Reply to 16 YO DS Change in Eating Habits negatively affecting health

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP I don't have any good answers. I have an 11yo son who has become overweight. He's so tall that he's still proportional for his height, but we know his diet is terrible and he's got more than the usual pre-pubescent belly. So we're going to see a nutritionist recommended by our pediatrician. It is totally normal by the way, at least in the early phases of puberty, for all kids to get a bit pudgy - in your son's case it sounds like he has not yet learned how to manage his relatively newfound independence wisely.

As sympathetic as I am, some of your language sounds a bit worrisome to me - "scared and ashamed", really??!! If you're talking to your son about his eating habits and weight with that kind of wording, you may be making him feel more stigmatized than supported, and encouraging him to hide his eating. Again, I don't know the right answers, but I think a professional should be helpful.

We have slowly become more frank with our son about the need to eat a healthier diet and get more exercise, but we are careful to keep the focus on health, not on appearance. It's hard enough to be a teenage boy; the last thing I would want to do is to contribute to making him feel lousy about himself. [/quote]
I'm the OP here. I know I am old fashioned now, but I grew up in a time where being overweight was not the norm as it is today, and so maybe I react differently then other parents would. In the end I take after my parents who lived in a time where a kid being overweight did lead to parents being looked down upon and was a shameful/scary thing, it reflected negatively on you and your family.

Now, that being said, I recognize that those times are behind us and being overweight is now close to being the norm, so I try to be understanding when talking to him about it. We never shame him, and the few times we have brought it up, we have always tried to be understanding. After all, he is a smart kid and our child, and in the end the problems he faces will be his own. We want to make sure that we do all we can to lead him to a healthy lifestyle without being overly critical, but I feel like perhaps we used this thought process to justify simply not talking about the problem because, to be honest, we are scared of the same thing you are, that our older upbringing and habit to speak tersely about the subject would hurt his feelings. That is, I guess, the reason I came here because I don't really know how to approach it, so thank you![/quote]

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