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, they're adults. They will know the risks of obesity and how to lose weight. You getting on at them will do no good but it could cause problems in the relationship.

They know they are overweight and you commenting on it doesn’t help.

See previous commenter re impact on life expectancy. I do think a more serious concern is impact on healthy life expectancy, although would be interested to know what the stats on that look like.

Most diets are not sustainable and don’t lead to long term weight loss and can cause long term weight gain e.g. see https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7538029/

So, my advice, unless you are willing to support them with an evidence based intervention (I.e pay for a gastric band or long term weight loss injections) is to just keep your mouth shut and try not to worry about it too much.

I never said I was worried only about her mother's weight.

No, it's just a statement of fact. Diet Coke has virtually no calories (just 2 calories per 375ml can which is so negligible, it's legally permitted to be marketed as 0 calorie).

But OP mentions their daughter in her post so that should surely have clarified things?

Obesity is a risk factor for 3/4 of the most common non-communicable diseases in the UK (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer).

I'm not disputing the low calorie content of diet coke but the fact that some people mistakenly believe that because its low calorie it's not bad for you or can't affect your weight.

Diet drinks can negatively affect your body in many ways including your metabolism and hormones around feelings of hunger and satiety. So it might be true that diet coke won't pile on the pounds itself because of low calories content but the way it affects your body and your metabolism can.

Can you pay for something to help your grandchild such as a gym membership or swimming pool membership. Most girls have given up all exercise by 16, which is really sad, try to install that lifelong passion for moving your body, as it’s a lot harder if she becomes obese. I speak from experience!

Indeed. But it is not an instant killer in the way OP claims to be afraid of. It is one risk factor amongst many, which for most people has a total impact on life expectancy of 3 to 10 years. It’s not going to leave the kid orphaned as a teenager.

People seem to really struggle with this.

I think as a society we naturally overemphasise lifestyle risk factors (given we can do something about them) and don’t appreciate what a huge degree illness and death is out of our control.

While it’s reasonable to try to lead a healthy lifestyle to minimize risk, there’s no need to be alarmist about someone being overweight.