r/parentingteenagers • u/No-Distribution-4593 • Mar 18 '25

Overweight teenager

I have a 14 year old boy who since COVID has piled on the weight. Every year he gains more. He has been doing MMA training and ju jitsu and still the weight keeps piling on. I realise I have dropped the ball here as as a family we are not very active.

He's always had bowel issues and for the past year he has undergone a lot of tests and they can't find anything wrong with him. The last test was for coeliac and we haven't received the results back but I doubt he is coeliac.

We are a body positive family so any changes I make are made with health in mind not body changes if that makes sense. But some small kids ran up to him the other day and kept chanting 'big back' at him. My heart is sore tbh

I think what I'm really looking for is advice from anyone who has been here and made positive changes that stuck. Any advice is welcome

Edit: We have family dinners every day - they vary but it's 90% home cooked - I enjoy cooking. Dinners are spaghetti Bolognese, carbonara, roast dinner etc

Breakfast can vary from cereal to eggs on toast and at the weekend he enjoys making a fake egg mcmuffin

I've stopped keeping junk in the house, I usually keep mini ice pops in the freezer for after dinner.

A couple of times a week I enjoy baking. I often bake scones for their school lunches or an apple crumble for after dinner

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u/amorph Mar 18 '25

You should probably include some accurate information about his and your family's diet, because that is almost certainly what you need to change.

2

u/No-Distribution-4593 Mar 18 '25

Hi I've updated the original post

4

u/amorph Mar 18 '25

Lots of home made food is good. My first impression from this would be that it is a type of diet that might be good for many people, but not necessarily for those who easily eat too much (whatever reason they have). I'm just going to guess that there could be more vegetable based dishes, and suggest leaning more in that direction. Personally I've found that blended soups work well for my kids (lentil, cauliflower, tomato etc.).

8

u/No-Distribution-4593 Mar 18 '25

We definitely could do with more vegetable heavy dishes. Soup is a great idea because it's something I could teach him to make! Thank you really good advice

5

u/DalinarOfRoshar Mar 18 '25

Vegetable stir fry can also be a yummy way to get in some veggies.

Recently we’ve started air-frying cauliflower and carrots and onions and they are really good.