Having an overweight teenage daughter is so hard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP why the hell can’t your sons just eat more whole healthy foods? I find it really messed up that you won’t even consider getting rid of the calorie dense junk. They can just eat more potatoes at dinner. They don’t need the crap either.

Clearly you don't have teen boys. Come back and comment again when you do.

For real. Athletic teen boys easily eat 5000 calories per day.

That's not easy to do on hard boiled eggs and cucumbers (or whatever healthy snack you are imagining).

So what do they eat?

Protein shakes
Full fat yogurt bowls
Pasta with butter and meat sauce
Chicken, like 1/2 a chicken
Potatoes, loaded
Caesar salad, or a chef salad with ranch
Jambalaya sausage
Steak
Egg sandwich with bacon and cheese
Apples with peanut butter
Grilled cheese sandwiches or quesadillas
Bagels with cream cheese
Burritos with rice/cheese/meat/beans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of overweight women were clearly triggered by this discussion.

I’m triggered all right by OP and even more by the horrific parents advocating the insurance thing and similar. But I’m not an overweight woman. What I was, many years ago, was a terrified thirteen-year-old who had been violently sexually assaulted, and who, like OPs daughter, gained weight very quickly and dropped out of my athletic activities, and threw myself into schoolwork. What I wouldn’t have given for a compassionate parent who didn’t view my weight gain as her shame, and been embarrassed by me. What I wouldn’t have given for a parent who didn’t assume that I was just making bad choices on purpose.

So yes, I am angry and triggered, because so many of you clearly could not care less about your daughters, unless they embarrass you or god forbid you have to buy new clothes. I feel so sorry for those lonely and victimized little girls.

You are really reading into thing that are not true. Projecting.

Not really a stretch to say that insurance exam mom in particular doesn’t really love her daughter. Sorry but it’s pretty clear.

She said "so many".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP this is very hard.

I completely understand.

But your dd will have to make the decision to lose weight on her own.

Yes, but that should not stop OP from trying to help her daughter now before she is disabled due to any number of likely serious adverse conditions that will develop.

Purposely having an insurance company send a letter that she is uninsurable isn’t helping. It won’t make her smaller. You really think that’s an effective way to encourage weight loss? Seriously?

This is funny. I'm a PP who has been overweight my entire life. This actually happened to me shortly after college...my parent said I couldn't be on their insurance anymore so I had to get my own plan. I was rejected based on my BMI. I'll give you one guess as to whether that spurred me to lose weight lol. And that was as an adult...any teenager is going to be like "Ummm, okay. Anyway. What's life insurance?" So at best it will be ineffective, at worst it will hurt the DD and the relationship because it's a f***** up thing to do to a person, making an insurance company do your dirty work.

You have independent proof of your condition. How you chose to react to that information was up to you. Because you chose to ignore the warning does not mean that OP's daughter will react in the same manner. You are an adult and it is your life. OP's daughter is a minor and in the care and custody of her parents.

Would you ignore dangerous behavior of your minor child ? Or would you try to help ? And if you try to help, would you seek independent professional advice from a qualified medical practitioner or would you coddle the minor child and act like everything is okay ?

OP hasn’t sought any healthcare (mental or physical) for her daughter at all.

OP here.
How do you seek healthcare for this (mental or physical) without conveying that it is a problem to the kid? Very curious how you would do this.

I have been very careful to not say anything to my kid. We don't talk about weight.


I mentioned my sons in one line (ONE LINE) and people are extrapolating that I love them more. I simply mentioned them because the first advice in any child weight post is always (rightfully so) "remove junk from the house."
We do remove most junk but the context of our family dynamic is that we can't fill the fridge solely with hard-boiled eggs and cheese sticks and cut-up vegetables. I have two kids who are in the midst of trying to put on
20+ pounds of muscle this winter (they are in winter conditioning for spring sports) and eat 4000-5000 calories a day. Anyway, No I don't love them more than my daughter and I don't buy a lot of things they might want out of respect for her.
I meet them all in the middle.

