DDs obsession with other people's attractiveness now stopping her going away with friends

[Caniegi]

Hi, my eldest DD is 18, in Y13. Her friendship dynamic is a bit complicated but she has 3 very close friends, they tend to tag onto a bigger group of 6 quite often for parties and shopping etc. within that 6 there are 2 more distinct friendship groups.
DD is a little overweight, not insanely but it's noticeable. She eats well but doesn't like being active for the life of her. She really beats herself up over this but never enough to actually do anything about it. She's obviously beautiful regardless but this is something she struggles to see.
In the wider group one of the subgroups of 3 are in DDs mind made up of Greek goddesses. 2 girls and a guy who she believes are the most beautiful people to have ever walked earth. She will show me their instagram posts and mention it non stop. I've met all three of them and they are super lovely, sweet people and I agree all above average on looks, but that's mainly a game of luck and them all being more active than DD.

Now they are planning a trip, originally it was going to be DDs 3 close friends and the other 3 from the wider group, so not the 3 DD seems to worship. 7 days in Malia after A-Levels. DD was already apprehensive as Malia has a reputation for being a bit sleazy and she claims she hasn't even kissed a boy yet. But she wanted to go anyway was they were planning other stuff than just drinking.

Now the other 3 are also joining, 1 only for 5 days the others for the full thing. DD is now adamant she can't go, she can't be in a bikini
In front of them, they will think she's a "whale". I told DD this wouldn't be the case, I've met them, they are very sweet.
All day today she was crying and upset about it and hid in her room. Then at 9 one of the girls from the 3 that threaten DD knocked the door, she said she was on her way home from her job and was worried about DD and could they have a chat.
They went in the snug and chatted I could hear the whole conversation. The girl was telling DD she is absolutely should go and she's beautiful and they can go shopping together to find clothes that make her feel confident. DD was doing the same "no I'll look like a whale beside you" rant. The girl kept insisting but after 40 min she had to go and DD was still adamant she wouldn't go.

AIBU to ask how do I help DD? Her self confidence is so low and now despite her friends pleading for her to go she won't. The girl offered more than once for her to not go if that would make DD feel more confident and apologised to DD if she's ever made her feel judged as she absolutely hasn't meant to. But I know from DD that she hasn't made her feel judged DD just puts her on a pedestal.
AIBU thinking DD is being a bit of Martyr and to feel like this all impossible?
I'm worried about her but when she won't listen to her friends or me what do I do?

Beautiful Girl sounds really sweet!

While this is awful for DD and she could really do with some counselling around her over-prioritisation of appearances and poor self-image, the fastest approach guaranteed to lead to a happy holiday is for her to tone up! What's putting her off? If it's fear of being the whale at the gym or pool, that's obviously a symptom of her disordered thinking - but, sticking with practicalities, she can find plenty of alternatives that don't put her "on show" until she's trimmer.

Off the top of my head, there are videos to work through at home and things like Zumba classes, where she can wear a baggy tracksuit and dance with older women who have housewife bodies. She can go jogging in a baggy outfit. Weights and/or fighting would be great, but only if there's a gym of the workmanlike variety; she doesn't need to work out with Instagrammers in full makeup pouting their bums at cameras 😆

As a teenager, I felt an imperative to be beautiful at all times - and also felt I wasn't. I ended up with severe anorexia. I'm so sad for the young woman that I was, constantly falling short of some absurd ideal I had imposed on myself. I had counselling, but only to stop myself starving. I didn't address the underlying sense of inadequacy or the 'beauty' criterion until much later in life; if this persists in DD, I do recommend some proper therapy sooner rather than later.

Back on the short-term plan: do you exercise? Would you do it with DD to get her started?

Finally, I can't be bothered to make a meme, so have a headline instead 😉

SUPER-FIT BEATS SUPERFICIAL!

Oh, OP. That sounds so hard.

Honestly? I don’t think there’s much you can do. Just keep being supportive and maybe therapy. Do some nice exercising together? Walks etc? Doesn’t need to be Iron Man!

If you want to go down the extreme route (which my mum did with me, and it helped me - but not sure it would help others) you can be brutally honest and say: ‘you’re going to lose your friends if you keep focussing on your appearance and comparing yourselves to them. No one wants to be friends with someone who focusses so much on the superficial and no one wants to spend their lives building up the confidence of someone who won’t listen. They are your friends, not your therapists.’ Which is 100% true - it’s tedious and after a while really does drag your friends down…but it’s a gamble telling that to a teenager! It IS true though. Your DDs friends sound lovely, but there will come a time where this just gets too much for them…

Honestly I think it's time for a bit of sense knocking into her. I don't think sympathy over her obsession with looks is helping 1. Her self esteem or 2. Her treatment of others.

She's now made another girl feel so uncomfortable about the way SHE looks that she's considering not going on holiday with her friends.

She sounds like terribly hard work. She’s going to
lose those lovely friends if she’s not careful.

Personally, I would go the harsh route with her and tell her she's being ridiculous and her friends love her for who she is. I'd also say if you're unhappy, you either need to change it or make peace with it and life is what you make it. If she wants to miss out on a girly holiday then that's up to her but she needs to stop making her friends feel bad about it and she'll regret it when she's old.

I would tell DD truthfully that she’s too old to be carrying on like that. It’s way too much thinking and talking about herself, even if it’s not boastful. In particular, the talk of the other girl offering not to go should be shut down very sharply.

