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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

DD Overweight, don't know what to do

18 replies

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 27/05/2019 03:17

DD (14) recently went in for a routine doctor's appointment and we were shocked at her weight gain. She's always been a larger girl - big baby, tall and in the higher percentiles throughout her childhood - but she's also sports-mad, plays on a team every season (with practices 4-5 times a week) and is v. strong.

She's only slightly overweight, but it's noticeable that she's larger than her teammates and I honestly don't know what to do. The doctor wants to be careful as this is a prime age for eating disorders to begin Sad, but she needs to lose this extra weight.

Before anyone starts accusing me of feeding her on chips, we eat pretty well overall, with some treats. I'm a UK size 8-10, never been overweight; DS is skinny; DH is tall and chunky...there are some "big" genes in his family that seem to pop up in certain people e.g., one of his sisters is petite, the other is tall and also battles with her weight.

Now I feel as if we should be living on salads and increasing the exercise, even though she does more than many of her friends. She knows she's bigger than her friends and has told me that she's thought about purging before, but has never actually done it.Sad
How can I approach this carefully?

OP posts:
Broken11Girl · 27/05/2019 03:35

She's thought about purging Sad
Is she just a solid athletic build? Muscle is denser than fat so BMI is not accurate for athletes.
I would gently get healthier as a family. Do not comment on her weight, figure, what she eats. Try meal planning and cooking as a family to eat a more nutritious diet, for reasons of health and to fuel physical activity, lots of protein, good fats, a variety of fruit and veg. Don't entirely cut out treats. She probably doesn't need more exercise but if she is just on screens in her free time, you could try geocaching, Pokemon go, hiking, yoga, computer games like Wii fitness/ dance...but do not obsess. Praise her for a good game, good grades, being kind/ helpful when she is/ does those things, spend time with her not related to eating or fitness, do not comment on her body or what she eats or doesn't. It can be awful being the 'big girl' on the team, you are right to be very careful.

HermioneMakepeace · 27/05/2019 03:49

It sounds like she’s getting enough exercise. Do you offer extra food, like puddings, snacks, etc? This is an obvious place to start. Ditch all puddings, snacks and treats. Non-one needs treats! Stick to 3 meals a day.

greenlynx · 27/05/2019 04:32

Muscles do weight more so BMI works a little bit different for athletes. I wonder what she’s eating at school and also about snacks and drinks after sport. Does she drink high calories drinks? They give you a lot.

LiliesAndChocolate · 27/05/2019 04:49

I work as a medical translator, and lately so many books have been published on the deleterious effect of the transformation and breaking of food. So 200 calories of rice, the grain, will not be processed by the body in the same way of a 200 cal mix of rice flour, rice starch, rice flour, rice oil and so on. Food activates a metabolic process and sadly industrial food manufacturing is causing massive damage to our health. Gluten is the perfect example. Gluten was hardly an issue when it was a natural part of wheat, then started the extraction and breaking of wheat into several parts and gluten became an ingredient on its own that was added to food to make it soft, elastic to such an extent that it is even added to meat such as ham and sausages. And now even non - coeliac people suffer indisposition with gluten.

What I am trying to say is go for real and whole food, a steak, a chicken breast, a pot of mussels, a piece of fish which hasn't been transformed in any way with any addition. Alternate with a pasta, a risotto, again homemade with whole ingredients.
I wouldn't add more sport, she already does a lot and it will make her hungrier. I have a swimmer in the house and he is starving after training, and he will have sometimes a crêpe or even 2 pieces. of (real) bread with a couple of dark chocolate cubes in it.

The human body is far too complex to be affected by the extra 30 calories a quarter of an apple brings, Eat the same 30 calories of dried and fried apple made into apple chips and glazed with sugar, your insulin will be through the roof and those 30 calories transform straight into fat.

Look into the diet of the whole family and try to get rid of all packages with more than 4 or 5 ingredients listed . So a bottle of passata with tomatoes, salt, oil and basil is fine, any thing added to that leave on the shelf. Read the nutrition table, and product with 5 gr of sugars /100 gr (not the carb, the sugar line) , leave on the shelf, any product which hasn't whole food, but words such as powder, extract, starch, ... leave on shelf, any food you wouldn't be able to do in your kitchen because your need an engineering degree and high pressure machines leave on shelf. I am a great cook, I even give cooking lessons here in Australia but I would never be able to prepare doritos according to the ingredients list:

Nacho Cheese Doritos ingredients (U.S.), in order of percent of product: whole corn, vegetable oil (corn, soybean, and/or sunflower oil), salt, cheddar cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), maltodextrin, whey, monosodium glutamate, buttermilk solids, romano cheese (part skim cow's milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), whey protein concentrate, onion powder, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, corn flour, disodium phosphate, lactose, natural and artificial flavor, dextrose, tomato powder, spices, lactic acid, artificial color (including Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40), citric acid, sugar, garlic powder, red and green bell pepper powder, sodium caseinate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, nonfat milk solids, whey protein isolate, corn syrup solids.[15]

Do your own chips, by peeling and slicing a potato. Don't use jar sauces, even the healthy organic ones.

You don't need to have a dish that has a name. Roast some veggies in the oven, prepare a juicy and savoury tomato salad, add a small chicken breast coated in herbs and you have a lovely meal for every one.

Eat real food, nice food, and by avoiding sauces but going crazy on fresh rosemary, basil, chives, sage, and adding some lovely soups for dinner, you will not only take care of your daughter's weight but enhance her health as well.

HermioneMakepeace · 27/05/2019 04:51

@Broken11Girl There are some good tips in your post.

