DD15 and weight.

[Nutjobby]

Hi, sorry if this is a bit long.
My daughter is 15 and, a few years ago, went from eating very healthily and being a healthy weight as a 10/11 year old to gaining quite a lot of weight when starting secondary school. A lot of this was due to having the freedom of buying a lot of unhealthy foods from the school canteen, not running around any more at break as she had in primary school and stopping swimming as she wasn't enjoying it. There was also the fact that puberty had hit with a vengeance so, although she was conscious of her weight, she was no longer sure as to what her healthy body would look like, iykwim.

About two years ago, after she kept getting upset about her weight, her dad and I had tried to approach this gently and she did change her eating habits and did lose some weight and she bwas really happy about that.

Back in March, she was weighed at the doctor's when getting checked for asthma, she was put at 68 kg at 5'4" which was quite a lot more than I would have thought and she was quite upset about this. I thought about what she eats and it is, frankly, a lot less than is recommended for a teenager.

During the week, she usually had Weetabix for breakfast, brought a salad for lunch and didn't have anything from the school canteen. Tea is healthy enough stuff such as salmon and veg, Quorn sausage and veg, spag bol, Spanish omelette, vegetable soup with toast etc. Neither of us eat meat and she doesn't like cheese so there's very little fast food in her diet. At weekends the food may not be quite so healthy but still pretty good.

We reckoned that lack of exercise (she has a very short walk to school and wasn't interested in sports clubs. Did do trampolining once a week and we played squash at weekends but this doesn't really amount to much) may have been an issue and talked about sports she may like to do.

She pulled a muscle in her back doing Duke of Edinburgh in may (rucksack not adjusted properly) and was in quite a lot of pain for almost two months. Walking was painful and trampolining and squash were out of the question).

At beginning of the summer holidays she went on a big healthy eating kick and also started running, which was great. She's kept that up ever since and is now running about 3 miles most mornings before school and is eating what I'm starting to think is quite worryingly little (but has been slightly more this week as she's had mock exams and I insisted that having requisite energy superceded the healthy eating).

She's visibly lost a lot of weight in the last few months, it's noticeable, she's really happy about it and probably the healthiest she's ever been. She weighed herself this morning for the first time since the doctor's and is still exactly 68kg. She is really, really upset.

I'm just not quite sure how to help her. She's sensible and knows that she's never going to be tiny. Like me, she's got quite a big frame for a woman despite being average ish height, as well as having quite a large bust which doesn't go down with weight loss (I've been trying since I was a teenager) but this came as a bit of a surprise.
I'm not really sure what to say to her or if I'm delusional about what a healthy size is.

Basically- does anyone have any advice as to how to treat this. I hate seeing her this upset and I'm just not sure what to say about this. Thanks.

Sorry this is so long- didn't realize quite how long it was until I posted.

I have read it through and realize that it does sound like I'm obsessive about her weight and I'm really, really not. I was a bit worried a few years ago when she put on a lot of weight very quickly. But I do just want her to be happy and hate how upset she is over this after being positive for so long.

Her BMI is 25 which is just on the upper end of normal. Hardly overweight.

I'd tell her to keep up the healthy eating and exercise. I know how awful it is when your DD is worried about her weight and wanting things to change, but your DD is a good BMI so she really shouldn't be doing anything extreme. good luck.

She's been weighed twice, on different scales. So there's no guarantee of accuracy - the scales may be inconsistent with each other.

Also, she has replaced fat with muscle, which is denser, so weighs more for less volume.

As long as she eats healthily, moves healthily and looks and feels healthy, the actual figures on the scales are not terribly relevant.

Thank you so much for the replies. I have said to her about muscle weighing more than fat etc it's just good to know that I'm not just in denial about this.

She's sensible and quite mature, she says she is aware that she isn't fat at all but is mostly a bit bummed out that something which has taken over quite a bit of her life over the past few months hasn't made a difference on the scales.
Once again, thanks so much.

Her BMI is 25 which is just on the upper end of normal. Hardly overweight. Adult BMI does not apply until 18 years old, you can calculate BMI centiles for children here.
www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/bmi-calculator/

Moderation in all things, embrace habits not fads. One day at a time.