As to weight-she is about 5'2 and was a size 6 and now a size 12-14. So she's not obese but she's medically overweight..BMI is on the high end of the scale of "overweight" or her height. Now go ahead and jump on me for saying that my perfectly healthy daughter is not overweight.

I have to sign off now as I'm headed to an evening event.

Why did you say that she wasn't small before, as a size 6? Size 6 is plenty small.

NP here who is 5’2” and size 6 is not small especially with today’s vanity sizing. Size 2-6 is normal. Size 0 or 00 is small.

Not true. 5'2" and size 6 can be totally normal. I have a muscular build (was a D1 gymnast) and at my lowest weight (sunken cheeks, ribs all visible), I was a 4/6 depending on brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of overweight women were clearly triggered by this discussion.

Dude, were they ever. Never have I seen a thread where so many people were incensed by the cold hard reality of obesity. It will kill you folks. It's not ok. Lizzo is not healthy and that is not where we want our girls to go.

Lizzo never said she was healthy she just said she is beautiful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be concerned that with rapid weight gain, she might be eating secretly or outside of the home—perhaps to cope with big feelings about a variety of possible issues. Having a mom who is weight conscious IME makes kids who are struggling with food issues struggle MORE. OP, you may not have said anything, but your feelings about her weight gain are probably coming across loud and clear.

I’d open the lines of communication and find out how she feels about losing the social connections with her soccer team, about the increased work load at school, about whatever is going on in her life. Weight and food issues are so rarely actually about weight and food.

I would love to know you in real life. Beautifully said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP why the hell can’t your sons just eat more whole healthy foods? I find it really messed up that you won’t even consider getting rid of the calorie dense junk. They can just eat more potatoes at dinner. They don’t need the crap either.

Clearly you don't have teen boys. Come back and comment again when you do.

For real. Athletic teen boys easily eat 5000 calories per day.

That's not easy to do on hard boiled eggs and cucumbers (or whatever healthy snack you are imagining).

How about avocado toast, banana peanut butter smoothies, egg salad sandwiches, chicken legs, chicken Cesar salad wraps. High calorie, and actually has nutrients.

There's no reason these boys need coke and chips. Sorry. If you think they're fueling properly you're wrong. Teenage daughter less likely to overeat avocado toast.

All those things are too fattening to have around a teen who needs to lose weight. Avocado toast is not nutritious. Peanut butter is too fattening. Caesar dressing is way too fattening. Egg salad has way too much Mayo.

Nobody is feeding their sons Coke and chips if they’re an athlete

[Anonymous]

I am just here to validate your feelings, I would be super upset as well.
I am sure she knows so not saying anything is just avoiding the elephant in the room.
Yes I would find a way to end her snacking

[Anonymous]

I am a fat person who isn’t at all triggered by this conversation. But I do think you should tread carefully with your daughter. You frame this as how hard it is for you, which is an odd way to think about it. I would talk to a professional about how best to approach this. If she’s not done growing, she may yet slim down.

I was not a fat child, but I would pay attention to what people who were heavy teens and how their parent’s’ interventions helped or hurt. Good luck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be concerned that with rapid weight gain, she might be eating secretly or outside of the home—perhaps to cope with big feelings about a variety of possible issues. Having a mom who is weight conscious IME makes kids who are struggling with food issues struggle MORE. OP, you may not have said anything, but your feelings about her weight gain are probably coming across loud and clear.

I’d open the lines of communication and find out how she feels about losing the social connections with her soccer team, about the increased work load at school, about whatever is going on in her life. Weight and food issues are so rarely actually about weight and food.

I would love to know you in real life. Beautifully said.

Agreed.

[Anonymous]

I’m a skinny person so not a fat triggered person.

