Hello there parents
I have a problem and need some advice! My daughter is 14 and is piling on the pounds. She is straining out of size 16 jeans and just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I am very concerned that it won't be too long before she is going to wake up a very obese and unhappy girl.
We eat normally at home and we encourage her to take exercise, such as walking, instead of taking the bus to school and suchlike. Her sibling and myself and my husband are sort of average really in terms of body shape.
Judging by the amount of sweet wrappers lying around her bedroom, I think her problem lies in the fact that she is spending her money at the corner shop - she must be going through at least a couple of chocolate bars a day. As she earns her own money by babysitting, it isn't as if removing her pocket money will put a stop to it.
At the moment she is pretty cheerful and doesn't seem in the slightest bit bothered that she needs a bigger size every time we go shopping. In other respects, she spends ages on her appearance so I know that this will become important to her...the bigger she gets, the more of a battle it will be for her to control her weight when it becomes an issue.
I really don't know how to approach this without knocking her self confidence. I have tried the healthy eating, healthy lifestyle chats but short of actually saying that she is on a collision course with obesity, I don't know what to do for the best.