She really needs a proper talk about either, she needs to eat better, exercise more and lose the weight or she needs to be happy and confident as she Is. She can't complain and do nothing.

I think everyone us feeding this far too much with long persuasive talks.

teen years are difficult with all the changes and becoming more aware of themselves, both socially and physically. I agree with others about pandering to her emotions. I would point out that the longer she continues this, the more attention she draws to herself, and not in a good way. Practical solution- if she won’t go to the gym, get her a Fitbit or similar, aim to do 10000 steps a day, you could do this together. Make sure meals are healthy, reduce snacks, replace with fruit. The bit of excess weight should shift. Going to the gym is the other solution, perhaps pair up with friends.

If she doesn't want to go they should all respect that and stop trying to force her

Being active is good for your health, but it has a very limited effect on your weight. I would recommend not making food a thing, but cook healthier meals, don’t buy unhealthy snacks etc.

Can you afford counselling?

Food will make a bigger impact of she wants to lose weight, but exercise is important for mental health.

She clearly needs therapy for her anxiety and body dysmorphia.

But she also seems to be getting a lot of attention when she breaks down over her size.

I would try and stear away from those conversations. It'll be feeding a cycle.

Ypu cannot outrun a bad diet! Weight loss is more about diet than exercise, so maybe she needs to approach weight loss from that angle.
H I wever this isn't really about weight , it is about self-esteem.
I se ond the idea of a therapist

Regardless of how she looks it seems
her friends don’t care and just want to spend time together. Being this needy will start to lose her friends. My step daughter is a younger teen and has lost quite a few friends through being too difficult and needy (not relating to weight/body confidence). She is in a support group to help with this so she can learn how to maintain a friendship and not drive people away.

Do not tell her to go to a gym or to get fit (even if it is healthy), because that is reinforcing that she is overweight, and that it isn’t okay. Also, don’t tell her she is being a drama queen or a baby or any such thing. Don’t blame her for how she feels. But I do agree with others that you can tell her she needs to address the fact that this is impacting how she feels about herself so detrimentally, she needs some support from a counsellor. Finishing A-Levels is a really terrifying transition for many, and she clearly needs support with self image and self esteem, and with rebalancing the importance/impact of physical appearance (even if she isn’t wrong that society prioritises it, just not to the extremes she is). I think the tricky thing is accepting what you look like and what you don’t, particularly at that age. But you could tell her that in terms of relationships and love it doesn’t actually matter because there isn’t a causal connection between looks and happiness, and there isn’t a causal relationship between looks and love because ultimately compatibility and happiness is about so much more that looks. But it may be best not to get into that right now. I think you should do what you can to get her counselling.

Could you make a plan together? right DD, the trip is in June, that’s 3 months away. Let’s book the trip and in those 3 months we’ll follow a super healthy eating plan together and do couch 2 5 k. If you really can’t face it by June then you don’t have to go. (not sure how pricey the trip is or if any of it would be cancellable last min?)

Agree with pp that people are FAR more likely to judge her for her obsession with her weight/looks than for her actual weight/looks.

What would it take for your DD to feel confident about her body? Can you and she try to get to the bottom of that and help her achieve it.

As a teenager I didn't like being active, but once I made the connection about moving and how it made me feel strong and proud of my body and more confident you couldn't stop me from being active.

Can you find some kind of activity that will give her this feeling - maybe not exercise but something that will get her moving out and about in the world like dancing, wild swimming or decorating her bedroom how she'd like it - something she'll enjoy and not really realise it's activity but still get all the good, body positive feelings that come with it. Then you or another family member or very close friend do that activity with her.

It's a horrible thing to feel less than others, especially when you're a teenager and so much of our self worth is about looks.

The friends sound lovely.
But this isn't a job for kindly concerned amateurs.
You daughter needs help from a professional.
Start with the GP and find out how to access mental health care for her.
Like a physical illness, this may get worse if it isn't treated.

Has she attempted to loose the weight?

I think she needs counselling. This is about losing weight. This is about self confidence.

If she's adamant that she doesn't want to go (which is her right) then this needs to be a turning point for her really to get fit or at least a bit fitter so that something like this doesn't happen again. Otherwise she's going to make the same mistakes over and over. I will say it is harder for some to lose weight than others so don't push drastic results but even little changes can make a big difference.

I’ve been through something similar with my DD. Lots of other things going on that needed counselling to address, but we came to the point when we agreed together that if she was unhappy with her weight, we would come up with a plan to lose it. So we did. We worked out where she was taking in unnoticed calories and planned ways to get her exercising in a way she was happy with (she naturally enjoys exercise but had stopped because of embarrassment with her figure).
I get that people shouldn’t fixate on weight, and perfection is a concerning goal, but barring some specific health conditions, it is possible to lose weight.
Diet’s what makes the difference though, at least in the first instance.

Agree with PP, she sounds like hard work and she's drawing more attention to her body by constantly going on and sulking about how she looks.

I feel sad for her friend too who sounds lovely.

She needs to go on that holiday - post A-level blow outs are once in a lifetime experiences which she'll regret missing out on.

The end of A-levels is mid-June which is three months away. Loads of time for a diet and decent exercise regime to drop some weight if that'd help her feel better.

Oh gosh that's difficult. If her excess weight is really so little, it feels like it would be the work of just a couple of months of Noom to get her looking the way she thinks she needs to. But the self-esteem issue will take longer to unravel and solve.

On the other hand, if my 18 year old daughter said she had changed her mind about a week in Malia I would be off to the nearest church to light a candle to every saint in the building!