From Duncan, Child's Age 11 - 12/17/07 - IP#: 24.207.126.xxx Click here to reply
Hi, i've posted here before about my son Michael who is overweight and it seems to be getting worse. We managed to get him to shift some weight towards the end of the summer but not that the winters hit he's gone back to sedentary and even the previous tactics are failing. He went down to 200 and 5ft in September but is now back to 230. He still says he feels fine and hes ok with being big but its realyl hard to find school clothes that fit him. He doesn't eat lots of junk just eats a lot, if we don't feed him as much he sneaks it. He'll grab some pasta in the middle of the night or when my wife's out and cook it himself. We've done our best to discourage his overeating, even encouraged him not to by rewarding him but he finds ways to hide it from us until its too late. Any help would be gladly appreciated.
Reply from Taylor, Child's Age 14 - 02/23/08 - IP#: 75.66.43.xxx If you've told him to stop sneaking food and he won't, then sit him down and really talk it out. If he still won't listen, then keep it out of his reach. Put a lock on the fridge and pantry, and make sure he understands that until he can get a handle on his eating, then this is the only way. It seems harsh, I know, but you have to think about his health. The reward system seemed very good, but if he's still going behind your back and doing it even when he's been told not to, that's direct defiance. Best wishes!
Reply from Mike, Child's Age 11 - 02/14/08 - IP#: 81.106.188.xxx I don't know if this will help . . . Up until my 10th birthday I weighed a stone (14 lb) for each year, but then, as puberty kicked in, my weight climbed faster, and on my 11th birthday I weighed twelve and a half stones or 175 pounds. I tried dieting and exercise to no avail. After school on the last day of Summer term, Mum pulled me to one side and told me she wanted me to lose at least a couple of stones before returning to school in September. How I did it was up to me, but in order to encourage me, she told me she would not buy any more jeans for me. If I burst those I was wearing I would have to wear my shorts instead. I hated shorts! I went to my room to consider this new problem, and took a good, long, hard look at myself in the full-length mirror on the door of my wardrobe. My jeans were rock-hard tight from the knees up and my T-shirt seemed to bulge at every seam. The tightness of my clothes didn't bother me. Tight jeans and pants were the height of fashion in the early 60s, and I was often complimented on the tightness of my jeans. I came to the conclusion that my immediate problem was not so much find a way to lose weight, but to find a way of preventing my jeans from bursting. And then it hit me! One pair of tight jeans on its own would burst too easily. Two pairs worn together would be twice as strong. Three or four pairs of jeans worn over each other would be so strong they would be impossible to burst! As it happened, the pair I was wearing that day were the fourth pair of the same make and size and I still had the other three pairs, albeit patched and repatched where I had torn them or burst them, in the bottom of my wardrobe. I enlisted the aid of my brother and between us we managed to squeeze me into the four pairs of jeans. My knee-length rubber boots were very tight, but they looked good, as did my zip-front leather jacket, which was extremely tight over four or five layers of tight T-shirts and sweatshirts. I could hardly move, but I felt great! None of my friends noticed I was wearing extra clothes when I kicked a ball about with them in the park. They just teased me good-naturedly about my super-tight jeans. That night I left all my clothes on and slept quite comfortably. After a couple of days my jeans and leather jacket were becoming very loose. I had been sweating a lot and thought that this had somehow made them stretch. I preferred them when they were tight, so I persuaded my brother to help me strip everything off, and put them back on over another two or three layers which would make them tight again. After another couple of days all my clothes were loose again and I realised now that I was rapidly losing weight. Thereafter this became the pattern of my teenage and young adult years --- my weight would climb every Winter, and I would sweat it off the following Summer. Sometime in my mid-20s I learned about metabolism and after that I didn't need to put so much effort into losing weight. But sometimes I got careless, or simply got fed up of watching my diet, and allowed my weight to climb. Then, one day I would dress myself in about twenty layers of tight clothes and spend the day fishing. When I stripped off I usually found I had managed to lose about a stone --- sometimes as much as two, if I cycled to and from one of my favourite fishing haunts, which was about 5 miles away. If Michael is interested in trying this, stretch tracksuits are ideal. Start off with 4 layers and gradually increase, while over these wearing a really tight pair of thick heavy-duty jeans both to compress the fat and to tone the thigh, buttocks and abdominal muscles while doing a lot of walking, which should be encouraged. Feel free to Email me with any questions = whizzerjames@yahoo.co.uk
Reply from Michele, Child's Age 12 - 12/22/07 - IP#: 71.225.149.xxx Just like adults kids have a tendency to gain weight in the winter time too because they are not out moving around. Ask your son if there is an indoor activity he would like to do. Does he own a video game? There are several games geared towards kids activity. As far as him sneaking food, he may be emotionally eating. Ask him if there is anything bothering him. He could be dealing with anger, stress or many other emotions by eating rather than talking about it. Ask him to keep a journal and ask him to write down how he feels each time he eats. If it continues you can always speak with his Pediatrician regarding someone he can speak to. Goo luck.
