My daughter is gaining weight

[Dadof1979]

Hello
I know this is a moms page, but hey as a dad I want your advice.
My Daughter is 11 about 145cm tall and weighs 54kg.
She is really upset about her weight and want to slim down.
She is swimming for 2 hours and 45 minutes each week plus bike riding to school.
We don't live on a very unhealthy diet nothing super healthy and not very unhealthy either.
She dose have a sweet tooth but all kids have this.
She doesn't eat loads of unhealthy food.
The last month she has gone from 52kg to 55kg.
I simply do not understand what is going on.
She does good exercise.
I hope you moms could help
Best
Rasmus

Be careful with the advice to reduce fat. A growing brain and body needs fat. Full fat Greek yogurt, oily fish, avocados, nuts- all high in good fats and lots of other essential nutrients. Butter and full fat milk also absolutely fine if that’s what you buy. Reducing sugar is probably better and easier to do if you cut out any fizzy drinks etc. Better to eat meals that fill you up for longer to avoid craving sugary snacks because she is low in energy. Eat well, regularly throughout the day and don’t encourage ignoring hunger.

I know people are trying to be helpful but can I please suggest that you do the above suggestions tactfully. My mother was horrid to me when I was 13 and 'a little overweight' and it has not ended well for me. By the sounds of it she is already aware her body is not what she wants it to be and it's very hard to be young and in that position. If you do keep a food diary please don't let her see you do it.

@Dadof1979 Hey! I just wanted to weigh in as a person who was overweight when they were 11. I was binge eating a lot in secret because I was very stressed about school (mean girls), growing up, my dad was also very scary alcoholic - not saying this is the case but I was just wondering if the weight gain is a symptom of potential poor mental health.

What I desperately wished someone had done for me was not make a big deal about my weight (although acknowledge that it was miserable to be chubby as a teenage girl) and take me to someone who could help with my mental health. What happened was my mum put me on a ton of diets and they developed into 20 years of disordered eating. Once I got well in my mind I was able to lose weight healthily, but not until then. I don't want to stress you out - I have 2 little girls too and know this must be very stressful for you.

Good luck and if you have any more questions about my experience I'm happy to respond. Wishing you and your daughter well.

I think it's easy to assume that home-cooked food is healthy and perhaps give portions which are too big. Spaghetti Bolognese is very calorific, for example. Ditto sausages for breakfast (!). Since it's summer, perhaps you could all eat a main course salad (e.g. with chicken) a couple of nights a week instead of a heavier meal, and swap in overnight oats instead of sausages for breakfast. Some modest changes like that could help the whole family eat healthier food.

There isn't a single item with excess sugar on your list. Even though you acknowledge sugar is an issue. Which means that isn't an inventory of the actual food she eats.

And the PPs mentioning puberty, OP's DD is in the 97-99th percentile for BMI. Not weight, BMI. That is seriously overweight. Not just a little extra off average.

Likely it’s portion sizes - doesn’t matter how healthy your diet is if you are eating way too much. Cut back on portion sizes and ban junk food from the house. Fill up the fruit bowl. Not all children have a sweet tooth and sweet things should not be part of a regular diet, but a rare treat. At this point if you don’t buy it she can’t eat it.

That’s not grossly unhealthy food but in our house we would count spag bol, pizza or sausages as “ movie night” kind of food. For the first two, the main calories are coming from ( presumably “ white” ) carbs,

That’s fine here and there, but if she’s seeming to be be gaining weight fast, I would try to make your normal family meals less carb heavy, so her calories are coming more from the protein and vegetables. So for instance a salmon fillet, pile of veg filling a third to a half of the plate and just three or four steamed jersey royals for carb, ideally with skin on.
Pizza is fine occasionally but even being homemade doesn’t (usually) reduce the white carb content as the main calorie source, which isn’t ideal if she’s needing to slow weight gain. It’s the same for pasta meals which tend to have a bit of protein and veg in the sauce but then a big pile of carb to bulk it out. Eta even curry falls into that trap if served with lots of white rice and/ or naan.

I think the point was it is better for an overweight child to maintain weight whilst gaining height, so they ‘grow into their weight’ rather than trying to lose weight