Teen putting on weight

[Itsadoglife]

I wonder if anyone has any ideas.

My poor DD (17 years) is so very down about her appearance and her weight. Her self confidence is now through the floor. She has suffered with skin issues for a couple of years now, and has tried all the lotions, potions and tablets the GP could offer apart from Roaccutane. She has done her own research and decided she didn't want to take it (one grandparent has had mental health issues and I think she is worried it may affect hers). So she is seeing an aesthetician and going down that route at the moment.

One of the last things the GP did was put her on the pill. Whether it is coincidental or not we are not sure, but since around that time, August 2020 she has gone from 11st 7 to 14st. She has had her thyroid levels checked by a blood test, but she is at a loss as to how she is putting on so much weight. She is becoming so upset about it and is now only wearing big baggy sweaters to cover up as she is so self conscious. It is so very hard to see my 18 month ago very confident beautiful daughter now so down about it.

She has been tracking her food on MyFitnessPal and when she has shown it to me, she perhaps isn't making the best choices of food when at school for lunch, but she is nevertheless tracking what she is eating and is definitely in a calorie deficit. She is relatively active and does a part time job involving being on her feet for at least 10 hours a week. This week she has put 2.75 pounds on so again this morning she has been in tears.

She's booked an exercise class in this week and does 2 other forms of exercise at school so she's going to give it another week and then we're going to have to go back to the doctor.

Apart from thyroid are there any other things it could be?

Such a shame - at an age where kids generally can eat rubbish food and never gain a pound she is watching everyone else eat the junk food and she's still putting weight on.

It only gets worse as you get older - I am sure I put weight on if I look at a cake now I'm in my forties 🤦🏻‍♀️

Im really worried for her at the moment and feel a bit helpless 😕

Probably the pill

If it's not helping her skin, does she need to be on it?
Or try a different one?

Polycystic ovaries?
My skin suffered due to this and while it didn’t effect my weight I know it can. Worth considering.

She could try the roccutane, no? If her skin can heal that may help her mood considerably. It's worth trying. If she feels like shit anyway.
She's probably underestimating what she's eating. The poor girl, it sounds like a lot of pressure.
She can't actually weigh the portions at school so y'know...it could be twice whatever it says online.

Her diet is the first thing to look at. It has so much more impact than exercise. How tall is she? Do you manager her portion sizes at home?

Where is the weight? Is she putting it on her legs and perhaps upper arms with a relatively small waist? If so it could be lipedema. Happy for you to PM me if so.

_myskinstory on insta is worth a follow. She’s offers online consultations for skincare and has had life changing results herself. The pill is known to cause weight gain in some.
I would stop the pill and look at other options, continue to encourage her with exercise, good food choices etc

Worth investigating PCOS I think.
Hope things improve for her soon. Being a teen is tough.

Thanks for everyone's replies.

😕 The problem may be bigger than I first thought. Just gone into her room to borrow a sharpie and she said top drawer - I looked in the wrong top drawer, I went into her desk drawer but she meant these filing drawers on top - it is stuffed full of food wrappers 😔

It looks like she is going to the shop and buying sweets and chocolate and cookies and eating them secretly. I've tried to talk to her and she has said I'm snooping in her room, all teary again. Clammed up completely. Quite rude and defensive (not like her at all).

She tried to say they were in there from ages ago. There was two empty wrappers of cookies that went out of date on the same day and were reduced from the Co op (round the corner from where we live), dated only a week and a half ago. So it could be she has eaten 9 cookies either in one day or over two days 😕

We eat relatively healthily in the house and have normal sized portions but she has a job and earns her own money so seems to be using it to buy herself food.

I've no idea how to handle this. I've tried to explain that she cannot eat these kinds of foods and expect to lose weight. She says she does sport/activity 3 times a week so why should she not still be losing weight. I've explained about calorie deficit - but at 17 I'm not sure what else I can do?

Any advice?

Still worth investigating PCOS or other causes of her skin condition? As it could be that it is making her depressed and leading to binge eating?

The binge eating will be why she isn’t losing weight - but it sounds like she’s in denial about its impact?

Food intake is so much more important than exercise in losing weight but it sounds like she hasn’t quite grasped this?

Im not sure what you can do really, other than be quietly supportive. If you make an issue of the secret eating, it may make it worse.

She obviously knows intellectually that eating that sort of crap will stop her losing any weight, but that can be easy to forget or ignore if there’s other stuff going on which is stopping her addressing this.

If she’s previously been slim (as in not a big build from birth), I’d sit and have an adult chat (over tea and a bit of cake perhaps to make it light hearted) with her to find out how she can reset her Mind a bit? What would work as an incentive?

Maybe agree a bit of cash that she can use to buy herself a new top or something, or a trip out, whatever would give her something as a little reward for eating healthily and staying active for a week or do at a time.

Then address the food. She needs to have enough fat in her diet so she’s not actually hungry - that would help massively in removing the initial drive to buy sugary crap. Ensure she always has something with her she can snack on to stop her being derailed (Babybel/nuts/protein bar etc.) Look at dietdoctor.com.

If she’s active enough, not eating sugar and motivated to try and make a difference even for a week she should see some movement in the scales. She could aim to lose a pound a week or so until the summer ?

It’s just getting her mentally motivated - when you/she can do that the rest of it will be easier.

Ask for a referral for an endocrinologist, they will be able to assist you.

@MNHQ why was @babyphoebe’s post deleted? It was really useful I thought and contained a great link that’s helpful for so many other teen-related issues?