DD eating too much, have had a chat with her

[SecondhandRose]

DD 13 is getting a bit overweight, nothing terrible it is just starting to be noticeable. I didnt want to have to talk to her about it for fear of it triggering a problem.

Last night both kids had an ice cream after school, she then insisted on eating a whole pizza for dinner (would not consider less). At 10pm (when she should have been in bed) she took a meringue and a bowl of Coco Pops up to her room. Just the after school food was nearly 1200 calories.

Tonight I found her in the sweet shop with a packet of Polos a friend had bought her. I talked her into swapping them for sugar free gum for the sake of her teeth.

Just wondered if anyone has had a similar experience and what wise words you have for me. I have struggled with my weight since having the children and I desperately dont want her to be an overweight teen.

I have suggested she keep to 1500 calories a day for a while with as much fruit as she wants. She seemed ok with this but I dont know if she will stick to it. She says she is eating because she is bored.

Why are you totting up the calories? Get good food in...why have all that crap available?

All I am seeing from you is excuses. 'Teenagers are a rule to themselves' 'Hidden away but she just helps herself when she finds them.'
Oh yes we have a no food in bedrooms rule - please tell me what to do to stop them.
'Sometimes it is easier to turn a blind eye or you drive yourself crazy with it.'

I say this of a mother of two teenage children who are not perfect aand drive me crazy.

It's you that allows so much junk in the house. Sure my kids would eat Cocoa pops until they come out of their ears and I like them occasionaly to but when the choice at home is malted wheats, scrambled egg or a smoothie for breakfast because there are no cocoa pops that is the end of that argument.
She is disrepecting your house rules and you are not enforcing that. I don't know what, if any, your sanctions are when your kids break the rules so I can't advice there.

By turning a blind eye you have made a rod for your own back,you are not being consistant. Mine whinge and nag at me to back down on my rules sometimes, like all kids do but it is very rarely I back down unless I have made a decision in haste or it is exceptional circumstances. It does drive me crazy but I just say 'How many different ways do you want me to say no?' and walk away.

I think it is your attitude that needs to change to help your DD tbh.

If you do one practical thing suggested on this thread, stop buying junk food.
She is a kid. If she sees a meringue she will want to eat it!
My son has food issues due to his ASD.
If I had coco pops they would be eaten in one go. I don't buy them.
All the kids can help themselves to fruit but not to biscuits etc.
Don't focus on her weight, get rid of the crap and get the whole family into better habits.
It's not easy and I understand why you are worried.

Stop calling food 'treats'
You are telling her what food is desirable by labelling it a treat.
I have teenagers btw.

What MrsdeVere said.

Just remove the junk food from the house. End of. If there is only yoghurt and fruit & healthy stuff around then it matters so much less how often/how much they eat. We try to keep 'simple' carbs down to an absolute minimum.

My DS is chubby and it bothers him because his friends tease him. So we monitor the quality (NOT the quantity) of what goes in and we are very firm in keeping the ante up with regard to how the calories are expended (14 hours of sport a week at age 8). I honestly think that doing anything else can set them up with eating issues.

But I do sympathise. It is horrible seeing a child start to lose self esteem because of their body image.

Listen to flow4.

Listen to your dd saying she is bored.

You are applying all of your excuses to your children. Ww does not promote a healthy diet/attitude to food.

I also don't understand why you have all that junk food around. Replace with bananas, sugar free muesli, whole bread, dried fruit, nuts. Have bowls of couscous or quinoa salad ready made up in the fridge so she can just dig in.

As far as I can see you are enabling her weight gain and acceptance that her diet now is OK

You need to clamp down on eating in bedrooms and outside meal times.

StillSquiffy - with all due respect... your DS needs to be controlling quantities of food as well as quality. And 14 hours of sport a week will be making him ravenous.

Umm I totally agree with all of the above, stop telling her she's fat and eating too much- you may not say that but that's the message your are giving.

You are the ADULT here, you do the shopping. She can only eat cocopops and meringue as a snack if YOU BUY THEM. YOU bought pizza for tea....

I have 2 teens at home- 16yr old and a just 13yr old. THey both eat like flipping shire horses. THey are not overweight (though as the 13yr old is 5 foot nothing and size 8 I've no idea why she isn't the "fuel" that goes in).

However, they eat appropriate fairly healthy food. Yesterday for instance- cereal for breakfast (weetabix, shreddies lots of milk on and to drink), DD had pack lunch, DS sardines on toast- 3 slices and an apple, tea- huge portion home made veggie pasta bake (pasta veggies lentils, topped with mozzarella) . Yes they had an ice cream after school. DD ate some birthday sweets no doubt and they both had a good half pint or milk at bed time. DS probably had 3 weetabix at 4pm as well.

basic fruit- bananas apples etc are always available, as is milk- they drink a lot, and cereal.

They don't feel deprived. If there is cake (eh birthday etc) they wouldn't dream of having it without asking though.

