????