Obese 11yr old son

[singingismypassion]

We have an obese 11yr DS. Neither my DH or myself are over weight.

DS is over active although being at a private school he plays a lot of school sport plus-
Archery, Judo and riding once a week
Hockey on a sat am
Rugby on a sun am

You would think he would be quite fit however, he doesn't actively run around and get stuck in.. i feel we have tried everything.

I don't buy snacking food, we eat healthily but he does take food behind our backs ie peanut butter on bread. Craves carbs and many sweet treats.

I know the obvious thing is to not have any thing tempting but inferno have stopped buying a lot already.

I am now considering a personal trainer once a week...

Any useful bits of advice?

Ps I work full time and v long hours, we live rurally which can pose problems.

Mrs Pear - what an unhelpful, judgemental comment.

Isn't it easy to be nasty behind a computer screen...

I'm surprised the school makes junk food available through the day. Most kids will choose the rubbish stuff over healthy. Perhaps speak to the school.
And lots of kids don't love school. I would think many 11 year olds would prefer gaming at home to going to school.
A young chatty personal trainer might be a good thing to get him on track to better fitness, if there is one around where you are. He needs to lose the weight and get fitter. How tall are you and his DF? Might he shoot up soon? Being good at a sport, or at least being able to play something reasonably, is a great way to meet people when you are left school and friendships are fewer. Squash? tennis? It's much harder to learn a sport when you are adult. Lack of time for one.

Does he take any cash to school? If so I’d stop that ASAP, from my experience high schools are not supportive as primary in assisting with healthy eating choices. there’s also a local shop, vending machines & school tuck shop which are full of kids buying sweets & crisps.
Even if he doesn’t take money his friends might do, and buy a load of crap and share it. My DS has a friend who takes £5 a day for the shop !! My DS put a huge amount of weight of by year 8 due to this. You need to have a chat about healthy eating and good choices as he’s responsible for his own eating at high school.

Sounds to me like he is comfort eating as he is feeling so miserable at school combined with having no friends. How rural do you live? Are there any other children in the local area?

Is there a sport you can take up together? Would you/ his dad go running with him?

Other than that, it’s portion size, I would think. Unfortunately there’s little you can do about what he eats at school.

Would doing a food diary help to find out where the problem is?

When we became concerned about DD's weight gain we decided to do a total food diary for a week. In that week absolutely everything she ate/drank would be recorded. We wanted to see if there was a problem we were missing.

In her case it proved to be simple. The culprit was a 'no added sugar' drink which she had free access to. On close examination (different country, different labelling laws) this drink turned out to be a total calorie bomb.

With her agreement she hugely cut down the amount of that drink she was having and the extra weight melted away across a very few months.

I was an obese child at age ten. No-one else in my family was overweight. The problem was portion sizes. My mum gave me the same size dinners as my fifteen and sixteen year old siblings!! I lost it all when I reached 13 by starving myself as I didn't now any better. Now i know better and excerise every day. Could you cut back on the club's and use that money on a personal trainer? He would make sure he excerised and teach him about how to eat healthly. I reckon five times a week for six months, would really help him kick start his healthy living. If he still likes him after the six months, he could drop it down to twice a week. It would probably make him feel more confident to start running by himself. Get someone friendly thats worked with kids though. Good luck.

I would be making an appointment with a dietitian who can give you advice on portion sizes for his age, healthy menus and snacks. It’s easy for people on here to tell you to make your child go low carb or sugar free but he is a small child so don’t do anything without medical advice

What is his height /weight? Has the GP offered any support or suggestions?

When is the worst time for his snacking? As a child I was always ravenous when I got home from school. Is he sneaking food then? Are you able to offer alternative snacks at that point? Do you all sit down together for dinner in the evening?

Is he happy at school? A couple of things you have said suggest that he might not be, and I wonder if you need to encourage an honest discussion with him about his feelings, and whether he wants to look at changing schools, which at his age he could do without too much disruption to his education. So much of the time being overweight is ultimately not about too much food or lack of exercise, rather these are symptoms of unhappiness or distress.

Take him swimming.

