Reply to Svelte teen girls -- being the ugly duckling in a school of swans

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[quote=Anonymous]First of all, we're less than a month into the school year. Not a surprise that OP's daughter doesn't feel like she fits in to her new school, and that's okay. It can take time to find your place. I think this is less of a weight issue or a money issue or anything like that at this point and more the fact that change is hard, and being new is hard.

Second, if there's not a sport she wants to play this season, what would she want to do? A play she can audition for (or do tech theater work for)? A service club? A music group? I wouldn't make her do a sport, but I would make (or at least very, very strongly encourage) her to join *something* at school, as that's the fastest path to finding her people and starting to feel like she fits. I was a nonathletic kid who went from public middle school to private high school and trying out for the fall play was what helped me start to feel more comfortable at school.

Once she starts to find her footing a bit more I think you can thoughtfully approach the question of exercise. You can talk about whether there are sports she wants to do in future seasons, and if so, how she could start preparing now. You can talk about how she wants to physically active if not through sports. But I would be very careful to frame all of this in terms of what she can add to help her develop healthy habits, and none of it about weight. If you can't do that, find someone else who can.

The environment she's in sounds like a potential breeding ground for eating disorders, so to me the two keys are 1) focusing first on helping her feel like she belongs a bit more at the new school and 2) making about what positive things you can add for her health, not how you can restrict or cut.

Good luck to you both.[/quote]

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