Dealing with overweight son.

[pudding21]

Wasn't sure where to post but thought I would post here for traffic as am a regular on the relationships board.

I have a beautiful 9 (nearly 10) year old son. He has always been on the higher % of the centile for weight and height. Yesterday I weighed and measured him for forms for his football club. I was astonished to see he is 46kgs. He is very tall for his age, 149 cms. I calculated his BMI which I know don't take into account build, muscle etc but he is on the 96th Centile and classed as obese.

He is solid, but round his middle he holds fat. He is starting to get conscious of it and it slows him down in terms of sport. He is an active child, he does football twice a week, karate once a week and every lunchtime at school he plays football, as well as gymnastics twice a week.

He always has a good breakfast, has soup and a main cooked meal at school, and I pretty much always cook from scratch and healthily in the evenings. In the past he would fill out,shoot up and slim down and repeat. But this summer he has grown, but he still looks a little overweight.Ii wouldn't say he looks obese. He has his fathers build, whereas my other son is like me and a bit of a whippet (both DS's eat the same food, although DS1 will eat more at a sitting).

He doesn't have much in terms of fizzy drinks/ juice etc and mostly drinks water, he doesn't eat much sweets or biscuits either. I brought it up with him today in a round about way and he got upset and said I was telling him he was fat and to stop talking about it. I tried to discuss with him more in terms of health rather than appearance as I don't want him to have issues but at the same time I think we need to address it before it gets a bigger problem.

Any advice on how to deal with this with him? We did have an issue last year when he was having his school dinner but also buying stuff at school ( they have a card which is charged with money and should be for school meals only but he was chancing it and we found out, hasn't done it since as we can check what he is spending the money on).

Its a tricky one so any advice welcomed! I do think he might be starting puberty, but I don't want to fall into the trap of "he'll grow and slim down", "boys need fat to grow" etc and then get to a point its a much bigger problem. Thanks in advance.

To be honest, his karate teacher, surf instructor and person doing the medical should not be commenting so negatively on a child's weight. It could do two ways. He will be strict with himself and lose it for himself or he will appear to be doing what everyone tells him but secretly eating in private. My kids are grown up now and I have seen with one of them and many of their friends that they do pack on fat before puberty and lose it after. Could be the bodies way of preparing for puberty growth spurt.

I think you sound like a lovely well balanced Mum who is quite rightly trying to nip something in the bud whilst not making a big deal of things. My advice is to keep it simple:
Encourage regular water intake.
Get out of the habit of " seconds"
Watch the sugar/carb/protein balance
Wherever possible mirror meals so he can see what is an average portion of a balanced diet..
Steady and slow lifestyle changes are far more effective. Good luck!

Playing football in goal and karate are not particularly aerobic, the gymnastics it would depend on what he is doing

He may be sporty but not burning many calories up

Boys do not need to "stock up" on calories before puberty, they should eat to their appetite as they grow

Football training consists of 45 minutes of running around (all the kids do the same) with the last 15 minutes or so as a match type play with him in goal. So it is aerobic.

Karate is very aerobic, they run around for a long time and they also do sport combat. he also competes and has 2 gold medals at national level.

Gymnastics is the kids PE and they do that twice a week for an hour at school.

Hes very active. He has very little tech or TV time. They are at school from 9 am - 5:30 am. Three nights a week have activites. sometimes matches of karate comps on a saturday too.

He walks, he bikes, he runs around with friends. He isn't sat on the sofa all day every day. In fact even when they come to the gym with me, the boys go and play football for an hour.

Thanks MrsGrindah: I do want to nip it in the bud because I don't want it to hamper him in the future or be a target for bullying. I will be trying the things you and others have suggested.

He gets "hangry" quite often, which is why I do feed him when he says he is hungry. His mood can change a lot when he hasn't eaten for a while.

Lovlies: I totally agree with you about the instructors, its a great community here and everyone gets involved with kids. They do it with good intentions even if its not always the correct way to go about it. But it hurts me when others bring it up because I know he is conscious about it.

I do think he is going to shoot up again, but usually he visable slims down after a growth spurt, this hasn't happened this summer, which is why I am concerned.

I can't believe someone side ignore his height centile just look at weight I am I think 7th centile for height - I'd be very overweight if I were 50th centile for weight

The aim is that their height and weight centiles are similar of course a much taller person should weigh more than a short arse!!!

Op it sounds like your DS is on board to getting healthier, for main meals perhaps loads more veg but less carbs in terms of potato/rice/pasta/bread?

Strange you say he gets hangry - my tall sporty DD is so like this still at 15 (she is still slim but is nicknamed the food police as loves her food) - the rest are more short or average and just don't get like that!

