My 10yo Daughter is Obese

I would let her pediatrician tell you how to proceed but please get this taken care of at this young age. The longer she has bad eating habits the harder it will be to correct and she can live a better life as a healthy child.

Please do not introduce calorie counting to your daughter, it will cause a lifetime of anxiety over eating that no one deserves.

Sign her up to dance classes or netball classes, something active which she will have fun at? and make healthy eating fun. x

I have a 4'10" 11 year old boy. He weighed in at 71 pounds yesterday at his 11 year old check up. He was 17th percentile for weight. He is a preemie has has always been underweight. Our pediatrican told us to leave him alone and let him eat what he wants. Believe it or not, the pediatrican is worried about eating disorders if we "force" him to eat more. That being said, the pediatrican told us that as parents, we should model good behavior in both eating and exercising.

Keep healthy food in your house, ditch the bad stuff: chips, cookies, soda, model good behavior, go out walking and biking with your daughter, maybe do some healthy cooking with your daughter. Why don't you sign up for a charity 5k walk/run? Do it as a family!!!

Of course, talk to your pediatrician. I wouldn't try to force her to do anything...that starts eating disorders. Good luck.

I highly recommend checking out "Disease Proof Your Child" by Dr. Fuhrman and get the whole family on board with a new way of living. Below is a website with some info.

http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx

Once upon a time I was an obese child. Many people recommend talking to your doctor. Having been put on a restrictive low calorie diet and placed on diet pills by a doctor and having that prescribed treatment cause my heart to race all day long and create an anxiety disorder I would strongly recommend you consult your own common sense instead. Don't listen to any medical professional that tells you to put your daughter on a diet or on medication. I started out slightly overweight and easily would have grown into that weight if I had been left alone. At the age of 12 I grew 6 inches and at 13 an additional 6 inches. However, I was constantly being put on diets starting at the age of nine and with every round of failed dieting I gained more and more weight. At 14 I was 100 pounds overweight! So I have very strong feelings on this subject and a strong belief that if my interest in swimming, bicycling, dancing and horseback riding had been developed and encouraged instead of creating an obsession with what I ate my whole life story would be different. I would recommend that your family as a whole practice healthy whole food eating and that your daughter take part in that as a member of your family. NOT because she is overweight but because your family just eats that way. Don't single her out! But more important than that even is support and encourage her love of movement and exercise - any form that she is interested in and can learn to love. That love will transcend the weight problem.

Just focus on health (fruit instead of cookies, 1 sandwich instead of 2...the small burger that is meant for children rather than the grown-up meal, etc) and revisit it when she's a little older if the need is still there I have always wondered if obese people have obese children because of nature or nurture? I think if you and your wife are being more healthy (walking, etc) then include her in that life and all will work out. Kudos to you for being proactive!!!!!!

In my opinion, I think calorie counting might not be the best idea for kids. BUT, I did work in a nutrition program with kids and some of the best messages were the easiest to remember:

Real food comes from the earth, not from factories.

Also, instead of calorie counting, we rated food by a stop light. Green was for healthy foods to eat at every meal, ie. veggies. Yellow was for sometimes foods. ie. peanut butter sandwich. Red, most importantly WAS NOT off limits, but it was for red for moderation/special occasions. ie. a piece birthday cake is okay to have at a friend's birthday, but not every day. Using green/yellow/red foods in addition to the myplate website someone else suggested is a really nice way for kids to have an input on choosing healthy meals while minding the fact what you do/tell them/show them about food while shape the way they relate to food for the rest of their lives.

Please address this carefully with your child. You are walking on thin ice here honestly. I was that exact same height and around that weight at that age. Instead of my parents making healthier decisions together my mom would just call me a "chunky monkey" (which was meant to be sweet) and other things like that which hurt my self esteem. Between that and seeing her unhealthy addiction to food and the scale I at first dieted from age 12-13 and didn't lose much weight (10 pounds) but had grown into my weight to 5 foot 5 inches. But now that wasn't good enough. I developed an eating disorder limiting myself to 1200 calories a day at age 15 and went down to 100 pounds at 5 foot 6 inches.( I became obsessed with counting calories, a child should never count calories honestly) I got amenorrhea (periods stopped) for over a year and it took a lot to recover from that. Mind you know this was a 1200 calorie diet.

TBH your daughter is not THAT overweight, not to say she isn't, but she will likely grow into her weight. You want to be mindful of her health both physically AND mentally/emotionally so please, please tread on thin ice here.

I would suggest developing a healthy eating plan for the whole family if it isn't in place. Cut sodas out, add more fresh fruits and vegetables, make sure that child gets enough water.

I wish you the best of luck and her too.

I don't know how many of you have girls in the 10 to 11 age range - but kids talk about calories, carbs, and the fat content of food. I can tell you that because *I* don't talk about it at home yet my 11 year old is acutely aware of these issues. I can only imagine other girls hear about it from their moms and talk about it at school. All my daughter knows is that fat and carbs are bad. However, she doesn't know what foods have fat and which don't; which foods have carbs and which don't. One day, she was complaining about too much fat and chose mac'n'cheese for lunch! She had no clue. So since kids are so attuned to these issues at such an early stage, I don't think it hurts to share a tool like this with them so they can actually see what they are eating and whether it does have high fat or high carbs.

Your child hardly looks obese. The best thing you can do for your child outside of talking to her doctor is to walk the walk. You're here getting your habits together? That is the biggest thing. Showing your kids how to eat healthy foods that are delicious while being active.

This whole thread feels inappropriate. But, perhaps I'm projecting my childhood experiences onto you. Either way...

Why is a father worried about his daughter's health and weight inappropriate? I've seen countless mothers post similar threads and everyone on here just rushes to help them and offer advice. Yet this father does the same and people want to criticize or get on his case? :grumble:

I don't think he once said his daughter was fat. He said that her BMI put her in an unhealthy category and he wanted her to learn better choices. What is the problem with that?????

I agree with this too. I think it's great for a Dad to show concern for his daughter's health.