My nearly 11yr old girl has had significant weight gain over the past 8months, like 10kg’s. She’s gone from being quite skinny to porky with a big belly, thighs and round face and breast development. She is a bigger build like myself where her sister and dad are very tall and skinny. They can eat what they want and never put on weight.
When her hormones started her metabolism slowed down and she just started eating, and mostly junk. Dad just feeds them junk in their lunchboxes, never anything healthy like fruit, yoghurt, healtheir sandhwiches. Its just biscuits, crackers, nutella, lollies etc. We’ve discussed this many times as i voiced my concern to him.
Last night she was in tears, explaining how difficult is it for her to move around like she used to. She tires easily and her tummy is in the way when they do PE at school. Her clothes dont fit, she doesnt want to upsize, she is scared she will be big breasted like me. She says her arms are big and dont fit in shirts properly. I dug out some bigger tshirts from the clothing tub (stuff her sister outgrew) and when she was looking for a shirt this morning she had a total meltdown because everything was ‘baggy’ or the arms didnt fit right. Actually they fit her properly but she doesnt want to accept that she needs to upsize. Her school skort and undies dig into her tummy, she can hardly move in her skort. The bigger size is too big and long she says. But its the next size up.
So we had (another) discussion about thinking about what we eat. When we’re hungry, look at what the healthy options are. Instead of chips & biscuits, grab an apple, grapes etc. She then explained how she has a sensory aversion so alot of foods so if it looks or feels a certain way she wont eat it.
I’m trying to support her to make healthier food choices without turning her daily diet into an obsession about weight. I’m petrified she’ll develop an eating disorder. She is slightly bigger & taller than the kids in her class but not by much. But her self confidence has taken such a huge knock with this weight gain.
We spoke about trying a sport to get her more active, and walking the dog but she has 100 excuses for everything. She is so moody and i think her period is not far away. In the meantime she is super body conscious and i dont want it developing into something more stressful than it is.
Do you have any advice to help us along this journey? I’m trying to help her confidence and support her in making good choices and leading by example. I’ve suggested she participate in the food shop so she can pick foods that will work for her. She recently started some counselling so I hope that will help but it was heartbreaking to hear her last night about all the things she’s struggling with her body changing so fast 😥.
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