I’ve just watched my nieces be tortured by their Aunts commenting On their weight every single solitary time I see the

oh you’re so skinny
Oh, wow you weight goes straight to your thighs
you better watch what you’re eating
you need to put some meat on your bones does your mom even feed you.
You face looks so drawn, are you eating?
Wow, freshman 15.
Looks like you gained weight during Covid.
Looks like you have your mom’s hips.
well you’ve getting a lot of weight since you quit cheerleading.
You should have a little pasta. It’ll put some meat on your bones.

Ffs let it go.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So many of you PPs are insane. Obesity is a problem. I have three cousins who died young due to obesity related diseases. I was overweight as a child and I HATED it. Every minute of it. I wish my parents would’ve helped me with exercise and eating habits, but they were obese, too.

OP, you are right to worry. Obesity is terrible and yet totally preventable. I wish you luck

If it's so preventable why are 40% of Americans obese?

Poor choices. Obesity is not rocket science. We sit around all day and eat bad food with high calories and low nutrition

No one treating an obese population thinks this. Your comment is a prime example of Dunning-Kruger.

this is just not true. Not true at all.
Obesity is not some mysterious disease. It's a pretty clear cause and effect. are some people more prone? Yes. But we know what the base issues are and how to get out of it.
People like you making excuses for obesity and trying to frame it as some random disease like lupus are fooling yourselves. And, frankly, you're a danger to society. You're why we have so many obese people. It is not ok to be obese.

Again, no one in the field says this. Only ignorant people outside of it.

Let me guess. You're in the field and read that in Vogue somewhere, right?
Almost everyone that I know in medicine says otherwise, and they live with me. So nice try.

Do they always opine outside their specialties?

HA! Because the anonymous rantings of a DCUM lunatic is so much more reliable. Get off WebMD and feed your kids something healthy. And while you're at it, go for a walk.

Since we are on an anonymous forum I’ll tell you what I really think about all those “people in medicine” living in your house. In my 20 year career in healthcare, I’ve discovered most practitioners are quite dumb. Incompetent at critical thinking. Really only skilled at memorizing, which was once incredibly helpful and is now mostly replaced by technology. There are very few true experts moving the ball forward in any area of practice but many self-aggrandizing frontline practitioners who couldn’t tell a well-designed study from a WebMD article. They are completely unable to grasp basic details of the validity of research like population size, confounding factors, P-hacking, etc. My only solace as a patient is that I can circumvent them when I need to with my privilege and ability to pay out of pocket. But I feel terrible for everyone else out there, seeing these hacks and getting truly horrible care and advice.

Hopefully OP can find someone actually competent. But it will be hard.

Let me guess, you're in medical sales. Or worse, admin. Not an actual physician or researcher yourself but damn do you know a lot about it.
Like I said, go for a walk.

Pharma executive actually. Thank God we in pharma actually cure disease and save lives because your PA husband and CNA daughter sure aren’t.

I cannot believe you tried to paint Pharma as the good guys. How much price fixing you do today? Increase any medicines by 1000%? Sleep well at night? No wonder you're touting your "privilege and ability to pay out of pocket". Self-awareness is dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of you PPs are insane. Obesity is a problem. I have three cousins who died young due to obesity related diseases. I was overweight as a child and I HATED it. Every minute of it. I wish my parents would’ve helped me with exercise and eating habits, but they were obese, too.

OP, you are right to worry. Obesity is terrible and yet totally preventable. I wish you luck

If it's so preventable why are 40% of Americans obese?

Poor choices. Obesity is not rocket science. We sit around all day and eat bad food with high calories and low nutrition

No one treating an obese population thinks this. Your comment is a prime example of Dunning-Kruger.

this is just not true. Not true at all.
Obesity is not some mysterious disease. It's a pretty clear cause and effect. are some people more prone? Yes. But we know what the base issues are and how to get out of it.
People like you making excuses for obesity and trying to frame it as some random disease like lupus are fooling yourselves. And, frankly, you're a danger to society. You're why we have so many obese people. It is not ok to be obese.