It’s important this gets sorted out before he gets stretch marks that will ruin his confidence during and beyond puberty.

Ok..
Let's get a few things straight.
I actually work at the school my son attends so I am with him.
He attends a private school, no packed lunches allowed, no unhealthy snacks given, most food is totally homemade.
DS doesn't run around at break times instead he sits on benches or walks around outside
Yes, he has seen an Ed psych. He has slow processing. No other problems
If you met him you would love him! All adults love him.

I am going to reduce portions.
I've stopped buying bread
I am going to tackle how much he plays on his PS4
We will walk the dogs more every evening
I am going to reduce y working hours
We have been buying Mindful chef food for a few months but that hasn't made a difference either ...

Sounds like he is comfort eating. My DS went through a phase of that. He was buying those 5 packs of baked-in-store cookies from Sainbury for £1. Each cookie has about 300 calories in it! If he ate three of them on the way home from school, that is 900 cals on a single snack.

I agree that you need to give him a lot of love and attention.
Spend time at weekends doing active stuff together - cycling, swimming etc. Find out if he actually enjoys rugby and the other sports he's only partially participating in or just does it because he has to.

Spend as much time building his self esteem and social confidence as you do on exercise. NEVER say he's fat or you're concerned about his weight. If he raises it, just say he's probably due a growth spurt, but that if he's concerned maybe he could drink more water and eat more veg and watch out for trashy snacks. But emphasise that he doesn't need to lose weight, just grow into his weight.

Keep healthy snacks available at home: I used to make big bowls of popcorn (no fat just stir the kernels till they pop) and sprinkle them with paprika and salt. DS could graze on a bowl without eating too many calories, and it is very filling.

One of DS1s friends is obese. He is also a national level sportsman and very popular. Being overweight doesn't mean his life will automaically be difficult. Obviously he's better off being a healthy weight, but he needs to believe that whatever his weight, he can thrive and succeed in life.

OP I crossed posts with you. I see you are saying that he doesn't comfort eat unhealthy foods, so ignore that part of my post.

for goodness sake hes 11.really on the cusp of that chubby>>>>zoom goes the growth spurt.my cousins and borther were the same and we tried to get good fruit and veg in them.watch the other stuff but DO NOT MAKE THIS AN ISSUE.hes alreay struggling with himself without giving him a weight and food complex..
maybe you could say as a family you are going to be trying more fruit and veg.or different meals etc.
help him feel good about himself emotionaly.build that up andhe will build the love and wanting to look afte himself too.
please don't go sugar or carb free.these a re vital for him especially this age it just needs to be in balance.
to get males especaily through puberty they need all the good fats and carbstheir moods will be going too an fro enough without having food groups taken from them.
could you get him involved in cooking.
hes 11 so could even be choosing some meals or sides to cook.this will be a help.

DONT STOP BUYING BREAD.

I'd also really try and tackle the unhappiness at school OP

Glad you are going to tackle the issue as per your reply.
A slice of proper wholemeal (not brown) bread a day is fine. Works out at about 60-70 cals, then a small amount of good peanut butter like Whole Earth or Meridian. That’s a healthy snack, but in moderation.
If you think his gut flora is bad you can give him probiotics - google the good ones.
My DS has always been super/skinny but I still provide relatively healthy food at home - I cant control what he eats with his friends when out but in normal term time that’s 1-2 meals a week I suppose, not 21. It’s the same body inside - heart health, teeth etc.
At 11 your son has a couple of years before puberty will hit in force and he will grow upwards and shed some of the weight naturally, but not all. Those who were bigger when I was at school in the first year of secondary were still big at the end of GCSEs.

Look at his gut health. It is way more important for digestion than people realise.

Bimuna is a brilliant probiotic powder you can give him to help feed the good bacteria in his gut which will in tern help his digestion system no end.

Don't pay a PT, I'm one, and I have to say that if it is his diet, and he is already active, there is nothing a PT is going to be able to do for an hour a week that is going to significantly change his weight.

Why don’t you post a typical weekly food menu, that way people may be able to provide ideas to tweak it slightly.

