8 year old DD very overweight

[nothernermomma]

Hi all, this is my first time posting but would really appreciate tips or advice to help my youngest DD lose weight.

I have three children, DS who is 11, DD1 who is 9 and DD2 who is 8. DD2 has always been chunkier but not considered overweight. In the last year, she has gained a lot of weight and I originally put it down to hormones but I’m doubtful this is the case.

She has only just turned 8 but now weighs around 8 stone. She is 128cm tall and wears either aged 14-15 clothes or an adults size 12. The weight is very noticeable as she has lost definition in her face, has a double chin and several rolls of fat on her arms and stomach.

As a family we eat well but DD2’s issue are around constantly taking treats I.e stealing them or sneaking them out of the cupboards. She faces consequences everytime this happens and I cannot completely ban treat foods as this would be unfair on my other children. If DD2 was left to her own devices then she would eat everything in the treat cupboard. She also has a tendency to take treats from family members and friends homes to the point that people have stopped inviting her round because of this. When DD2 asks why she isn’t being invited, I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth so I explain to her people are busy at times.

DD2 also faces relentless teasing from peers at school. This all began in year 3 last year when she started gaining weight. At first, it was name calling like ‘pig’, ‘fatty’, ‘porker’ and other horrible names. The other children have turned it up a notch this year and started poking her belly, slapping her belly and continuing to call her names alongside this. Her teacher has been told on multiple occasions but nothing seems to be shifting.

I have tried making subtle attempts to try and get the family moving so she doesn’t feel isolated. DD2 likes going to the park and enjoys swimming but doesn’t enjoy this for a long period of time. I have also tried signing her up to after school clubs but she is not interested.

Things come to a head last night because DH’s DD (my DSD) came for dinner as per arrangements and they baked together making a batch of 24 cupcakes. When DSD’s mother came to collect her and DD2 was left to her own devices, I was shocked to enter the kitchen and found her to have eaten 9 of the cupcakes. This was after porridge for breakfast, food at school and then a roast dinner for tea. I tried using the nurturing approach of explaining how bad it is to eat that many cupcakes whilst also implying that this was unkind as DH and DSD had made these. DH heard the conversation and rather sternly said to DD2 that she was going to ‘eat herself to death’ and shown her a video of those overweight American toddlers you see online. DD2 was obviously distraught and DD1 had heard the commotion and came downstairs and called DD2 a fat pig.

I am genuinely lost as to what to do at this point so any ideas please send them my way!!

8 cupcakes is extreme…. Please go to the gp. My son is a bottomless pit ( very active, loads of sport), and he could not manage to eat that much in one sitting.
for comparison, my 9 year old son is 135 cm and 4.5 stone.

I think the aim here is to get her to a nutritionist asap. She doesn't have to lose weight necessarily, but maintain it as she grows. Remove ALL temptation from the house. No sugary drinks or junk foods or crisps. Cut back on bread and potatoes massively. Aim for 1400 calories to 1700. Go for a walk for an hour a day. Or do a dance video. Oatmeal, berries, greek yoghurts, beans, lentils, whole foods, veggies. Loads of eggs! She can feel really full, but full of good stuff. Above all, be kind to her. It's hard when you're in this cycle. Food is addictive. Everyone in house has to he on board. Do it with love. The whole family has to go on a health kick.

I do think before anything else, you need to talk to the doctor and with luck get a referral to a dietician.

The thing about childhood obesity in one so young is you can ameliorate the effect in adulthood if you act now. Your child can continue to grow and stay at the same weight.

I appreciate it doesn’t feel “fair” to the others not to have biscuits etc in the house, but that ship has sailed, frankly, and you have to play the cards you’re dealt.

Re play dates, I feel you’re going to have to be the constant host for the foreseeable, and develop a deep and meaningful relationship with carrot sticks and cucumber for play date snacks.

My DD developed very disordered portion control when she was young, as she went to MIL once a week who is a huge feeder. The rest of the week she was like a child possessed. I googled myself silly and everyone online told me one day of bad eating wouldn’t make any difference, but we moved away and as anticipated, things settled down to normal very quickly.

In recalibrating DD’s diet, I went for extreme predictability so her body knew when to be hungry. I also went for a 1950s style diet - eg boiled potatoes, 2x veg, pork chop or similar. Nothing in there that was ultra-palatable. If she was still hungry she could have another potato. Potatoes aren’t any more healthy than any other white carb but the point is they are boring and DD would not eat them recreationally.

