How to help overweight daughter

[NeedSleepNow]

My daughter is 12 and is overweight for her age/height. She was always very slim previously but gradually put on weight over the last 3 years since her Dad and I separated. It was very gradual to begin with, a combination of a bit of emotional eating and her Dad feeding her nothing but crappy food. She then went to secondary school and she put on a lot more weight as she ate a lot of junk there. I tried sending healthy packed lunches but she threw most of it away and bought fast food from the canteen instead (I wasn't putting money on her school meals account, she is eligible for free school meals so there is always £3 available on her account each day so she knows she can always buy something).

She is very unhappy with her weight now, cries a lot about it and is asking for help. I talk about the importance about being healthy, eating a variety of good foods, eating certain things in moderation, getting exercise but have always tried not to talk about anyone being fat/overweight etc.

She does a lot of dance but doesn't enjoy it much now because of her weight (she hates seeing herself in the large mirrors there), has given up swimming as she's too selfconcious in a swimming costume. It's really starting to affect her confidence and day to day life.

How would you tackle this? She is desperate to lose weight but is really struggling with healthy eating. She has quite a restrictive diet which makes it very hard to give her healthy balanced meals as she just won't eat most of it (there are lots of sensory issues with food, I suspect she is autistic and the school have suggested going via the GP to try to get a diagnosis). I desperately want to help her tackle this before it affects her even more.

She doesn't need to lose any weight. She needs to grow into her weight. That's quite an important distinction. Please tell her she does not need to diet or lose weight as this could set a pattern for a lifetime that almost invariably ends up with greater gain than loss. What she needs is to learn how to care for her body with healthy foods and regular exercise.

Tell her she will grow taller and the weight will redistribute, so the important things to focus on: eating healthily, making good choices at lunchtime (why the bloody hell do schools get so militant about packed lunches, then serve utter crap in their canteens? There shouldn't be a single unhealthy choice on offer inside a school.) And getting lots of exercise. If she does these two things, she is setting herself up for a lifetime of looking and feeling good.

I'd watch some well-researched documentaries with her about UPF and what it does to our bodies - that excess fat, sugar and salt that is designed to make us crave more. (Supersize me was a famous one - about twenty years old now - there may be more recent ones around) Check before you watch anything on youtube though as there will be a lot of influencers trying to flog inessential supplements and you don't want her to go the other way towards the ProAna movement.

Help her make a list of all the healthy foods she really enjoys and suggest she focuses on them when buying lunch at school, so she doesn't feel deprived. Discuss what options are on offer at school, and suggest she takes a good look over the next few days so she gets into the habit of focusing on the better choices.

I might be inclined to send an email to the Head and the Governors asking that they review the food and have a couple of main meals advertised as 'Healthy Choice of the Day' to encourage pupils to pick those over fries.

Can you exercise with her? A 20 min walk every evening, looking at the Christmas lights, a 10 minute HIIT youtube video in the morning before showering, or a 15 minute yoga unwind before bed will all help her feel more in tune with her body. You could give each other mini challenges, like: do 20 squats or plies while cleaning your teeth, or use light hand weights while watching TV.

Another thing that could help is to make a list with her - as long as you possibly can, of all the non-food treats she loves, so that she can learn to reward herself with something other than comfort food if she is feeling down. Could be anything from a cute kitten video or favourite band's hit song online, an episode of a favourite TV show, a magazine, new nail polish or lip balm, face mask, hair accessories.

I was the overweight teenager at school. Some suggestions are to focus on healthy eating rather then calories, healthy swaps as in her favourite foods but healthier, eg instead of frozen chicken nuggets make your own at home, home made pizza etc, or for treats could you make some healthier alternatives, brownies with hidden veg in them for example, bake with oats for a filling snack, homemade protein bars. Lots of fruit available to snack on easily.

Start with small steps so she feels empowered to make positive decisions with food, teach her how different foods fuel her body ect.
In terms of being more active look for everyday opportunities, fun activities eg trampoline parks, wall climbing, sports teams, or just go for walks together on a weekend, do you know someone with a dog you could borrow to walk together?

In terms of exercise, have you got a local rugby club with a girls team? Rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes so she may feel less self conscious there, plus the friendships made through the sport are wonderful, and it will get her moving about and upping her activity levels.