Again, no one in the field says this. Only ignorant people outside of it.

Let me guess. You're in the field and read that in Vogue somewhere, right?
Almost everyone that I know in medicine says otherwise, and they live with me. So nice try.

Do they always opine outside their specialties?

HA! Because the anonymous rantings of a DCUM lunatic is so much more reliable. Get off WebMD and feed your kids something healthy. And while you're at it, go for a walk.

Since we are on an anonymous forum I’ll tell you what I really think about all those “people in medicine” living in your house. In my 20 year career in healthcare, I’ve discovered most practitioners are quite dumb. Incompetent at critical thinking. Really only skilled at memorizing, which was once incredibly helpful and is now mostly replaced by technology. There are very few true experts moving the ball forward in any area of practice but many self-aggrandizing frontline practitioners who couldn’t tell a well-designed study from a WebMD article. They are completely unable to grasp basic details of the validity of research like population size, confounding factors, P-hacking, etc. My only solace as a patient is that I can circumvent them when I need to with my privilege and ability to pay out of pocket. But I feel terrible for everyone else out there, seeing these hacks and getting truly horrible care and advice.

Hopefully OP can find someone actually competent. But it will be hard.

Let me guess, you're in medical sales. Or worse, admin. Not an actual physician or researcher yourself but damn do you know a lot about it.
Like I said, go for a walk.

Pharma executive actually. Thank God we in pharma actually cure disease and save lives because your PA husband and CNA daughter sure aren’t.

I cannot believe you tried to paint Pharma as the good guys. How much price fixing you do today? Increase any medicines by 1000%? Sleep well at night? No wonder you're touting your "privilege and ability to pay out of pocket". Self-awareness is dead.

I sleep like a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of you PPs are insane. Obesity is a problem. I have three cousins who died young due to obesity related diseases. I was overweight as a child and I HATED it. Every minute of it. I wish my parents would’ve helped me with exercise and eating habits, but they were obese, too.

OP, you are right to worry. Obesity is terrible and yet totally preventable. I wish you luck

If it's so preventable why are 40% of Americans obese?

Poor choices. Obesity is not rocket science. We sit around all day and eat bad food with high calories and low nutrition

No one treating an obese population thinks this. Your comment is a prime example of Dunning-Kruger.

this is just not true. Not true at all.
Obesity is not some mysterious disease. It's a pretty clear cause and effect. are some people more prone? Yes. But we know what the base issues are and how to get out of it.
People like you making excuses for obesity and trying to frame it as some random disease like lupus are fooling yourselves. And, frankly, you're a danger to society. You're why we have so many obese people. It is not ok to be obese.

Again, no one in the field says this. Only ignorant people outside of it.

Let me guess. You're in the field and read that in Vogue somewhere, right?
Almost everyone that I know in medicine says otherwise, and they live with me. So nice try.

Do they always opine outside their specialties?

HA! Because the anonymous rantings of a DCUM lunatic is so much more reliable. Get off WebMD and feed your kids something healthy. And while you're at it, go for a walk.

Since we are on an anonymous forum I’ll tell you what I really think about all those “people in medicine” living in your house. In my 20 year career in healthcare, I’ve discovered most practitioners are quite dumb. Incompetent at critical thinking. Really only skilled at memorizing, which was once incredibly helpful and is now mostly replaced by technology. There are very few true experts moving the ball forward in any area of practice but many self-aggrandizing frontline practitioners who couldn’t tell a well-designed study from a WebMD article. They are completely unable to grasp basic details of the validity of research like population size, confounding factors, P-hacking, etc. My only solace as a patient is that I can circumvent them when I need to with my privilege and ability to pay out of pocket. But I feel terrible for everyone else out there, seeing these hacks and getting truly horrible care and advice.

Hopefully OP can find someone actually competent. But it will be hard.

