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[quote=Anonymous]I am a doctor, however let me give two comments right off the bat:

1) I am not a pediatrician. The vast majority of my experience is with adults;

2) I am not your son's doctor. I do not have access to his medical records (and don't want access to them) and have never seen or met him.

Based on BMI (adjusted for teenagers/children), he may be slightly overweight. I dont put much stock into BMI, at least for any definitive purpose, but from your description it sounds like he may be slightly overweight to overweight based on his body fat %, activity level, and appearance (i.e. moderate-to-low activity level, visible stomach, etc), however I don't see any reason to go overboard or encourage dieting. I feel as though nowadays people tend to overreact, it is important to realize that many people who are 5-10 pounds overweight live long, healthy, and productive lives with very, very minimal complications due to their weight. And your son is at an age where kids tend to put on a bit of weight before a growth spurt. Certainly encourage healthy eating (everybody should!), but it does not sound like any drastic intervention is needed, at least regarding the weight.

My one concern is the irregular eating pattern. It sounds like he eats excessively (and a breakfast burrito, cereal, and occasionally a muffin for breakfast is a excessive, especially at his age), has a light (non-existent?) lunch, and typical dinner. In my experience, a lot of people who do have weight problems as adults often follow irregular and/or disordered eating patterns. I have worked with a lot of overweight/obese individuals who skip breakfast, as an example, and most academic research actually backs this up. I think getting in the habit of overeating at one meal at the expense of another tends to lead to a pattern of eating less one meal, then over compensating for that at the next. My only suggestion would be to lightly encourage him to spread out that food over breakfast and lunch rather then cramming it in at breakfast, he probably is hungrier in the morning because he isn't eating a reasonable lunch, is then just maintaining at dinner, which leads to him waking up starving. Don't make it about his weight, or how he looks, but just encourage eating three balance meals. [/quote]

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