Teen DS Just Doesn't Care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No snacks in the house. None. Fruit in a bowl. That's it. He get breakfast at home, lunch at school, and dinner at home. Don't eat out. Water, some milk, no juice or soda.

This is a great way to encourage your kid to do all of their eating outside of the house where you have zero control. It's exactly the opposite of what the OP should do.

OP, my 15 year old has struggled with his weight, although he's over the hump and taking some ownership of his weight.

Some things that have helped:

Setting him up so that his routine involves a lot of walking -- to and from school, with the dog, to run errands for the family . . . .

Part time jobs that involve exercise -- lawn mowing, dog walking, soccer ref. Money is a big motivator

We also have an "exercise before the screens come on" rule. If it's a regular school day then walking there and back, and PE, and dog walk count, if it's a weekend and he's not reffing he needs to get up and out and do something before the video games come on.

Moving to higher protein choices at home -- he seems to stay full longer if the food is high protein, or has healthy snacks, so I've switched out a lot of what I offer at home.

If I find something that he likes that I consider healthy, then I stock a lot. My kid loves frozen cherries for example, and they're kind of expensive, but I'd rather he ate 3 bowls of those than cereal or something so I make sure I don't run out, on the other hand if the box of cereal gets eaten in a day and I don't get to the store for a few days, well that's OK.

Things that don't work for my kid: Telling my kid he's fat or otherwise shaming him, nagging, expecting "weight loss" rather than building muscle or growing into his weight,

[Anonymous]

OP here again-

Thanks for all the advice! I agree that he might just be in denial, while he is growing out of a lot of his clothes I think he might not realize just how obvious his extra pounds are.

As I said, we try to make sure he eats healthy at home. My worry is that if we don't keep saying anything, it will get worse and by the time he wants to do something about it, it will be really hard.

[Anonymous]

OP again- I wanted to clarify that when we talked it wasn't, "Your getting fat" it was just telling him that we have noticed that he was gaining a noticeable amount of weight and that we were here if he wanted help/ to talk about it. I thought we were being supportive, not mean.