You said you work 'very long hours'. So where is your son after school whilst you are working every day?

You said it will be virtually impossible to stop him eating sugar at school, yet you later say it's all homemade healthy food?

Is this private school the right environment for a child like him?

This thread is full of pulp media fuelled nutribollox with no scientific merit and you should really ignore all the mell meaning but, frankly, terrible advice.

No person can give you accurate advice as we don't know what the medical history of your son is or a record of his previous weights and heights are. The first point of call you should make is with a GP or paediatrician. Next, have a consultation with an accredited dietician with a real degree from a good institution (not a hack with a purchased degree).

What needs to be tackled is the reason for the obesity - is it psychological, medical, or just carelessness. You won't get answers to those questions on-line and you could actually do more harm by incorrect draconian measures.

I would try and give him lots of protein rich food and reduce carbs (without telling him what I'm doing). I find it hard to snack if I've had a 3 egg omelette for breakfast as its so filling. I assume you don't give him sugary drinks.

It's hard OP. My 12 year old was overweight for three years.
We don't really eat processed food and I cook everything from scratch, but we do have a some biscuits and some crisps around and he was basically hiding food in his room as well as buying extra stuff from school.

I was also overweight at the same age, although I'm a size 8-10 now and my other children are thin as is DH.

We've got his weight down to a "healthy" in the BMI (although I think he still carries a bit too much around his tummy) by doing the following..

1. We had a complete check with the GP and saw a dietician (she wasn't very helpful as his diet was already pretty good, but it re-assured me). We also saw a private "nutritionist" who was dire and tried to get him to eat lots of GF crap.

1. Physio check as he was having some foot and knee pain, he now does physio and has insoles which help with activity levels. We are considering an Op for his feet for a foot condition he has.

1. I explained to him that some people cannot eat much sugar (I don't eat any sugar, except in wine as it makes me put on weight). I make very low sugar cakes at the weekend for him to eat occasionally.

1. We tried some pro-biotics (which made no difference, but it's worth a try)

1. I think exercising every day does help, especially if energy levels are low at school. He sees a PT once a week.

It is difficult for them, especially when they see friends gorging on entire packets of biscuits (which DH can seemingly do).

Hello OP, I also have an obese DS aged 11.( and a 6'2" teenager without an ounce of fat, my BMI is 22 so healthy enough).
After the year 6 school weigh in, we were lucky to get a referral to a council-run healthy lifestyle course. Go to your GP and ask what is available and commit to it- you may have to take time off work to attend with your son - ours ran from 4-6pm one day a week for 8 weeks. One hour's games for the kids with a fitness instructor while parents learned about portion control, healthy snacks, etc with an NHS dietitian. Then one hour making healthy food and doing food based activities with the children.
In all honesty, it didn't tell me much I didn't know theoretically BUT it really forced me to focus honestly on the issue and TAKE ACTION! He was having too much apple juice, too much sugar, too large portions. Their focus was not to count calories or to lose weight, but hopefully maintain weight as they grow taller.
A year on, I actually do find it easier to count calories. A very very broad guideline for a sedentary boy of that age bracket is about 1600-1800 calories to maintain weight.
Write down EVERYTHING he eats and drinks for a week then tot up the calories.( I use MyFitnessPal app for myself but just a notebook for DS.) Weigh everything eg 70g of dry pasta is a good portion size, DS used to have much more... It takes LOTS of time to do this initially but DS tends to eat the same things quite often so you can build up a record of how many calories in favourite meals. You might be shocked how many calories he is consuming.
I did this calorie counting without my son knowing at first, but he actually started to take an interest and now it motivates him. If he does 5 days out of 7 on 1600 cals, he gets £5 of digital currency!!
It doesn't have to be miserable - they can still have a treat every day- popcorn, certain ice lollies ( not icecream!), malt loaf or M&S do 125 cals tube of chic raisins for a big treat.., then they don't feel too hard done by.
Sport/ activity is great for health but weight is all about eating! I'm so hoping his growth spurt will sort it out but in the mean time it's a daily effort for both of us. Best of luck