I really struggle to understand how a child can get to this kind of weight. I think you definitely need to get to the bottom of this, maybe she has a condition where she can't feel full? Or uses food to numb herself down? I doubt you can help her at this stage by simply reducing her snacks, she is way too overweight.

You do need to stop getting junk in the house, your other kids can live without constant access to crap. Just get them some treats occasionally, to be eaten straight away.

That's very interesting, I've never heard of 1950s diet used this way but it makes total sense.

First, get her down to the GP to see if there are any underlying issues.

Secondly, stop with the shame, it will only make her want to eat more. She will be more than aware of her weight without your husband showing her videos!!! You need to take the emotion away from food, food has no moral value, the more you take the snacks away the more you put them on a pedestal and the more she’ll binge when she gets chance.

This isn’t about her being hungry (unless there is an underlying medical reason), she is comfort eating OP, food clearly gives her something that general life isn’t.

Thirdly, talking to her about it, be open and honest, enquire, don’t judge. How does food make her feel? Does it make her happy? Sad?

Finally, I would talk to her about the other implications of lost if these sorts of sweets e.g. it’s not good for teeth or energy levels

I say all of this as someone who was relentlessly bullied at school for being overweight and has struggled in adulthood.

I'm astounded that an 8 yet old was able to eat that many cupcakes in such quick succession. This absolutely requires a trip to the GP, urgently.

Unfortunately treats need a full household ban and the other 2 kids are going to have to suck it up for a while as their sibling's life is at risk.

I was eight stone at eight years old. Turned out I had an underactive thyroid and lipoedema. Then being treated as someone who was disgusting - fat, got to change, if you were just a better person you wouldn't be fat - will give you issues like compulsive eating. Seek help because I didn't stop gaining weight until I got medical help at 25.

You need some medical advice here. It sounds like your DD has very disordered eating. Go to GP and get a dietician referral, and blood tests.

Agree with others, don’t buy the snack food. At 8 you have some control over what your child eats - as a teen you don’t as they go out on their own.
There are healthy snacks like crudités and h, mous, fruit, crackers and cheese etc which will fill her up more and she will lose that craving.

Exercise won’t do anything if it’s not pared with healthy eating. Maybe a trip to the park/a light swim will burn off about 150 cals.

An easy switch even if you drive to school is to get up earlier / be more efficient in the morning and then park at least a 15 minute walk away.

OP, I remember your previous post and how extreme her food seeking behaviour is. Do you think there is any possibility that she could have Prader Willi Syndrome? The symptoms can be milder and go unnoticed for a time. Just a thought.

Get her to try different activities, start with swimming lessons. Something like a football skills class or children's pt.
However her calorie intake needs to reduce for any of the above to work. Definitely visit gp for help.

It’s probably play dates with other kids from school.

A simple blood test will rule that out.

You need to speak with a health professional and make a plan. 8 year olds should not be put on diets to lose weight. At her age, it has to be about slowing the weight gain. This is a very important difference.

For most people, eating sweets in moderation is fine. For some it's impossible. It's like with alcohol, most people can have a drink or two and stop, some turn into alcoholics.

All that to say that you shouldn't have any sweet things at all in the house. That includes things like fruit juices.

Then look into taking probiotics, eating lots of fibre, cutting down on all snacks between meals. Focus on the food side of things. Exercise is great for health but it doesn't actually do much for weight.

I recommend reading 'the obesity code' by Dr Jason Fung to really understand how and why the body gains or loses weight.

For an 8 year old all this will be difficult. She's already being bullied horribly poor girl. I really hope things get better for her. Does she have a hobby she can focus on e.g. music?

She must be consuming a huge amount of calories and be doing very little physical activity. DS is 7 134 cm and not even 4 stone. Some days he eats more than me. For breakfast today he's had overnight oats with a whole banana a tablespoon of almond butter, whole milk, cherries, greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey, most of one of those squat mason jars full. He'll have sausage mash veg and pudding at school, plus a fruit or beer snack at break, he'll have a snack after school (probably banana bread and more milk as I baked a loaf last night the recipe I use doesn't contain sugar other than from the bananas and sultanas) an apple and probably some cheese, then for dinner we've got salmon new potatoes, asparagus, green beans, tender stem broccoli and I'll probably make either hollandaise or a garlic and herb butter for the fish his iron will be the same as mine. He will have something for pudding he's big on strawberries and cream at the moment so maybe that.
However he walks/scoots/cycles to and from school, this week he has athletics, dodgeball, swimming and gymnastics. We won't be going cycling in Saturday like we did this week because we're going to the country show so less exercise but he'll be in his feet all day. Does she spend a lot of time at home or on screens? Moving lots needs to be part of every day. I consciously have to give DS full fat everything, and make sure I'm getting in plenty of milk, cream, cheese etc to keep weight on him. What he doesn't have is much highly processed food with high calories and not much nutrition.

