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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Very frustrating. My 14 year old daughter is nearing 200 pounds, is going to enter high school in the fall and as of now, does not fit into the school uniform( khaki pants, button down shirt, sweater vest). My son put on 30 pounds this past school year, his freshman year of college. My husband and I are trying everything but they refuse to diet with us or work out, they don't seem to care. For instance, when my daughter goes out with friends, I KNOW she'll ignore what her dad & I say, eat junk.

[b]Our discussions with them are jokes to them[/b] and its funny to them that the other has a weight issue. They don't seem to connect that the reason they're winded so easily and why they hate stairs, is connected with weight.

My daughter is definitely the harder to deal with.[/quote]

I think this is unlikely to be true.  I think your discussions are likely painful for them.  They may respond by laughing it off, but I doubt it's really a joke.

I just had an enormous fight with my 15 year old son because he was laughing off advice I was trying to give him.  He's like me in that he has a temper, and he's starting to get into trouble because he gets mad when adults tell him what to do, and he feels compelled to argue with them.  I kind of blew up at him because I tried to talk with him about this and he laughed it off.  I pointed out the many adults who have given him this feedback and a recent very negative consequence (he mouthed off to an adult and got kicked off a team he had worked very hard to get onto).  He kept laughing it off. I was angry and frustrated and scared for his future if this continues, so I kept repeating myself more loudly and sarcastically.  When we calmed down and talked, he told me that he knew I was right but that he was feeling upset and scared that he's having so much trouble with this, so he reacted in a way that he wouldn't if he were calm.

You might want to listen to the episode of This American Life called "Tell me I'm fat" --- the protagonist in the first story does a good job of explaining that fat people know that they are fat, and telling them doesn't really help them at all.  I don't know if you've ever lost weight, but it's really hard and it seems to really need to come from a place of feeling empowered by controlling your life and opting for a healthier way of living.  I don't know how you would ever get another person to that place.  I think they have to come to it for themselves.  That's not to say that you should not do anything, just that it's hard and nagging is probably not the answer.  I used to nag DS to eat more (he's borderline underweight --- very active and never hungry).  It actually got to be pretty pathological and I got pretty controlling about it.  I finally backed off a bit when my spouse pointed this out, and DS actually started taking charge of this for himself and managing it.

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