From Michele, Child's Age 12 - 01/28/08 - IP#: 70.156.165.xxx  Click here to reply  
Hi, Everyone,
I'm new here. My son is 12 and in 6th grade. He is 5 feet and weighs 160 pounds. We've been on and off diets since 4th grade. He once lost 30 pounds on the Trim Kids program (a book you can buy). Now we're currently doing Weight Watchers, which I think he likes the best.
It's such a struggle for me. I'm not really overweight and neither is my 14-year-old daughter. His stepdad could lose some weight, but Jake is sometimes the only one on a diet.
I get so many opinions from people. The attitudes I get are sometimes that I'm mean for making him be on a diet. When he's not on one, I get the other attitude, why aren't I helping him. You just can't do anything right as a parent sometimes.
Jake always feels like he's the only one. He hates himself.
Forever trying,
Michele
Reply from Keyanah, Child's Age 6 - 06/24/08  - IP#: 72.24.72.xxx
Oh yeah my e-mail is keyanahwoodberry@yahoo.com

 
Reply from Keyanah, Child's Age 6 - 06/24/08  - IP#: 72.24.72.xxx
Miss Michele , I need your advice about how I can lose weight. If you want to know where I'm at , go to the pre-teen bullentin board or you can e-mail me. I'm 12 years old too.

 
Reply from egan, Child's Age 12 - 02/25/08  - IP#: 72.70.246.xxx
Thats not that bad my son is 12 and in 6th grade and he weighs 200. But my whole family is also overweight in including me, my daughter who is in 4th grade and is 4'9 and she weights 180. I am 5'9 and 345 pounds me and my family need help.

 
Reply from Taylor, Child's Age 14 - 02/23/08  - IP#: 75.66.43.xxx
I don't know about everyone else, but I feel that you're being very supportive of him, and you're doing a great job! Just make sure he knows you'll all rooting for him, and that the entire family supports him. Best wishes! =D

 
Reply from Mike, Child's Age 11 - 02/14/08  - IP#: 81.106.188.xxx
I don't know if this will help, but it worked for me!
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

 
Reply from joe, Child's Age 14 - 02/03/08  - IP#: 76.88.147.xxx
I don't want to sound mean, but does your son hate himself because he's picked on at school or because his weight is such a big issue for YOU! You've mentioned different diets and plans over the years--obviously it's a concern of yours. Maybe he feels different in the family because you emphasize his weight. It's great to walk with him and encourage him to be active, and to stock only healthy food at home, but I'd suggest you stop all the talk about diets for a while and see what happens. He has to want to lose weight for himself and then keep it off.