RandomMess: I know, if he was 96th centile for weight and 9th for height we'd have a much bigger issue. As a baby, he was always on the highest centiles and he was breast fed. Its an issue now for sure, and I think now is the right time to tackle it. Like I said I think he is starting puberty (albleit early for a boy) and I remember my brother eating loaves of bread when he was 11/12 and he grew massively from the age of then until he was about 17. There was absolutely no filling him. That said, I worry about his health going forward so want to educate him as much as possible without making him self conscious. He grows out of his clothes at a rate I cannot afford for a start!

These tall, fast growers are so expensive mine has definitely stopped at 14, she was pretty much fully grown by 12 at 5'7". I remember at 9 she went from a shoe size 2 -4/5 in 4 months - was ££££

Explain to him that when it comes to wanting seconds at a meal, he needs to wait until the food he has already eaten has gone down - only then can he tell, a little later, whether he really needs more.

No matter what body shape he ends up with, it's so important to get him into the habit of controlled eating now - it will stand him in good stead for a lifetime. Sounds like at the moment he does have a bit of a stuffing habit - he enjoys his food - just tackling that would be a good thing.

I think you hit the nail on the head with him being a stuffer. I'm going to encourage him to eat a lot slower too. I already mention it to him if he's stuffing it in but I think I need a different approach.

Hes an animal at children's parties. They are a sugar fest here and the parents here are food pushers so trying to control it can be a challenge especially if I'm not there.

Lots of things to try here, thanks again for the input.

My son is now 24. Unfortunately he is obese but he cannot control his eating... He lives a sedentary life style and picks up weight very quickly

He gets very depressed if I talk to him about addressing it. He gets angry as well. So it is very difficult to talk to him

I really feel sorry that I cannot help him.I am lost

He lives around his university most of the time and would eat what he likes... Any healthy food will not taste good for him
Please help and advise

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My daughter was the same. She had a routine health assessment at school in year 5 which says she was overweight. I got the school nurse to come to my house to show her a typical weekly meal plan. She was eating is the toy healthily - cereal with half fat milk for breakfast. Tuna and sweetcirn whole meal bread with fruit and yoghurt for lunch. Hone made cottage pie/ curry/ stir fry/ roast dinner etc for dinner. I knew she was a different build to me, I'm short and always been 7stone apart from when I was pregnant. I was 8stone 3 when I gave birth to her.
My mother in law and her sisters are much bigger so I do really feel that a lot comes down to genes. My daughter always ate healthily. My son, however is like me, eats a ridiculous amount and is still very thin. He eats for England but must have hollow legs!
My daughter is now 22 and a size 12. She's happy in herself. Eats well and those school assessments still really piss me off!

A proper BMI also includes age and sex, and even then is quite approximate. Might be better to focus on his actual condition. And ideally speak to a doctor rather than working it out yourself.
www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/bmi/result.html?&method=metric&gender=m&age_y=9&age_m=6&hcm=149&wkg=46

Oh, I see this is a resurrected zombie. Ignore my efforts

I"m not sure I'd mention it to him again, I think I'd just get on with trying to reduce his intake without saying anything. For example, you mentioned that you provide a light evening meal when he has activities. Would it be possible to do this every evening? Increasing evening activities so there was something going on most evenings, even if only a walk, would help, as it would take his mind off food as the event of the evening, but I know this may not be feasible if you're all busy already.

You are right to tackle it now. 80% of overweight kids will grow up to be obese adults. It has certainly been the case with my friends DD, and now enormous as a teen and the younger one going the same way
it is very hard to deal with when you can't control what they eat, he is still young enough that you can
You get used to eating a lot of food so it is like any bad habit that will be hard to break.

I think you are worrying before you need to. He is only 10 and sounds very active and well catered for nutritionally. I’d just keep an eye on him over the next few years and don’t mention anything more to him as it could make him eat in secret and cause a problem that wasn’t there.

Oh it’s a zombie thread! How’s he doing now OP?

I don't get why people are saying about 2 hot meals in the day being wrong? As OP says, many countries around the world eat hot meals twice, some for every meal!?

Many hot meals are lower in calorie and far more nutritious than sandwiches or whatever cold alternatives people who have made this comment might give their children. Do most people in the UK genuinely not give their children a hot dinner if they eat school dinners?

OP, I think you're right to look at portion sizes as it's easy to give too much when you're feeding them at the same time as yourself, maybe also ditch puddings (if there are any) and replace with some fruit, for everyone so he doesn't feel like it's just him. Could it maybe also be little things like bread with meals that are contributing?

Other than that though I can't see what more you could be doing if he's very active, only eats school meals and eats healthily at home. Must just be some little changes that will make a difference.

D'oh, just seen it's old! Hope he's doing well now OP :)