Should I have a conversation with her about her weight?

[LandofBears]

DSD is 13 and very overweight. She's gone from a very normal weight kid to a very overweight one over the last two years. We see her EOW and 1/2 the holidays. I have been in her life since she was 4 and we generally have a very good relationship. I'm really worried about her. I love her and I worry about what effects the extra weight will have on her health.

DH has spoken to her mum and she doesn't see it as an issue and sees it as "puppy fat" that she will grow out of. DH is being a bit crap and doesn't want to say anything for fear of giving DSD a complex. I'm watching her get bigger and bigger thinking she's not going to thank any of us for this when she's adult and maybe she'd want someone to say something? But how? In a loving way can I approach the issue with her? The whole thing seems fraught.

Getting DH to deal with it is simply not going to happen so telling me to get him to sort it isn't going to be helpful. This is really about should I do/say something.

It's generally somewhat of a double-standard here on Mumsnet: you must treat your step-children like your own children, but (in this instance) you cannot talk to them about their weight because they're not your kids.

I would talk to her.

Nobody needs to be having seconds. I'd suggest you cook just enough meat/carbs for everyone to have a portion and just do extra veg and salad for people to help themselves.

Does everyone always know how much they'll want? I've always let the kids serve themselves and eat until full. It's worked fine with the other 3 but not for DSD although I wonder if making changes here is pointless if at home nothing changes. I don't think it's the extra portions of dinner that's doing it. I think it's sitting around all day and then eating junk food that's really doing it.

Agree sounds like it’s all the junk food!!
But presumably now it’s much harder for her to buy herself junk food and she can’t see her friends. Is her mum buying it for her?
I would really tackle the root of the overeating - she can’t be happy and maybe there is a reason why/how it started. Could you encourage her/pay for a healthy hobby when lockdown is over? Dance classes, swimming, a gym membership?

Your DSD is overweight and you think having 2 dinners a night ISNT a contributing factor?

I think you need to change the things you have power over.

How long is she at yours for and what foods do you have in the house?

Typical British response - the elephant in the room. Of course you should speak to her about it as sensitively as you can and the key is having your DH and his ex agree on a strategy and this needs to be led by them. If everyone not on board it won't work. Any initial upset is worth it for the long term benefits.

I was a skinny kid with a huge appetite who then became a plump teenager. I was extremely aware of the extra weight. Every time anyone mentioned my weight I felt humiliated. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. I hated myself because of it and people mentioning it made me feel 100 x worse. When I was 17 I started starving myself, became very underweight and my periods stopped for 18 months. For these reasons I don't think you should mention it. Encourage healthy eating and exercise. It's all you can do.

It is so difficult because everyone who struggles with their weight as an adult seems to blame either people saying something about it or no one saying anything about it. I am not saying they are wrong either, both seem entirely reasonable points of view, but it does leave a parent up in the air as to the best course of action.

As a step parent though I wouldn’t address it directly. That is unlikely to end well.

In our house I have discussed directly how dh needs a third more calories than I do just to maintain and if I eat similar sized portions to him I will gain weight.

@LandofBears

Does everyone always know how much they'll want? I've always let the kids serve themselves and eat until full. It's worked fine with the other 3 but not for DSD although I wonder if making changes here is pointless if at home nothing changes. I don't think it's the extra portions of dinner that's doing it. I think it's sitting around all day and then eating junk food that's really doing it.

The problem is, if your DSD is eating too fast, she may be missing the messages from her brain telling her she's full. So she keeps eating until suddenly she realises she feels uncomfortable, but may continue to eat until her plate is empty.

Everyone gets one helping. Encourage knives and forks down between mouthfuls, with conversation or by asking her to pass stuff, anything to get her to slow down a little. Plates don't have to be empty. Extra veg or salad only.

I was an overweight teen and am an overweight adult. My mum's answer was to take me to weight watchers at about 14, rather than explain to me about portion sizes, listening to my stomach, not having to clear everything on my plate, eating thoughtfully. (Plus not eating so much junk!)

I was overweight as a teenager and I hated it when my parents brought it up as it was a really sensitive thing for me and I always got defensive and aggressive when it was brought up.

I think what would have worked better for me would have been a family conversation about starting to be more active and eat healthier and making an effort as a family so that I didn't feel singled out. You could start by replacing the crisps and chocolate etc with healthy snacks and look in to low fat recipes to cook for the whole family and look at making substitutions to your favourite meals to make them lower in fat or calories.

Also try to encourage her to find a sport that she enjoys. For me it was kickboxing, I loved it because my size was to some extent an advantage, it wasn't a sport that relied so heavily on poise, speed or elegance.

You'll have to get her mam on board too though. She is never going to adopt healthy habits if she has all the bad things available at her mother's house.

It is so difficult because everyone who struggles with their weight as an adult seems to blame either someone saying something about it or no one saying anything about it

This is so true.

