V Overweight DD12

[Teddypops]

Before I start. I know this is a very sensitive subject. I don't wish to push my DD to have an eating disorder. I know I need to approach this in a sensitive way.

However, I have in the past approached this in a sensitive manner and we are here. She is very over weight. She had a large stomach and is the largest in her year.

I have been trying to encourage her to be more active. She goes to dance classes, netball classes and tennis lessons each week. All of these activities I have had to encourage (push) her into as otherwise she would do literally nothing. She had tried every sport under the sun and never stuck at anything apart from these. She now enjoys them. (Yay!).

However she still binges. She hides food in her room and eats at each and every opportunity, I get that she gets hungry and I try to compensate for this by giving her a big heathy packed lunch. (Brown roll with ham and maybe cheese, carrot, cucumber, cherry toms with hummus, Babybel, yoghurt, skips or low cal crisps or a go ahead bar). And fruit for lunch. But she is getting bigger and bigger.

If I give her money for school dinners she eats pizza, chips, cakes etc.

We have had to start hiding food from her as if I buy a box of protein flapjacks or crisps (low cal like skips or baked etc). They are gone within 24 hours.

There is always fresh fruit and veg available. But she rarely eats fruit.

I am overweight too, I'm a size 18. Struggled all my life with my weight. My mum tried everything I have tried and I ignored it all. I am now at a point where I am losing weight but my skin is saggy and ruined.

She is not depressed. She is into her clothes and beauty and is very pretty with blond hair etc.

I have tried to approach it in the past but she shuts down on me and thinks I'm the worst human ever.

Without judging me, if there is anyone who has been in a similar situation and has any good advice I would be happy to hear it.

We generally eat good healthy meals at home. Normal meals would be -

Pasta with meatballs - 5%mince, wholewheat pasta. Tomato sauce.

Chicken with home made chips and salad.

Cottage pie - 5% mince

Tuna pasta

I know we have too many carbs and I am on a lower carb diet at the moment so will be looking at lower (not too low) but upping the protein and the veg but lowering the carbs.

I'm going to start making dippy eggs for breakfast. She often has wholemeal bagel with marmite as I hoped it would fill her up.

We have the occasional meal out, but she doesn't like Chinese or Indian food so she doesn't have take away.

I'm at a bit of a loss.

I don't believe there is any medical issues at play.

In most cases, exercising has relatively little benefit to weight loss (unless you are at athlete level). Of course it's beneficial for your health (mental and physical), but for weight loss, you just need to eat less. A five mile run (about an hour of continuous running for most people) burns around 500 calories. You'd need to do that 7 days a week to burn a single 1lb of fat (1lb of fat = 3500kcal). Not achievable for most.
Weigh your portions for a few days and use a calorie counter to get an idea of how many calories you're consuming and how much you're overeating. Then go from there.

What are the foods she is binging on? I found personally that if I stopped making it easy on myself to eat quickly I lost interest. So not buying snacks or anything like instant noodles etc. If everything requires at least 15 min prep then i was able to rethink if i actually needed it. Unfortunately the only option is a group effort. If she doesn't get the 'good treats' neither do you or you OH. Other than that obviously having smaller portions of more balanced meals etc but you've already said you know this so it's just a matter of putting it into practice isn't it.
Good luck!

Oh OP. I don't know what the answer is but am following you as have a similar issue with DS.

My DS went though a similar stage. I changed our evening meals to a ratio of 40 percent veg, 40 percent meat or fish and 20 percent carbs. I took all the junk food out of the house. I moved the evening meal to an hour earlier that stopped the snacking. I told him nothing and he accepted the changes without noticing.
I didn’t change anything else and 6 months later he had slimmed back down.

Following, as I have similar concerns about 15yo DS. He’s not overweight, but he does secretly binge eat and has done for years (more than you’d expect from an average teenager) and I am at a loss having tried so many things to try and help.

Interesting! My DS will ask if he can go to the shop and buy sweets. He will bake a cake if there are mo snacks.

Your ingredient choices are well intentioned, but why not try using regular mince for meals. Sometimes the lean / healthier options taste less satisfying and then they backfire became we seek out additional food to feel satiated.

Oh and also when you say she will steal money to buy sweets - while you're locking up the snacks, sounds like you need to lock up your purse too.