Do be careful op - to me it sounds like your daughter could quite easily tip over to an eating disorder. Her three mile runs before school every day are incredibly admirable but when compared to the average teen who crawls out of their pit, eats breakfast, moans then leaves, shows an extreme fixation on her weight (if that is her main reason for doing it). If she doesn’t feel she has been ‘successful’ so far she may try pushing it even further. Sorry to be a harbinger of doom, hopefully I am well off the mark but it is something to keep in mind.

I went from being a skinny child to plump teenager then became absolutely obsessed with my weight at 17 and started starving myself. I became quite ill. Took years to stop being obsessed with my weight. I think you both need to relax about this. She's not really overweight and is still growing . Just continue to focus on healthy eating and exercise and I'm sure she'll be fine.

I developed a massive chest and wide hips. And wore very ridiculously baggy clothes to try and hide my figure because I received a lot of negative attention (and attention full stop). I have always weighed more than I look like I do, or others my height etc have. I know this is in part because of my chest, and in part because of my genes.

I had a friend who was very slender who weighed more than I did when I was heavier and pregnant. She said she had problems with being told she weighed too much when she was very obviously healthy and could have put more weight on and not looked overweight.

I was shamed over my weight at 17 by an older male doctor who only ever saw me hunched over in baggy shapeless men's clothing. So when he weighed me and I was nearly 11 stone at 5'4, he wasn't impressed and I didn't know any better than to assume I was a failure because I was an extremely active and sporty person and I didn't have a shit diet.

Went on to develop an eating disorder. Mostly binge eating past the point of being sick but I also have starved myself and make myself puke, at one point my weight plummeted and I was very poorly.

I wish people had been kinder. The comments etc started when I was too young to stand up for myself or understand more about my body and what's normal.

I'd be looking at going by measurements with a tape measure. I'm doing that at the moment as I try and healthily slim down. I'm deliberately trying to put some muscle in despite needing to lose several stone. So I'm not focussing on my weight but my size.

The scale says nothing. Her exercise and healthy eating mean she has more of an athletic, muscular build. There are gymnasts with the same bmi as your DD and no one would call them fat or overweight.
What will make her physically toned and slimmer body type is to alternate the running with a weight based exercise. So run every say M, W,F and T and R lift weights or do yoga.
Running every day is too much of one exercise and you get very little benefit for the extra effort. You also increase chances of injury.
So, have her switch up to something strength building for 2 of the days.

If she’s interested, martial arts/self defence are good strength building exercises as well. Or rock climbing. Or rowing. Or mountain/off road cycling.p or CrossFit Lots to choose from.

um... I don't see any BMIs > 23 for top female gymnasts, much less > 25. BMI close to 18 for gymnasts is pretty standard lately.

(Gosh, I did not realise how tiny Simone Biles is!)

I did not say “top” gymnast. Just gymnast. But for your information there have been medal winning female gymnasts with a BMIs of over 25. The OPs daughters bmi is actually 25.7 and several medal winning gymnasts had BMIs of 25.4. It is only recently that trends have gone to lighter gymnasts in the female category because we’ve been valuing dance routines more than strength based routines. (See chart, there were three medal winners with height of 5ft to 5ft 1in and weight of 130lbs to 134lbs.
For runners, which is what OPs daughter does, there are Olympic medal winners with even higher BMIS. For example, with a BMI over 27, there is Christine Ohuruogu. She won the silver medal in the 400-metre dash for Great Britain.

Did you know the BMIs for the 2016 female Olympic athletes ranged from 15 to 48.4?

That's weird, T'Internet says that Ohuruogu is 5'9" and same weight as OP's DD (68 kg, but 5 inches shorter). So BMI can't be greater than OP's.

To have BMI = 27 & height = 5'9", Ohuruogu needs to weigh 83 kg. I can't find a source saying 83 kg. Some say 70 kg, though.

If she's been exercising that much,she's converted a lot of fat into muscle.

If she's sensible and it won't stress her too much you can monitor progress in different ways:

Photographs to see the physical changes
Body composition to see fat loss
Fitbit or similar to track reduced testing heart rate, increased fitness
Improvements in time/length of run

I've 5'5, wear an 8-10, run five times a week and weight train and am always very near to the top of a healthy BMI. The number used to annoy me but I know I'm healthy, for and I carry the extra weight because of my muscular composition and big boobs!