Friend and weight issues

[Imdonewithsergio]

NC due to nature of post.

My friend and I have known each other since nursery. She has a child who has just turned 8 in the last few weeks. He has a developmental delay, is non verbal, autistic and still in nappies. He is obese- he wears large mens clothing. At that, she offered my husband a jacket last week that her son had grown out of. He has been assessed by various healthcare professionals, has ongoing input from dietitian etc and has no underlying issues causing his weight issues. It is purely down to diet and exercise levels- which are obviously managed by friend. His weight impacts on his mobility, he is very slowed as a result and can no longer get in/out a bath even with her help. Despite input from professionals, she refuses to acknowledge that this is an issue and claims it’s puppy fat.

She is also obese. Her BMI is the 50’s, she has to use a mobility scooter to get out and about on holiday. Uses a walking stick day to day. She can’t keep up with her son now at all. She has been diagnosed with hypertension and type 2 diabetes in the last few months. She is still in her 30’s.

She has very little support- her mother died when she was in her teens. Her father has no contact with her. She has no contact with her child’s father. She does have her aunt who stays nearby but her aunt cares full time for her 86 year old mother who has dementia and cannot help much. Her aunt isn’t in good health, herself either and is in her late 60’s.

Her son is increasingly aggressive and difficult to manage. The school currently have two members of staff with him at all times. I have a large family and 2 autistic children. I had offered to babysit to let her go to the doctors over Christmas when she became unwell, it was horrendous and her son smashed up one of my kitchen chairs. I genuinely don’t think I could safely look after him while I have my own baby there and my toddlers, before even factoring in my own autistic children. She has asked me to babysit this weekend to let her go to a birthday meal for a friend but I’ve had to say no and she seems upset. I do realise that day to day it must be so difficult for my friend to manage though. Social work have offered her respite care but she said she would just feel guilty using it.

We were talking today and she was upset because she had spoken to her GP earlier, for a review of her medication. She has been referred for weight management but has refused to engage. Her GP has said to her that she needs to consider the fact her son has complex needs, she doesn’t have much support and that she needs to look after herself as he needs her. She has took great offence to this and thinks she is being fatshamed. I haven’t replied to her text yet because I agree with the GP. While I understand her circumstances will affect her mood, which affects her motivation to lose weight- I do think she needs to do more to get herself well for her son’s sake. But I don’t know how to word it without upsetting her. I don’t want to lose her friendship as she is such a nice person but I do think both her weight and her little boy’s weight is getting to a point where something needs to change or the consequences will be dire. Am I just being a d*ck though ?

I do think food is such a big part of her life and she definitely comfort eats- when she isn’t being defensive about the issue, she admits that she eats as a coping mechanism I also think it’s sort of part of the culture within her family as her mum was obese and her aunt also is. She also had a brother who died in his late 30’s of a heart attack that was likely due to his obesity.

I suspect you are right there actually. I’m thinking about it now and he eats constantly at home. But obviously isn’t doing that in school. I know the school had to tell her he can only bring in things like fruit for snack and she was pretty much told he was to take a school lunch, rather than packed lunch which I think was due to the school lunches likely being healthier. She did say that this was for all children in his class but I don’t know how much truth there is in that.

Just continue being her friend and don't say anything unless she asks you. If she won't listen to her GP then she won't listen to you and you'll risk your friendship. There's a SW involved so leave it to the professionals.

Your friend will be aware of hers and her sons weight, regardless of if she's denying it. I'm a full time carer to my daughter, and when she was very medically complex I piled on the weight. I know I'm obese, but I've only been able to start fixing it in the last two years. My daughter is a pre teen.

Up until then I'd been giving so much energy to constantly firefighting, that I had nothing else to give to myself. I've only been able to focus on my weight since life has calmed down.

The other complexity is she may over feed her son because food is the only thing he engages with. It may be the only thing that gives her a break from challenging behaviour.

I wouldn't mention her weight, but I would encourage her to take up respite. It's normal to feel guilty, so I'd really emphasise that she's not abandoning her son in respite, she's just recharging because she can't keep running on empty. If she takes yo respite, you may find that her mentality towards weight shifts, because she may stop feeling like she's drowning in duty.

This. You're her pal, not her life coach. She knows all the stuff you would like to say to her about this already.

Could you say something simple that suggests you've heard her but aren't getting involved? Perhaps something like "weight is such a personal thing, that must have been a very difficult conversation" then say something about something totally different.

that way you are being kind but not adding to any feelings of embarrassment she must have.

Her and her son's issues won't change either way if you say 'how awful - can't the GP see you're both slim?" or indeed "well Sue he's not wrong - you are massively overweight."