Please, please, please OP don't just "look at everything". I'm honestly not trying to frighten you but you MUST see the GP as a matter of urgency. There are various serious medical issues that could be behind this.

This is not only a diet problem. She has emotional needs that shes trying to fullfill with food and binge eating.
You need to focus on that. Children can create unhealthy coping mechanisms to stressfull situations and uncertainty. Has there been divorce? Blended families? New family members? Conflict?

You need to take an honest look at your family environment and see it from her point of view? What are the things that shes trying to cope with?

Also, im sure this is not the case here, but worth mentioning. Sometimes children unconciously fatten themselves if they've been sexually abused. To make themselves unattractive to their abuser and potential abusers.

The key is to reconnect with your child and really figure out what is going on with her. Stop talking about weight and diet. It is the symptom, not the cause.

I think you have had some very harsh responses.
For one afternoon I was assigned to look after a little girl of a similar age and weight at my grandson’s school.
It was Christmas party afternoon and each class had party food set out in the classrooms whilst the children had entertainment in the main hall.
The food was to be eaten after the entertainment.
My job was to keep the little girl from leaving the hall and eating the food in the classrooms, and afterwards to sit with her and ensure she didn’t eat more than her share.

It was terribly difficult.
it certainly was not a job for a volunteer.

Time and time again I had to search for her after she had eluded me. Each time I discovered her cramming cake etc into her mouth , hiding under tables etc.

In all other ways the little girl seemed like a quite regular child, she just had a terrible compulsion to eat cakes and snacks.

I learned afterwards that she also would steal snacks from lunch boxes and at play dates and was shunned at birthday parties etc as a result.

In truth she seemed like any other little girl, she chatted nicely to me. But goodness she was cunning when it came to evading me to get to the food.

My grandson left that primary school quite soon afterwards.

I often think of her and wonder how her family cope with her problem and indeed what caused it.
If your daughter has similar behaviour and it sounds like she does, it must be a full time job for you just managing her compulsion and I do sympathise.
I hope you are able to find some professional help.

Same I would have been too busy to faff about with that
also if I found a child poking about in cupboards /the fridge/constantly asking for food instead of buggering of and playing would have irritated the crap out of me!

Do you and your husband have a healthy lifestyle? As in not just a healthy weight but exercise, nutrition etc. We definitely set a better example to our kids now we take better care of our bodies. So if one of you is out for a run, the kids follow on their bikes. If one of you is doing a bike ride, everyone comes along for a bit, at their painfully slow pace, then after 5k or so, you carry on with a proper ride & they can slowly head home/to the park etc. Exercise can’t be something she does because she’s different, it should be something that’s in the whole families lifestyle because it’s just what you do. Nutrition then comes with that, get the crap out of the house, it serves no purpose for anyone & for her to get to that size it seems like portion control has gone a bit haywire. It sounds awful but could you weigh her portions, without her knowing, just for a few weeks whilst you get your head around what her portion size should look like. Just to retrain yourself what a portion of potatoes etc looks like for a small child.

Please seek gp/dietician/ paediatric advice to rule out any medical issues and advice. It sounds like she can’t stop eating rather than the delightful poster on here calling her greedy which is not helpful. She will be more aware of what she is doing and that she is overweight.

Please be wary of the different types of advice you get on here: mumsnet is rife with eating disorder behaviour/disordered eating advice.

She is a child of 8 she needs help from both her parents not more confusion about food groups,upfs, calories and food restriction. You need to speak to your husband and children about their behaviours and words because no matter how frustrated they are what they are doing and saying will not help. School also need to get a grip on the bullying. All this emotional upset could drive her towards food even more.

Oh hang on... you haven't posted about her before? She isn't the little girl who will search out the snacks no matter where where you hide them or what you say to her about not being allowed to help herself?

Still, it does sound pretty extreme if she's not allowed to peoples' houses because of it. I'd still bear my suggestion in mind if you find you cannot get on top of it.

Remove all snacks apart from fruit in a fruit bowl. Tell her why she’s been uninvited to her friends houses.
8 stone is a shocking weight for a child that age, but I’m sure you know that. Has she seen a GP?

Can you try different activities to see if there’s one she enjoys? Tennis, badminton, squash, swimming, climbing, hiking? Really use this summer to get the whole family active.