Hi, I wonder if anyone can help.
I've got two teenage sons, one aged 14, fit and very sporty, the other aged 16 (17 in September), who I am worried about. He is very overweight (don't know his actual weight as he refuses to tell me, and i don't want to make a big thing of it). However, he's around 6'2", and I guess he must be around 17 and a half stone.
I cook healthy, nutritionally balanced meals at home with the occasional treat. He was a skinny kid, and only really started to put on weight when he started at secondary school and I was less in control of what he ate.
I know that he comfort eats, and am always finding empty sweet packets/biscuit wrappers etc in his bedroom. When I try to broach the subject with him, he admits that he would like to be thinner, but seems to have no motivation to do anything about it. I've told him that it is possible to do something about it, while not pretending that it is easy. Of course, I have had a weight problem all my life and tend to comfort eat, and he seems to have inherited that.
Even worse, it is the school holidays and he is completely sedentary. He plays no sport, and spends hours a day on the PS4/watching TV or online.
I'm always encouraging him to get some fresh air, go outside fora walk, or to play tennis or football with his brother, but it all falls on deaf ears. I've even offered to pay for a week personal trainer for the two of them over the summer holidays if they fancied it, but again, he just refused.
I've suggested going to a local council run weight loss programme for teenagers, but he refuses to countenance that either.
Otherwise, he is a good natured, very popular outgoing teenager with loads of friends, so it's not as if he's sitting in a darkened room all day with no one to hang out with. Should I just accept that he has to want to lose weight himself, and I can;t make him do it?
Just worried about his future health, and also, being a teenager is difficult enough without being the fat kid. Has anyone got any helpful advice?
Thanks!