Reply to Should I force the issue - overweight teen boy and swim shirt

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here - I'm so sorry my concern for my son comes across as being an asshole to you. I don't want him to be sitting on the beach embarrassed and opening up himself to bullying and those judgemental stares of all the skinny-mni kids and parents sharing the beach with us!

I love my son, and will no matter what the scale says or what his BMI is. Both me and DH have struggled with our weight our entire life. When he was born I was just under 300lbs and DH pushing 350. Luckily, since then both of us have lost significent amounts of weight, and while neither of us are skinny now, we are healthy, fit, and a reasonable size (I could stand to lose a few pounds still, and so I've made it a collective goal between me and DS to lose weight together).

My point being, I an well aware what it's like to be the kid with a large belly on the beach. You can't help it - people are assholes and will treat you differently, stare, and just be mean to you and it can really turn a nice beach vacation into a 'Sit in the house all week' vacation.

We saw this last year, when he was just on the line between average weight and slightly overweight, and he refused to go to the beach the second half of the trip because he was so embarrassed over his size.

And thank you to all the people who think I'm the one embarrassed. Yes, I'm not happy about his weight gain, it's not healthy and I am worried that with his genetics and habits this could be a long term struggle with him. He is very self concious of the weight gain/how he looks, probably made worse by the fact that his 13 year old half brother is skinny as a rail and can eat us out of house and home without gaining a pound while he has been trying to eat healthy and be active and continues to put on weight.

But yeah, maybe you'll are right and I'm a judgemental asshole of a parent and I should just let it go. It's just that I know my kid, and I know that once he gets to the beach he will go once, get embarrassed and mope around the rental house all week. Oh well.[/quote]

Then just bring the shirt and don't say anything to him about it. If it seems like his own embarrassment is causing him to skip out on activities, offer it to him. If he's out there enjoying himself, don't shame him out of his fun (even if unintentionally) by harping on his weight. You need to approach this from a perspective of compassion for his weight struggle rather than control. You can't force him to lose weight any more than anyone else could force you until *you* were ready to make a change for your own sake. You've been where he is, you have to know this already.[/quote]

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