Teenagers Today's Health Advisory Panel Answers: Am I wrong to tell my 13-year-old daughter that she needs to lose weight or to watch what she eats?

By Chris Crutcher Author Licensed Child and Family Therapist

Question:

My 13-year-old daughter has gained weight. With all the low-rider styles of clothes on the market now, she wants to wear them, and her stomach and hips don't work with these styles. I have told her she can't wear them, and she needs to lose weight. She now says I have called her fat, and that's mean. I never used the word fat. She said, "No parent should tell their kid they need to lose weight."

Am I wrong to tell her she needs to lose weight or to watch what she eats? My 73-year-old father told her she was getting too wide in her hips. Now she said he's mean, too. Are we wrong to tell her?

Answer:

Believe me, your daughter already knows how she looks. She's working at trying to fit in, and my guess is if you let her wear those clothes like that, she will get the message from others.

If I'm a kid, and you tell me to lose weight, you're telling me I'm fat. I don't need to hear the word. I already say it to myself.

As much as we would like to look at our kids and tell them what looks good, it isn't much help, and we tend to alienate them. You don't have any information about her weight that she doesn't already have.

If I'm a teenager, and my 73-year-old grandfather says I'm too wide in the hips, I'm not going to like him very much. If I'm a parent, and my 73-year-old father tells one of my kids she's too wide in the hips, I may very well tell my 73-year-old father to shut the hell up. It isn't that the weight thing isn't important; it is hugely important – right along with the self-esteem thing.

If I'm in your shoes (and it's late), I'm going to model the kind of eating I want her to do. I'm going to make healthy foods available, and if she's going to eat other food, she's going to have to get them by herself, except on special occasions, and then there are limits. Food can become a huge power struggle between parents and kids. As adults, we need to lessen the struggle.

More than addressing weight, I'm going to address relationship. I'm going to turn myself into somebody who is not judgmental, even when I'm afraid for my kid. I'm going to be there to talk to – whether she talks to me or not.

Body image is huge in this culture, way bigger than it should be. That's the thing we need to help lose weight: our picture of it. And also remember that different kids gain and lose weight differently because of development. I realized I don't know how much weight you're talking about.