I would keep it simple.

Agree with PP that I think you should focus on encouraging her to take the respite. That's something that's less likely to offend her and you might actually get somewhere.

Saying that bmi is a load of shit is a defence mechanism. Of course she knows she’s massively overweight. The thought of being stuck in a mobility scooter was what motivated me to look into drastic measures.

She is currently head in sand: nothing anyone says will help and all you can do is empathise, if you want to keep her as a friend, but I’d be really upset with her looking at what she’s doing to her son. I get it, my entire maternal family are addicts-alcohol, smoking, drugs, food. It’s extremely difficult to break the cycle and you can’t do it, she has to be ready, which might be never.

Don’t give an opinion unless she asks.

Your most important role as her friend is to simply be there with her for the truly awful things she is going through.

Be a sounding board and of course don’t pretend to agree with anything you don’t agree with but if you start questioning her weight it will not help and will just isolate her and hurt her.

So often people see it as their business to tell someone they need to lose weight when in fact it is not.

I appreciate you have good intentions but it genuinely won’t help and will harm.

Brilliant

Why would you care if she thinks you're being cruel?
Because op sounds like a thoughtful, kind person who doesn't want to hurt or lose her as a friend which is why she's in this dilemma. Surely you don't need someone to explain that?

This is so hard. I think if I were you, I would use the opportunity to try to say something very gentle to her. If you can find some words that make it clear you are coming from a place of love, and you won’t be pushed away, but you are worried about her, then it might be the thing that helps her most.
It also sounds if she has had DV, that she is probably traumatised, and has low self esteem, so therapy might be helpful for her, and a route to get her some support. There are plenty of therapists who are fat positive, so won’t focus on her being overweight, but might be able to help with the self esteem.
you sound like a lovely friend.

This. your friend has a very complex and challenging life. She needs friends not diet advice

Agree, it's not like she can lose weight and then everything will drastically improve. The difficult life is still going to be there. It's unlikely she will.be able to deal with weight loss while struggling so much.

It is not about her but her child i dont pussy foot around when it comes to children i would tell her if she doesn't fix it i or the same hool will call the authorities

Patting her on the head and saying there there does nothing to fix this for her child

Love how you outline her son’s disabilities, briefly allude to the impact this has on both their lives and follow it up with there being no underlying cause for obesity.

I’d suggest you don’t have sufficient knowledge or insight to be helpful in this situation so best sit this conversation out.

It’s actually an amazing reply and a great use of AI. It can be very useful

🙄

Exactly

When you're relying on AI for emotionally supporting others then it's best to accept that this sort of thing isn't your bag really.

Until your friend concludes herself that she needs to take action on her weight there is nothing that you can do other continue to be her friend. There are many factors that add to someone getting to a very overweight person, if it was as simple as calories in..... then it would be relatively easy, but she may have trauma , obviously a difficult day to day life, no support and no help on the horizon by the sound of it. It could feel like another problem she hasn't the mental capacity to deal with on top of everything else, food may be her best friend and way of coping, sadly.
Her son is a different matter, it is unacceptable that his health is in danger when he is to young to do anything for himself. It does sound like he is having professional input so again nothing you can do but listen, you don't have to agree but addressing the matter with her will not endear you to her.

Yes - food as a coping mechanism is often something learned in families. All the women on my mum’s side of the family are overweight and for years even though I was fat too, I was still the lightest of them all (for some weird reason, I took pride in that! 🤯). Now I’ve started tackling my weight (nearly 3.5 stone down) I can see how disordered my thinking was and how much denial I was in. The only thing I wanted and took joy in was food. In the early days of calorie counting, I was utterly miserable as my brain adjusted to not being able to run to food when life was hard.

Ultimately only your friend has the power to change this but confronting her, threatening to report her etc (as others have said) will not fix anything. No one was ever bullied into losing weight. Gentle and consistent encouragement to take all the help she’s being offered is by far the better choice.

Social work have offered her respite care but she said she would just feel guilty using it.

Good grief, this is like gold dust! Why would she feel guilty?

I hope you were clear about why you couldn't babysit? She needs to know that it wouldn't be safe and therefore is not going to happen in the future either. Then she might reconsider the respite from SS. If it happens!

At least the poster tried to come up with a way to communicate with her. I can believe some people on here. Finding fault with everything.

I can’t beleive someone actually went on chat gpt and posted the response, some folks really see ig as an oracle.

op, don’t send that ludicrous response. It’s a word salad that is too wordy and waffley.

the truth is she knows, she doesn’t want to hear it from anyone. There is nothing uou can say here, other than a disengage comment, as anything else she will take offence at.

this woman isn’t stupid, she’s fat not thick.