I would lay off the dieting and healthy eating for now as she's clearly miserable already. Get her exercising more and her mood up before you start to get her eating better. At her age it's the exercise that makes the most difference.
Also do different dance classes, something fun and uplifting like Zumba or Clubbercise. They're not dancing about in front of mirrors they're just jumping around like a loon. You literally can't be miserable doing it.. same with other sports. Try something a bit more intensive like martial arts or netball, hockey, anything where you're really moving.
Go with her if necessary. She shouldn't have to do this alone.

My ds does kickboxing as his exercise

I agree with focusing on her mood. Keep her busy and active and sociable. Ignore the weight for now.

Wake her up with Christmas music in the morning (I do this with my kids at the moment and it makes such a difference to the morning mood in the house), get her to dance around and do a dance routine before breakfast. Then plenty of water, an apple and whatever else she wants for breakfast (if you raise her dopamine levels before she eats, you'll probably find she eats less). Then drop her a bit from school... She'll feel a lot better starting her day after a short, brisk walk in the cold air.

Likewise, in the evening. Tear up the rulebook for how your evenings go. Take sandwiches and go for an evening walk and stop for a hot drink in a nearby cafe, if any are open. Then home for a warm bath and bed.

At weekends, focus on social connections or getting out. Does she have friends at her new school? Is she in touch with friends from her old primary? Do you know any of the parents? I know secondary age children are meant to be in charge of their own friendships, but really a 12yo is young enough to still need a bit of help sometime. If you're on friendly terms with any of the mums, I'd arrange a meet-up with a friend at the weekend as often as possible. If that's not possible, get out of the house with her, walk places and just do stuff.

She won't have food that's mixed on the plate, sauces are out, issues with textures, smells etc - all this points to ARFID.

Are there any other sensory etc issues?

Are you getting help with having this investigated?

I don't understand the not banning foods. As parents we ban stuff all the time - why not food?

I banned lolly pops in my house. They are awful for teeth. My kids aren't now desperately seeking out lolly pops to rebel. They will choose a different sweet.

I think kids need rules.

I think it’s as important to focus on gradually introducing more of the foods she should eat. How you approach that with her is up to you. I just kept putting those things on the table, and they do get used to them.

I would start by tackling the issue with your ex. She is utterly miserable and he is buying her all this sh*t [and the boys] that he wouldn't eat himself. Talk about Disney Dad, I see it as abusive frankly.

Otherwise you've had some good advice. Even if she only likes plain food, it's not the end of the world. Some things can be switched up a bit, a roasted carrot tastes very different from steamed. She could experiment a bit with some orange juice or seasoning.

The school situation is difficult, have you approached them to see if they can block some things on the system? That's dreadful that it allows kids to just buy crap and not lunch. Get involved with the PTA and see if the canteen can be encouraged to stop stocking super processed crap entirely.

12 is certainly old enough to understand how the body works and how UPF are designed to make you keep eating crap even when you feel sick. There are some really good documentaries on BBC and C4 on demand and there's always a belt of them on tv in January. I think it is definitely worth watching them with her because understanding that the food industry is manipulating her might give her the mental boost that it's not just because she is weak or has no self control but that these are foods designed to make people crave them. Joe Wicks is a very positive role model in acknowledging just how much he struggles avoiding binging on sugar and while I don't advocate social media for kids, his updates are edifying and encouraging when you've had a bad day and succumbed. He gets up and gets on with running it off and having a word with himself.

If she is 4 foot 7 she is likely to be heading for a growth spurt as she gets into puberty.

At a similar age, as a very short child, I put on a lot of weight. My hips developed, I had a bigger bottom and thighs and a woman's shape. Then, as far as I remember, I grew taller and the weight evened out and was proportionate to my height.

I thought worth mentioning as different changes can happen at different times and could cause height and weight to seem out of sync with each other.

Some great suggestions here about building healthy food habits with her.

You need to improve her relationship with food. Reduce portion sizes, she’s at that age where they seem to be able eat constantly. If you do stupid things like removing all treats from home, making foods “good” and “bad” then it doesn’t usually help. People on here demonise foods all the time and it frustrates me. In theory you could eat only chocolate digestives and lose weight, as long as calories out > calories in. You wouldn’t be very healthy nutritionally speaking but you’d lose weight.

It sounds like she needs more sport in her life to boost her serotonin and her self esteem.

Can you go jogging together? Set each other a target and map it out on a wall planner so she can see improvement.

