Telling your dd she might need to start to watch her weight ... ?

[BadWool]

I feel so sensitive about this. Dd is nearly thirteen and has never been one of those super skinny kids, she's always had a bit of a tummy and quite stocky thighs but overall a 'normal' weight. This last year she's changed quite dramatically, is wearing an adult size 10 in clothes which is getting quite tight on her. Given that she's only thirteen, do I assume this is a bit of 'puppy fat' and let it go or do I try to steer her away from the chocolate mousse she's begun to crave over the last six months? I cook a lot and we have a very healthy diet at home, no take aways, no ready meals, no fried food. She LOVES chocolate and biscuits and seems to have no end to how many she can eat in one go but this will usually be after a very healthy meal with lots of vegetables. She loves food, all food, good and bad! I don't know her weight as we don't have scales but looking at her and also seeing how rapidly she's outgrowing clothes I can tell she's gaining rate at a very fast pace. any advice? Or should I just go with it, see how it pans out? I would hate to give her a complex.

People do eat crap though. If kids were nibbling on veg and small bits of healthy protein for snacks, then eating balanced home cooked meals, they would be fine. But people eat so much rubbish - fast food, convenience microwave meals, crisps, chocolate, cake, biscuits, white rice, white wheat, chips. Plenty of people have visceral fat round their organs but think they are ok because they're slim.

We have a lot of vegetables and I cook all our meals at home - this is partly due to having a lot of food allergies in my household so it makes life easier. Dd loves vegetables, never had a problem with that. it's definitely a craving for sweet stuff that has grown over this year. A couple of friends have said it's hormonal, she's definitely changing physically in all kinds of ways. I do tell her to eat less chocolate / sweets (can't always control it now at home as she commutes to school and back every day and has to have money for food at school) as they're bad for her in many ways but I don't know whether or not to mention weight ... that's the dilemma.

not weight, but fitness and stamina and all the things that are limited by weight.
She's not thick - she'll work it out
but if you focus on what she wants to be (lean and mean) rather than what she does not want to be (fat)
your chances of a long term positive outcome are better

Yes, I've been getting her to cut out sweet stuff when she gets in and saying 'there's too much chocolate being eaten around here' as though it's everybody (which it's not as I hate sweet stuff and dh is very health conscious). So yesterday she had some black olives and cut up peppers and seemed fine with it. I got some yoghurt lollies for after dinner. I don't do desserts but she loves to tuck into biscuits etc. She loved the yoghurt lolly but had eaten so well with her main meal (due to not over-snacking when she got in) that she wasn't hungry anyway.

Fitness - dd used to be very sporty but since she started secondary school she's become very body conscious and doesn't like the idea at all of doing anything like running or swimming which she used to love. I hope this will also be a phase we get around.

Can you not just not buy chocolate and biscuits so it's not in the house? My mum only let us have it as an occasional treat growing up, it wasn't routinely there and if we were hungry we just had fruit usually. When I went round to friends' houses I was always shocked to see there was a biscuit tin or treat/chocolate cupboard. I love treats but I know I would easily put on weight if I bought these things routinely, so I just don't have them in the house.

The only other tip I can give you is watch her portion sizes, my cousin is 11 and massively overweight and it's because she eats adult portion sizes plus pasta.

Hope it all works out for you OP.