As a mum of a 14 yo dd and 13 yo DS I wholeheartedly agree with the people saying; stop buying junk food.
I know teenage children are a nightmare but it seems they are dictating to you a little bit because as you said yourself, it's easier to turn a blind eye.

My DCs eat what everyone else eats, there would be no insistence on pizza or cocopops.
My dd cooks dinner one night a week and DS one night and they choose what to cook, can you not make that a fun thing for your dd to do, plan and cook a meal together?

No food in the bedrooms means just that, if they walk past you with a bowl of cereal, just say if you want to eat it, then eat it down here.

If you want them to tidy their rooms-tell them, don't ask.

I have had my fair share of problems with ds&dd behaviour so I am by no means a perfect of even necessarily adequate mum, its just a bit of advice.

DSS1 tried to eat in the bedroom. I told him that there is a real mouse problem in our apartment building (true), that we had never yet had mice in our apartment because it is spotlessly clean (true) but that if crumbs of food were left on the floor the mice would most probably be here in a second, as that is what has happened to the neighbours (true).

DSS1 was horrified at the idea of mice in his bedroom and has never tried to eat outside the kitchen or dining room again

Unfortunately not much exercise going on except the 2 days at school. I have no intention of depriving her of food, making her go hungry etc. She has already said she is eating because she is bored not hungry. So some simple changes should make a difference.

I know what it feels like to be overweight and how miserable it made me, I dont want her to follow me down that path.

Thank you for your help.

I agree with TantrumsAndBalloons

Pizza, cake, biscuits all OK but she should be prepared to source recipe, ingredients, cook and clear up afterwards as well as making enough for everyone.

You should read 'Food Rules' by Michael Pollan michaelpollan.com/books/food-rules/

Here's an example of some of the 'rules'

michaelpollan.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/food_rules_excerpt.pdf

Thank you OWW, will take a look.

Thank you, that was interesting. Will look it up on Amazon.

This is interesting for me as I have DC who eat absurd amounts of food. Three proper meals per day. Plus endless snacks. Some of it is healthy food, but some is ansolutley not.

At this moment my DC are skinny. I mean really skinny. They do lots of sport and are generally very active (the sort of DC who will come home from a sports training session and jump for an hour on the trampoline, or will play football with the dogs, or just generally move about).

But I'm aware that this will not always be so...and wonder if I should watch what they eat more to put in place better habits. It feels a bit like putting the cart befoe the horse, but on the other hand...

Agree with everyone else, stop buying things you don't want her to have. And stop hiding food/treats. If it's alright for you to have meringues on your diet then why shouldn't dd be allowed them? Either you all can eat something or nobody can.

Sadly you are projecting your own issues with food/weight onto your daughter.

Getting a bit chubby at that age is normal.

Lots of good advice here, but one I disagree with is to totally ban 'junk' ie cocopops or whatever. She needs to learn to self moderate what she eats. Banning something just makes it all the more attractive.

Moderation is key.

I was an overweight teen. I had access to 'as much fruit as you want' but also crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits, you name it. This was in addition to fairly healthy balanced meals cooked from scratch. As you are finding out, now she's a teen it's hard to control snacking.

In all honesty, the only things that would have made me lose weight and get healthier were upping exercise (two PE lessons a week is nowhere near enough - spending evenings on the Internet is just what I did at her age) and my DM not buying all the chocolate, biscuit stuff.

I got so overweight that I developed an eating disorder, lost two stone in two months and have yo-yoed for the following ten years. It's only in the last three months that I'm doing what I should have done (or my Mum should have made me do) and getting fitter rather than freaking out about calories and developing a complex around food.

Please up the exercise instead of making her concious about calories. If you don't want to get rid of chocolate and crisps, then reduce the amount you have in the house. Exercise can be so little - walking to school, walks at the weekend, 'helping Mum with WeightWatchers' by joining you for a swim etc.

Yes I have teens.

Also coCopops are rank and I never buy them!

charmingly can I ask if it would have been better for you if your DM had insitigated a different regime before you became overweight?

As I say, I am very permissive with my DC as they are Skinny McSkinny....

Not a problem wordfactory :) Yes, I think it would have helped. TBH the aspect that would have been most beneficial is more exercise. My immediate family (and most of my extended family!) are not sporty. I was always told 'Don't worry about PE, I wasn't good at sport either', which was good for my self-esteem in the short term but in the long run I just didn't place any kind of importance on sport and progressively got worse until the effort required to keep active was too much for me to self-motivate. We went out a lot at the weekend (stately homes etc.) but weren't allowed to run around the way I see children doing now (had to 'behave').

I think my parents should have (and it's easy to criticise after the fact, although my DM has brought it up and agreed with me in the past) actively taken us out for more exercise and probably made our lunchboxes a bit healthier - we had crisps and chocolate every day, when there are so many other tasty alternatives and I was not a fussy child WRT food - I ate everything and liked it, including veg.

Thank you.
My DC are very active - sport every day at school and extra curricular too. I am spectacularly unsporty...but I am outdoorsy IYSWIM, so we often walk miles as a family.

I will encourage this to continue.