HopeClearwater · 27/05/2019 21:44

Thanks to @LiliesAndChocolate

The scientific studies being published these days certainly say what you’ve said.

LiliesAndChocolate · 27/05/2019 23:03

Once, an article tried to cut the debate between low carb, low fat, or high this or high that when it came to diet, and the conclusion were that it doesn't matter nor make any difference . The key point of each was that in order to achieve the type of diet they wanted to follow they had to stop buying and eating processed food and many starting eating vegetables they wouldn't have touched otherwise.

For many processed food is just the junk, but processed food is food that has to be made in a factory and goes to some sort of transformation. You can have some yogurts with the loveliest picture of a cow in a swiss mountain in the front that are as transformed as pringles.

The worst are the basic such as bread. Nobody would say that brown loaf in a paper bag with a retro sepia font is a processed food. Read the ingredients. Even wholemeal bread. If you look closely, a lot will say wheat flour ,and wheat bran, not whole wheat flour. Technically, on paper, by adding the bran to white flour you get back to the whole grain, but in reality no and bran is erosive to the colon and something to avoid in its pure form. A food is not the sum of its parts. Breaking it down and putting it back together is done by transformation and alters the way the body will process it.
It is very hard to find real bread. Made of flour, water, yeast, a pinch of salt and nothing else.

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 28/05/2019 15:34

Thanks for all the good advice, it's just been a shock to realise that my sporty girl needs to lose weight and because her body type is so different to mine, what works for me may not be the right approach for her. I can get away with a few puddings, she obviously can't, which is hard.The good news is that it's not a huge weight gain so if we address it now, it might not be too difficult to lose. I've talked it over with her and emphasised that we need to make a few adjustments and find out what works for her. She was OK, no tears so I'm hopeful. Smile

OP posts:
TopsyTurvy0 · 30/05/2019 00:21

I was a bit tubby at 13-16 and you know what never mind. I was probably 10-11 stone and 5ft 5. I am big built in terms of having muscular thighs and butt. Never was skinny.

I wouldn't even comment on healthy eating or why. Shell clock on. Maybe swim as a family and take walks but again try not to have an agenda.

My mum never commented on my weight or discussed other people's looks or weight. As a result I am pretty happy in my body

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 30/05/2019 19:37

@TopsyTurvy0

I know what you're saying and if the pediatrician hadn't flagged it, I'd prefer to leave well alone. We've had the same doctor since DD was born, though, and she's not an alarmist. If she says that DD needs to lose some weight, I've got to take her advice.

OP posts:
RandomMess · 30/05/2019 19:43

Perhaps it's just about portion size or fewer carbs and more protein?

When you weigh out food it's quite horrifying how few 100 grams of chips is or 30gr of cereals?

A few slices of pizza cans be loads of calories and so on.

The most helpful thing is probably let her eat as normal and monitor what she eats now before working out what to change...

KnitterOfSocks · 30/05/2019 20:51

Portion size is very easy to lose track of. I've had to go back to weighing absolutely everything to even start to lose weight. 100g of oven chips is a really small amount, 50g of porridge oats looks really small.

MummyBear2352 · 31/05/2019 10:19

How often are the treats and what are they?

If she excercises enough it would then be her diet? She's 14 so is she buying stuff herself?.. I've always been a bigger girl, not huge by any means but always a 14/16 and I've come to accept it. Its How I am and always will be my father side are all bigger. I eat heathily and I walk daily most places. For me to loose weight I have to excercises like a horse and have very strict calories.... Life's far too short! 😄

Do u have a dog you could walk together on evenings? Cook together? Send her to school with healthier snacks so hopefully she then doesn't need the shop or chippy etc. My mom didn't kbow we went to the chippy most days at school, how we did it I don't know lol!

Does she drink pop? If she does then that's calories straight away that can be cut out....?

Definitely don't make it a thing, that would be awful. But if she mentions it about loosing weight say, wanna do something together? What can we do? Look at slimming world or ww? You can do them online I think too x

MummyBear2352 · 31/05/2019 10:19

Nhs change for life might be helpful too x

ourkidmolly · 31/05/2019 10:24

Why is she under paediatric care? Are you in the UK? Tracking weight isn't something a GP usually does?

Teddybear45 · 31/05/2019 10:29

My sister is a natural size 0-4 and I find she often has no idea how to eat healthily because she has never needed to think about food in terms of weight gain. She will easily eat 2k calories per day (small portions but a lot of processed food) and because her metabolism is the way it is she tends to burn it off with 10k steps per day.

Her lifestyle doesn’t work for her daughter (my neice) and she can’t eat the same type of food despite being more active. It was only when DN started living with me (we don’t snack on anything other than fruit/veg, eat 3 meals per day where I weigh the ingrediants, and do our 10k steps everyday in one go at a fast pace) that she started to lose weight.

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 01/06/2019 15:08

@ourkidmolly

No, I'm British but we live in the US right now. Over here, parents usually register with a pediatrician when pregnant and the children stay with a pediatric practice until they're 18, when they switch to a GP. Of course, it all costs a fortune!

They have annual check-ups for weight, height, their vaccinations, etc. and that's why the pediatrician noticed the weight gain over the past year.

I think portion control might be part of the issue, plus she does buy her own school lunches. She claims to eat salads, but who knows!

Anyway, thanks all. I really don't want to turn this into an "issue". I just want my girl to be healthy.

OP posts:
RandomMess · 01/06/2019 15:54

I would ask her if the salads are drowned in dressings!! Wouldn't surprise me...

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