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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My Dd is 11 and overweight. We never eat fast food. No potato chips. No sodas. But every two hours she says she’s hungry and we don’t want to restrict food. I just decided to put all the control in her hands. I tell her what I recommend she eat (a banana with peanut butter as a snack, or apple and cheese) and she decides whether to eat it or something else. I’m hoping it helps her feel more in control and therefore eat less. [/quote]
Seriously? You are a parent and you put all the control in the 11-year-old hands. Why is it all or nothing? Why can't you cook healthy food and stop with peanut butter, and cheese, and cook her a stew? Nobody got overweight from eating three homemade meals per day.[/quote]

You think a kid is overweight from snacking on an apple and cheese? Seriously? 
[/quote]
What? No, I think mom in the post, if that is you, is a horrible parent. That is clear from my post. She has given up and let her 11-year-old decide what to eat!!![/quote]

I love anonymous forums where you can call someone a horrible parent while having read four lines of text from them.  I’ll be kind and try to explain things to you, since you are lucky enough not to be dealing with this yourself (and you truly are lucky- having an overweight tween who worries about her weight makes me worry about her having a lifelong eating disorder). 
You can’t control what a tween girl eats. You can pack them a healthy lunch, but then they can eat all their friends leftovers at school. You can give them a healthy dinner at home but my tween spends lots of time at friends houses, where she needs to make choices for herself. You can limit dessert but she’s at a birthday party once a month where she can eat unlimited pizza and cake.  I promise you- if I restrict food at home she’ll get it elsewhere. 
I’ve tried everything else- now the best thing I can do is present her with healthy choices and information on healthy eating - and have an house full of healthy foods-and let her learn to regulate for herself. [/quote]

Ugh.  So much this.  You cannot control a tween/teens diet.  They have to be able to make their own choices and use moderation.  I cook heathy meals at home, buy nutritious snacks, and talk/model heathy eating and moderation. I cook my 12 yr old breakfast every morning and pack her a heathy lunch.  School passes out pop tarts, sugar cereal, and chocolate milk for free breakfast to all that kids can pick up on their way to first class. School also gives free (processed) lunch to all, whether you pack your own you can still grab pizza daily if wanted.  Teachers are constantly handing out bags of Doritos, chips, mini cookies, etc. as prizes in class.  Now that kids are too old to send cupcakes in for birthdays, parents feel the need to do this at sports practice instead.  At least once per week after practice, someone had brought in tons of desserts for some occasion.  Friends’ houses are pretty much a free for all with soda and snacks. Plus the holidays, birthdays, pool parties, bbqs.  It is impossible for a parent to oversee the diet of an older child/tween.  A few extra snacks and desserts per week (that they may easily get outside of home) are absolutely enough to make a child overweight over time.  My child is a heathy weight, but I would never judge the parents of a tween that isn’t.  I can clearly see there are so many variables at play besides cooking heathy meals at home. [/quote]

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