I think you have to encourage a healthier way of being- dress it up as the whole family is going on a health kick. It won’t hurt even sporty boys to have less junk.
I would also dish up dinner so the boys have a tiny bit more and then no seconds.
It’s awful being a fat teenager but it could complete send her into a spiral of further over eating or under eating to say anything. She needs to feel motivated.

She knows. And she knows about the impact of junk food. Poor young woman.

Can your DH and his ex talk about this together and agree a plan of support for her?

I would simply carry on spending time with her, so that if she wanted to she could feel able to raise it with you.

Stop buying junk food - her friends haven't been coming over with snacks for the last few months so that would have been a good time to break the habit.
Encourage activity
Limit portion sizes.
Offer salad/soup to fill up before meals
Encourage drinking water - thirst is often mistaken for hunger

Even if this only happens at your house it's a 50%reduction in poor eating habits and will help to model healthy behaviours for her.

My partners daughter was very overweight. He was the same and worried she might get a complex. However I could see so much that he could have controlled. The portions he served her were ridiculous. Immediately after meals she would be tucking into large packs of crisps. I suggested to him that perhaps he could limit the portions and stop buying snacks (this was in a conversation initiated by him not unsolicited).
The response I got was 'I don't want to deprive them of treats'. You need to dish up their food. If they ask why just say you are sick of the extra washing.

I wouldn’t address it directly, it would have devastated me at that age. All you can do is role model sensible attitudes to food, exercise and body image and try to gently encourage good behaviours. Don’t leave her hungry though if she’s used to lots of food, make changes gradually. And try to increase her self-confidence in other areas of her life in case the food is a comfort thing.

I agree with the pps who've said control what you can; start with soup or big salad, you serve up the main course for everyone - give the boys a bit more without it being too obvious - and have huge amounts of vegetables on the table that everyone can help themselves to. Yogurt with fruit if anyone's still hungry after all that, or for a snack.

Only cook enough for everyone to have one portion - portion size is key, it really doesn't matter how healthy whatever you're cooking is, if she eats a bigger portion than she should she will gain weight.

However, the calorie needs of teenagers are actually higher than your average adult. A 13 year old girl will require on average 2300 calories.

I was a very overweight child/teenager. I wished that someone had sat down with me and explained how to be healthy and active. Even being given a skipping rope and hula hoop would have helped me. I ate junk food because that's all there was to eat. Teach all of them equally about healthy foods, making good choices. Saving junk food for special occasions and maybe Sunday's? Stop giving them biscuits/cake& crisps when they visit. Just fruit and yoghurts inbetween meals. You ll have to change it from your end. The mother has to do the rest. Could you put up a recent photograph of them, so that she can see how much she's changed?

We don't generally have crisps or chocolate in the house. We do usually have one pudding each weekend, something like apple pie/crumble. The only thing all of them have in between meals is fruit. She empties the fruit bowl really quickly. She doesn't eat much protein as she's not that keen on meat but does eat a lot of carbs.

Every meal is healthy with lots of veg and salad. We do have roast potatoes with a roast lunch and I think there might be a mutiny if I stopped. Yesterday we did a roast lunch and I tried only giving her 3 roasties and the boys had 5 each. She was not impressed and asked for more. She eats very little of the chicken so I can see why she might still feel hungry. I need some filling non meat protein ideas.

She thinks she's still growing as that's what her mum tells her but I imagine she's done or nearly done as she had her first period 18 months ago. I suppose I could tell her that she's really likely to be at her adult height or very near to it.

A family effort to keep/get fit in these times, when your health is so important for helping you to fight Covid, could be a great excuse?

Maybe talk between yourself and DH, and the least fit of you two can carry the can to say it's something you want to do, and would really appreciate help from the family to motivate you.

I've known a couple of friends have overweight 13/14 year olds. The girl got really slim when she was out of high school and happier. The boy got about a foot taller but still eats too much and is a bit chubby but also happy in his life. The girl was bought a gym membership by her mum at 14 I think but fed a diet of cheese toasties and burger and chips until she left home and was in charge of her own choices. The boy was fed healthily by always went back for seconds, thirds and would eat ginormous quantities of anything he could find in the fridge, and spend any money he had on fizzy drinks and Fast food. His parents turned their garage into a gym and he got really into weight lifting, but despite getting much stronger actually got bigger, heavier and hungrier.

I used to be friends with an overweight girl who's whole family were heavy except for her brother. He was obsessively into diet and fitness and became a PT because the only way to avoid his family issue was to get extremely well informed, but that all came from him. His family enabled his diet change and his mum cooked him whatever way he was eating at any point.

They all lost weight or didn't of their own volition. Nobody pushed them, they were given options. In one way or another diet has stayed with them, but if they didn't have a problem with diet originally they would never have been overweight.

I have had many friends with eating disorders, and universally the thing they shared was an obsession with weight loss and calorie counting from an early age. One had been the "fat kid" at school and ended up almost dying from anorexia.

So I would give her options, and promote health and exercise, but don't try and educate or shame her into losing weight. I would rather have a kid who's a bit fat than one who has an ED