She's not eating because she's hungry she's eating because the process of eating is comforting.

So don't give her large lunches or meals it will make zero difference on her desire to binge unfortunately.

Don't have crap in the house end of.

Reducing carbs and increasing protein is about stabilising blood sugars and stopping the cravings, if she's tired she'll also feeling hungrier/crave sugar/carbs.

They are very challenging habits to break.

I think she has already got psychological issues around food if she's sneaking. Upping the control level will be counterproductive. The harder you push the more she will sneak. Back off, and get her into some counselling.

Noon isn't really a good idea for a 12yo, it's just the standard 1200kcal diet dressed up with some psychology.

ThI’m s from someone who doesn’t understand the whole issue around weight gain and obesity.

The vast majority of people in OPs situation know they overeat and would like nothing more than to change that.

Appetite is multi factorial and driven by all sorts of endocrine and physical cues as well as psychological issues.

Its so patronising to suggest ‘just eat less’.

OP look into things like improving microbiome, reducing sugars spikes (eg glucose goddess) as a way to reduce sugar craving.

I really feel for you as soon she will be even more able to access whatever she likes and her weight will balloon unless you find some way to engage her now.

To separate it from her appearance can you talk about health like blood pressure etc? Your own maybe and link it to weight and activity? She may join the dots with her own health.

DH eats too much too but he is a runner so manages to keep the weight off. She sees him fuelling and copies him.

This is your answer OP. Take her running with you/your DH. The weight will come down very quickly

At 12 years old how over weight do you think your daughter could be? The only reason I ask is my mum was the same, about a size 16/18 and constantly on a diet and talking about how fat she was all the time. I think this massively impacted me as I cannot remember a time in my life (even as young as 7/8) where I haven’t felt like the fattest person in the room.
When I look at photos there isn’t a pick on me, so if you eat healthy at home and she’s doing sports etc is it a big deal? Is it puppy fat that she’ll grow out of? I’m probably trying to say don’t project how you feel onto your daughter when she may not be as big as you think she is.

If your DD has a ravenous appetite she may be one of a very tiny number of people who have a hormone imbalance whereby she simply never feels satiated (sorry I can’t remember the specifics). I think this podcast talks a bit about it, but it’s also useful for other new info on weight control:

I’m very fat ,I’m having WLS soon .
I have no control over what I eat when it’s in the house
the only tiny bit of control I have is when I manage to not buy snacks crisps biscuits.
doing a weekly home delivery shop with meals planned out in advance is all that even slightLy worked for me
I’ve 4 kids ,3 skinny as anything,one takes after me ,same house same family .

She already has an eating disorder.

We have tried. She refuses. Or she does it for a day or 2 then refuses of fakes an injury.

Find an exercise she likes ,I swim every day .
or borrow a dog for her to walk .
buy an exercise bike ,go to the gym .the key is finding an exercise that is enjoyable.
get your husband to fuel up out of her sight
make sure she only sees u both eating normal amounts

Thank you for your helpful suggestion.

Does she know she’s overweight?

She’s fine ,it will come of over time with healthy eating and exercise,definitely not the end of the world .
show her how to love her body ,show her how you love yours and all the wonderful things it did for you ,like birthing her .
go shopping for clothes and lip gloss and nice shampoos together ,regularly,help her find her style and find an exercise she likes and it will sort itself out over time

Can you have a list of unlimited foods so that she can't say she's hungry?

Veg, fruit, popcorn, lean chicken etc.

The hard part is her (& probably your & DH's) stomachs are used to these bigger portions. So when you cut down, there will be a feeling of hunger for a few days whilst you get used to it

Drink more water too. At least a full glass before each meal

Have looked at the pic and agree you are right to be worried. Not horrendous, but good to nip it in the bud now

Please google inattentive ADHD and see if this applies to either of you. Sounds like you both have impulse control issues...or she is just naturally a larger person. And then you need to leave her be. She's about to shoot up with puberty.

To be honest with you, she's not actually that big, I was expecting her to be a lot bigger judging by what you wrote.

The best thing to do is to download a calorie app, to keep track of how much food and calories she is consuming, then gradually lower them. Also, maybe the pair of you could go on an evening 10k walk after dinner.