Anyone else got a overweight lazy teen?

[marne2]

My dsd is almost 15, she does not live with us so we don't get much say in what she does or what she eats. I spoke to her mother today and she sounded really fed up with dsd, she says 'she's lazy, overweight and keeps asking for money', her mum works 6 days a week and on Saturday she takes dsd to work with her to earn a few £, dsd spends this money on junk food. Her mum says when she is working all day during the week and returns home at 5pm dsd is sat on her bum doing nothing, refuses to do any house work or cook whilst her mum is at work, she says her weight is getting out of control and is effecting her health ( dsd has hypermobile joints and the weight is putting pressure on them, she keeps injuring her ankles ) but what ever her mum says to her makes no difference, her mum tries to encourage her to go for a walk at the weekends but dsd refuses to move of the sofa ( other than to work a couple hours on a sat morning ). I'm not sure how much dsd weighs but she is now bigger than her mum, she pinches her mums clothes but they longer fit, I would say her mum is probably a size 16 so dsd could be a size 18?

Although I don't see dsd very often we often speak online and I would say we are rarely close but probably more as friends than step daughter and step mother but I do step in and tell her off when I need too.

What can we do to encourage her to lose weight without upsetting her too much, she can be quite sensitive so I don't want to make things worse, maybe if she helped her mum out a bit more around the house she would stop putting on the weight?

There is absolutely nothing you can do to get her to lose weight.

She knows she's fat but just lacks any motivation to do anything about it, and being told by someone - no matter how well meaning - will just make her even unhappier.

If she's home alone for long periods, and has her own wages to buy junk with, then things will only change when she wants them to.

All you can do is cook healthily when she's with you, model good habits and maybe encourage some gentle exercise as a family.

At the moment she doesn't come over to our house unless she wants money for a school trip or new clothes ( then she is over like a shot ), we used to have her over every weekend which made it easier. She loves to cook but mainly cakes and things that are bad for her, she's a very bright girls so I'm not sure why she doesn't understand how important it is to exercise and eat the right foods.

Looking at this sympathetically, she may well find exercise painful because of her hypermobile joints; so she's never been good at or enthused by any sport or activity; so the weight has crept on, in a vicious circle.

DD is similar in some ways, and so is her cousin. Both are/were very sensitive to comments and helpful suggestions (oh, and both do love baking cakes... i suspect there's a certain teenage defiance to that bit).

With both, what's helped is recognition that dodgy joints do mean they have a problem that isn't their fault, and that they'll never want to go for 'a nice jog' or take up judo or be netball captain or whatever, plus (somewhat exaggerated) praise for how jolly well they manage despite it all.

Oh, and swimming is good!

Bet she does understand it in theory but not the scale of the balance between food and exercise. DD is convinced that saying Hup two three four! and doing a couple of star jumps will work off a whole cake. As I don't much want to go down the obsessive calorie counting route I just bite my tongue and save her from the cakes by eating them

She has always been big, her mums side of the family are all big and struggle with weight. The gp has told her to lose weight to help with the hypermobility, both my dd's has hypermobility too but although they are not good at sport they are quite active ( trampolining ,swimming and walking ). Tbh dsd has always had a pretty rubbish diet, her mum used to feed her a lot of take aways but is now trying to feed her healthy meals when she can. She's a child who will always struggle with her weight but she does need to learn to eat good food and to not veg out on the sofa all day.

I have two DC with hypermobility and medical advice has been to do exercise that strengthens core muscles, so they both swim and go to the gym, and one of them play a team sport.

It sounds as if she has been allowed to develop bad habits with diet and exercise, that will be very hard to change now although it sounds like mum is belatedly trying.

If she is rarely at your house then I really can't see anything practical you can do to help. If you attempt a 'big talk' I think it will push her further away.

Could you invite her to join you at an exercise class, to support you? Or tell her you're going on a healthy eating plan (not a diet) to get fitter for an event/holiday/Christmas and ask her to join you (even better if mum sees what you're trying to do and joins in)?

If she isn't ready to make changes yet, at least she will know who to talk to for advice when she is ready.

I asked her to come to slimming world with me but she laughed ( as though she hasn't got a problem with weight ), I don't go to the gym or exercise classes due to a back injury, I do swim ( but only when the kids are at school ) and I walk a lot, I am a size 12 and eat healthy.

Her mum said the main problem is what she spends her lunch money on at school ( she always choses the less healthy options ), plus the fact she is spending her wages on food, I think her mum needs to be a bit tougher on her, maybe send her to school with a healthy packed lunch and monitor what she spends her money on but I guess it's hard with a 14 year old ( luckily I havn't got to this stage with my 2 yet ).

Packed lunch and an healthy cooked evening meal is a start. At that age you can not control what they buy themselves. Mine will still buy even if I have stuff in the house so I buy less. She will not try to loose weight until she is ready to

i guess also if her mum doesn't get home until 5 then between the end of school and her mum getting home she could also be eating.

Could she be unhappy? bored? or just stuck in bad habits?

She could be unhappy, without going into too much detail, she has had a tough couple of years and has just moved from the family home to a much smaller property in the middle of nowhere ( on top of other things going on ) but she has always been obsessed with food, will talk about food all the time and used to spend a lot of time cooking ( though it sounds like she doesn't do this as much anymore ).