That could be your answer really. There could be comfort eating at the heart of it,

I wouldn’t go to gung ho into putting any pressure on her around food. That is a lot of change for a young girl to deal with. Some counselling or play therapy might help get her though.

Bless her, I was the same when I was a teen. Also autistic and gained a lot of weight around puberty. I kept reaching for my safe foods which happened to be fried and beige. I think it would help to work on self confidence and maybe therapy first instead of the foods as you need to address the root problem. Then later you can help her cook and enjoy a more varied diet. Puberty is really tough.

I was an overweight child who was put on diets and have been an overweight adult with PCOS and binge eating disorder all my life. I also now have an overweight 13 year old daughter, so I absolutely empathise.

I'd totally agree with not teaching your daughter to diet. For the vast majority of people it doesn't work and starts a lifetime pattern of trying and failing and developing a bad relationship with food, self esteem and body image. Definitely focus on emotional wellbeing, self care and self love and body positivity.

As a child I could sniff out someone who was judging me for my weight a mile off , all the "well built" "big bones" "tall girl" comments. I could feel my mum's anxiety constantly, but I felt powerless and scared. I hated myself, the shame and self loathing were and are paralysing and lead to self sabotage and more weight gain from comfort eating. Looking back I was dealing with my childhood trauma from an abusive father, my mother's eating disorder, my parents divorce, poverty, puberty, PCOS, bullying, undiagnosed dyspraxia and there being very little to eat apart from UPF.

I sometimes wish someone had helped me, had shown me how to eat healthily. This was the eighties and my mum's idea of dieting was eating nothing but cottage cheese, grapefruit and porridge for as long as she could and then giving up and "being bad" and "being naughty" by eating normal food. All while binging on chocolate and bread and butter in secret.

I mainly wish though that I'd had a mum that could talk to me about emotions and show me how to deal with the difficult ones in a healthy way. My mum was s traumatised by her shit marriage and abusive husband, and so busy trying to earn money , and probably menopause too that she didn't have time to learn to deal with her own emotions let alone think about mine. It was a shock I think when puberty changed me into a moody teenager when I'd always been the sunny silly child. I doubt she could cope. I know I find it difficult to cope with my girl's moods.

It's a fucking mindfuck! Reading with interest though, for my past self and my current daughter.

This is what confuses adults as well. Seeing other people eating and mimicking it, it’s actually quite toxic. People almost encourage unhealthy eating because it makes them feel better that they are eating something that’s full of sugar and fat. For example “Aren’t you having a bun Karen? Come on it’s Christmas.” And so on and so forth. I was overweight most of my life but now maintaining a huge weight loss. It’s not that people have massively different metabolisms. It’s more likely that her friends eat a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar at school but then when they go home they eat balanced meals and aren’t allowed to snack and they move more than your daughter is. Where as your daughter is eating less balanced food, she’s still snacking and now isn’t getting enough exercise. As a fully grown adult I used to have a break with someone that ate chips and gravy every day so of course I started doing it, she was very slim so in my head it was perfectly normal. One day I asked what she was having for dinner and she said that the chips and gravy was her dinner and that she probably would have a banana before bed - lightbulb moment! I was having a full dinner at night! In my teen years me and a friend sort of encouraged each other to eat McDonalds and pizza and Chinese and both got overweight but we were ‘in it together’ I think you’re lucky in that she is the one saying she’s unhappy about her weight so it’s not like you have to approach it and be super careful. I think everyone knows what they need to do to lose weight don’t they? It’s the sticking to it that’s hard. I’m no expert but the only thing that works for me is to not be too strict, I cannot maintain any weight loss if I never have a treat. I also have to make sure I get my 10,000 steps in (hard in Winter) and move as much as I can. I would just tell her straight at that age that eating crisps as chocolate every day isn’t really something you can do if you want to be a healthy weight unless you’re massively active. Buy healthier options (snack a jacks etc) if she’s adamant she won’t have alternatives. Her Dad is a dick but she is old enough now to use the money he gives her to make some better choices tbh. She could buy the chocolate and have one a day or buy milky ways or a crunch rather than a massive bar of dairy milk for example and have one bar every other day, the ideal would be if she avoided it but it doesn’t sound realistic. No judgement because I was overweight at that age but I did know better really. Can you go out for a walk with her every day? Also, losing weight at that age should be quite slow but they want the dopamine hit that comes with losing weight quickly. I would make small changes and get weighed monthly so she can see the weight loss rather than weekly where it might only be half a pound. I found that a goal helped (I don’t know if it would her?) so for example you really wouldn’t have to limit food much or do a massive amount of exercise to lose half a pound a week. It’s approx 26 weeks until we start getting our Summer clothes out, if she lost half a pound a week (again very doable without huge / daunting / miserable / restrictive changes) then she would be a stone lighter by then which is really noticeable and would make her feel a lot better I should think. Good luck.