Let me guess, you're in medical sales. Or worse, admin. Not an actual physician or researcher yourself but damn do you know a lot about it.
Like I said, go for a walk.

Pharma executive actually. Thank God we in pharma actually cure disease and save lives because your PA husband and CNA daughter sure aren’t.

I cannot believe you tried to paint Pharma as the good guys. How much price fixing you do today? Increase any medicines by 1000%? Sleep well at night? No wonder you're touting your "privilege and ability to pay out of pocket". Self-awareness is dead.

100k% price markups were generics. Those guys are real scum suckers but most people are too ignorant to see what’s going on. So much literal price fixing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP this is very hard.

I completely understand.

But your dd will have to make the decision to lose weight on her own.

Yes, but that should not stop OP from trying to help her daughter now before she is disabled due to any number of likely serious adverse conditions that will develop.

Purposely having an insurance company send a letter that she is uninsurable isn’t helping. It won’t make her smaller. You really think that’s an effective way to encourage weight loss? Seriously?

This is funny. I'm a PP who has been overweight my entire life. This actually happened to me shortly after college...my parent said I couldn't be on their insurance anymore so I had to get my own plan. I was rejected based on my BMI. I'll give you one guess as to whether that spurred me to lose weight lol. And that was as an adult...any teenager is going to be like "Ummm, okay. Anyway. What's life insurance?" So at best it will be ineffective, at worst it will hurt the DD and the relationship because it's a f***** up thing to do to a person, making an insurance company do your dirty work.

You have independent proof of your condition. How you chose to react to that information was up to you. Because you chose to ignore the warning does not mean that OP's daughter will react in the same manner. You are an adult and it is your life. OP's daughter is a minor and in the care and custody of her parents.

Would you ignore dangerous behavior of your minor child ? Or would you try to help ? And if you try to help, would you seek independent professional advice from a qualified medical practitioner or would you coddle the minor child and act like everything is okay ?

OP hasn’t sought any healthcare (mental or physical) for her daughter at all.

OP here.
How do you seek healthcare for this (mental or physical) without conveying that it is a problem to the kid? Very curious how you would do this.

I have been very careful to not say anything to my kid. We don't talk about weight.


I mentioned my sons in one line (ONE LINE) and people are extrapolating that I love them more. I simply mentioned them because the first advice in any child weight post is always (rightfully so) "remove junk from the house."
We do remove most junk but the context of our family dynamic is that we can't fill the fridge solely with hard-boiled eggs and cheese sticks and cut-up vegetables. I have two kids who are in the midst of trying to put on
20+ pounds of muscle this winter (they are in winter conditioning for spring sports) and eat 4000-5000 calories a day. Anyway, No I don't love them more than my daughter and I don't buy a lot of things they might want out of respect for her.
I meet them all in the middle.

As to weight-she is about 5'2 and was a size 6 and now a size 12-14. So she's not obese but she's medically overweight..BMI is on the high end of the scale of "overweight" or her height. Now go ahead and jump on me for saying that my perfectly healthy daughter is not overweight.

I have to sign off now as I'm headed to an evening event.

You pick up the phone and make an appt with her doctor and get some actual medical advice and guidance rather than asking the internet.

Ok, so what do i tell her?

"Daughter I am worried about your weight. I have made a doctor's appointment for you"
Isn't that weight shaming?

Or do you just make the appointment:

me: "hey, you are going in to see your doctor. I know you had your check-up 6 months ago but uh, next week you need to go in again".

her "mom, why? I'm fine".

Why are you asking the internet!?!

You make an appt with her doctor for you. You talk to her doctor and together you come up with a plan.

But yes, if you are that concerned, you will have to talk to her about it. That actually will be hard.

Ask me how I know.

[Anonymous]

If she's gone through puberty and done "growing", you need to think about how many calories a 5'2" woman actually needs.

I think suggesting more physical activity is a must. Even a walk with you after/before dinner.