Worried about dd & dsil weight

[Feelinhothothott]

I'm going to get flamed for this, but to put it mildly dd & dsil are way too overweight & I'm worried about it. They seem to be getting bigger every year. She says their portion sizes are not massive when they eat at home, it's lack of exercise. They sure make up for it when we go out to eat & we're paying though. We've seen the cakes & bottles of beer & diet coke in their fridge though.
They both have professional, but sedentry jobs.
The worst part is that they have 1 dd. Luckily, she's very sporty & is keeping it off. She's approaching puberty & I can see a bit of baby fat appearing, so hopefully they will keep it at bay.
They do not plan on having anymore dc. I'm worried that they will die fairly young, leaving dd on her own & lonely at a lot younger age than you'd normally be when you lose your parents.
I've talked to her about it before, but it falls on deaf ears. How can I make her see that they need to get a lot healthier, if not for their own sakes, but for the sake of their dd?

You can't so don't even try. I've seen it, time and time again, going through it myself with family members and used to be obese. There is nothing you can say, at all, that is going to help.

Diet Coke has virtually zero calories, so it's not clear why you mentioned it.

Because it’s not healthy on top of the weight and crappy food.

It has thrown me a bit being with dp as both his children are obese, and when I met him I think his daughter and her partner were morbidly obese - both in fact look a good bit healthier now and have got more active, but I don’t think the underlying issue has changed. I’m fairly terrified that ds will go the same way at some point, because we live in an obesogenic environment. The fact is that you just have to try and let go of it. I used to watch my late husband’s mother offering her own obese daughter low fat ice cream or some dreadful shit at family dinners, and cutting out healthy diet planners from the newspaper for her and cringe, because all it did was ruin their relationship and embarrass her. Keep the relationship in as good a state as you can manage and hope against hope that they decide at some point to look after their health. Maybe save for your granddaughter too, because you’re not wrong that there’s a high chance they’ll have shorter lives.

What was your DD’s weight and diet like when she was living with you? I really don’t know what you can do here. My husband’s sister is morbidly obese and has become so in the last ten years after being slim most of her life. It is worrying. My dh does try and talk to her about it occasionally but it’s really difficult. He has said to me that if she was a drug addict or an alcoholic he wouldn’t just stand back and do nothing.

All I can think of is suggesting that you do more active things when you meet up.

When girls get into their teens many of them do seem to drop out of sports so I suppose that’s a time when you could intervene if the dd does lose her interest in sports. Suggest different things that she might like to try. Athletics is good for teenagers for example.

Do you mean your DD and your SIL? Or her child? Or DBro instead of DD? Seems confusing.

she means her DD and her DDs partner. d son in law.

It’s not healthy but it can be used while cutting down the calories as it fills you up while only being negligible in calories itself.

Offer to buy them Mounjaro if you can afford it @Feelinhothothott

I thought the OP meant her own daughter, her own daughter’s female partner and the OP’s daughter and partner’s daughter who is a child.

Unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do. All the hinting and talking won’t change anything unless they want to do something about it themselves.

I did a healthy eating course amongst other things (my son is prone to weight gain and got referred by GP). Portion size is never what we expect it to be. If you measure it out and count the calories it’s a shock how quickly they mount up. My DS has slimmed down as an active teen (we were referred when he was in primary school and had an injury) but is still “overweight” on NHS BMI.

Could you ask your daughter if there is anything you can do to so they can get more active? Pay for a gym membership or look after their daughter/take her to her activities? I know that with full time work and a child to run round after you just run out of time for anything else.

If you've talked to your daughter and it hasn't helped, I don't think there's anything more you can do. They have to decide for themselves.

I suspect they do overeat - just having a sedentary job won't make them overweight, most of your weight is determined by what you eat, unless you do athlete levels of exercise.

Dear Daughter and Dear Son In Law - it’s not that confusing really

Eating high levels of artificial sweetners gives you cravings for more sweet things and messes about with the gut biomes leading to more hunger. Its quite toxic to drink massive amounts of it.

YABU to think you can have any influence over this, unfortunately. They’ll need to make the decision for themselves that something has to change - it might take a health diagnosis like type 2 diabetes, or similar to give them that wake up call.

Please try not to mention it to them, as you risk damaging your relationship with them. I guarantee they’re already aware they’re obese.

Comments from you won't help and may make things worse depending on the cause of the overeating. Maybe just focus on serving delicious but healthy meals when you are together.

Presumably these are two adults with at least an average level of intelligence.

Newsflash: they know they're overweight.

They probably know why too.

Presumably, they also have access to GP services and the whole Internet, they can easily find information and ways to lose weight, improve fitness and become healthier if and when they want to.

And that's the thing. If and when THEY want to. It has to come from them, and in a way that they are happy with.

I say this as someone who has previously lost 50% of their body weight, put it all back on again, and is now in the process of losing it again...

The worst thing you can do is say something. I was obese. My mum's judgement had me reaching for the cake. My appetite was voracious and screamed at me constantly.
Focus on the bits you can't see. Are they kind people? Good parents? Do they care? It's a condition and there's finally a drug that helps if they choose to use it but they need to make their own decisions

I don't know why people think that fat people don't know they're fat.

OP, your DD and DSIL know they are overweight. It's not a case of gosh I didn't realise, let me chuck the cake out and get the salad in.

If you're worried, tell them exactly that. That you're worried about their health because you love them and want them to be around a long time. But then it is up to them to take action. Think of it like an alcoholic or a heroin addict.

There's nothing you can do. They know they're fat and they know how to fix it. Everybody does. Try to put it out of your mind and just enjoy their company. There are fat people and slim people in my family and there are two with eating disorders. If they are happy, they are doing alright.

There is nothing at all confusing in the OP.

It’s not unhealthy. It’s literally just flavoured carbonated water. It has zero calories and doesn’t make anyone fat. There is zero evidence that anything in it is harmful to human beings.

This is not true there is a mounting body of evidence that shows the artifical sweetener in diet drinks primes the body to expect sugar, when it doesn't arrive it causes cravings and the body seeks out the sugar it was expecting

That's right. It's even worse. Artificial sweetners, yuck.