Similar happened to my daughter after separation. She was put on wegovy injections which they can have from 12 and she's lost heaps and feeling more confident.

I’ve just bought my daughter (27) a wall mounted boxing machine with Bluetooth, so she can box to music. She is in assisted living and her diet is bloody awful, despite her loving healthy food when she was at home.

Hoping that feeling fitter will spur her on re doing some other exercise. She used to love horse riding and swimming, but has become much less active since putting on weight.

Thanks for all of the replies, I never expected so many! There are lots of great ideas.

Once we are moved I'm going to try to get my daughter to start cooking with me a lot more, we're going to look through all the recipe books I have and see if she can find some things she might like to eat and we will learn to cook them together. The sensory issues with food are likely to make this tricky but I'm hoping we might be able to find a few new things to try.

I'm not buying any crisps, biscuits, snacks etc. We'll be sticking with fruit if hungry between meals and I'm going to try to get her to drink more as I think she sometimes muddles up hunger and thirst signals.

I'm going to try to get an appointment for her to see the gp over the holidays and see if they'll run tests to rule out any underlying hormone problems etc.

We're going to start walking more as a family. Not sure if the kids will be keen on this in winter but hopefully once the spring arrives this will be easier!

How about driving part of the way to school and then dropping her off to walk the rest? And same for pick up.
You’re right to sort it now before it becomes a life long problem. What about a sport together - like badminton or tennis which unlike dance or swimming doesn’t need worrying about clothing too much!
Or doing the couch 2 5k together? Or start with the kids park run? Walk it to start.
Food is the main thing though. Getting her to go through some cook book or student type simple meals online could maybe help.

My heart goes out to you both. Here hormones are probably raging which doesn’t help the situation. Is it possible that you can try an home make some of the unhealthy options ? For an example a macaroni cheese pasta is going to be terrible as a shop meal or restaurant but if you make it at home it’s healthier you can even blend cauliflower into it add turmeric etc just to boost it’s nutritional value and it would have less fat in it. Or homemade burgers again the fat and sugar content would be less than say a fast food place and a lot less chemicals as well. I would also suggest maybe family walks in the evening , getting her out the house might be tough as first but it will do the world of difference in the long run . The more activity she does the better her body will be able to regulate her emotions and she will be feeling better in herself as well her limbs won’t be so stiff.

i also completely agree with other posters about teaching her how to cook that can be fantastic and give her more freedom around food and it’s more fulfilling when you can create your own foods. Additionally I’d see if you can get her into some cooking shows . I know some are boring but chef reviews from people like uncle Roger are exciting and could be a good place to start building a passion for good home cooked food. I’ve personally found you can still enjoy a pizza if you make it yourself with your own flour etc.

best of luck I know it’s tough and I hope you manage to help her . I would try again the lightly encourage going back to swimming maybe get her a swimming skirt to help her feel less exposed. The more activity she does the easier it is to loose weight. She needs to understand that if she carries on the way she is that nothing will change and it will only get worse . Baby steps are important as well . Let her have that junk food at school don’t put pressure on that but slowly at home start making some positive changes . She needs to actually want this too or it won’t work.

At her age I'd honestly just try and put some healthier exercise in where she isn't going to feel self conscious. Can you do park run together? They now do park walk where people at the back walk the whole thing. You can chat to others and the volunteers and it's meant to be very social. Then she will see other women there of all shapes and sizes. It's very empowering and even if she never runs any of it she is still getting a good 3 mile walk out of it.

Have you taken on board any of the disordered eating stuff and how to foster a healthy relationship with food?

It’s easy to think that the weight loss should be priority, but without learning about the above you will set her up for a lifetime of weight struggles.

I urge you to check out Evelyn Tribbole and Ellyn Satter

Did you get her therapy to deal with the underlying cause which is trauma? Or only weight loss drugs to deal with the symptoms?