It appears that I'm now off the current topic. Again I'm referring to getting my brother and sister to recognize that their weight is a problem.

While reading through replies, I think I came up with a better idea. They both think that of the other one as the "fat" one. Even if they won't openly acknowledge that they have a problem, they each believe that their sibling does. I think that they might be able to be persuaded into making healthier choices if I tell them each that it's for the other one and that s/he needs their help. You do care about each other. If I present the future consquences in terms of their sibling, they'll probably be more open to hearing it.

To the many posters who don't think they can/should be pushed: While I agree that it's much easier to make better choices as an adult, it will certainly be easier on them if they at least stop gaining weight now. How many of you wish you would have "bottomed" at a lower weight? How much easier would it have been if you did? "I refused to see there was a problem" is a common theme here. Fortunately or unfortunately, others often don't intervene until the individual is already in a severe situation health-wise, and sometimes chalk it up to personal choice even then. We can't rely on medical professionals to provide the intervention. My brother's doctor literally said nothing until my brother reached 300lbs when, obviously, this didn't happen overnight. He has yet to talk to be mother about my sister who, as a reminder, will likely be over 200lbs by her 13th birthday. I really feel that need to try to get through to them because I'm not sure I could live with myself if I didn't.

Yes, I agree that a parent-led effort would be best. I've tried talking to our mom, but she appears to have cognitive dissounance between her thoughts and actions. Intellectually, she knows there's a problem. She knows the changes that need to be made. She's actually capable of telling someone exactly what's neccessary to lose weight. But instead of implementing these changes in a consistent way (ie. refusing to take them to buffets), she makes half-hearted gestures (buying healthy foods along with the junk) and tons of excuses. I've given up on believing that she can be the catalyst for change. The spark is going to have to come from the kids. It's not right. It's not fair. But it's the truth. I do believe she's capable of supporting and encouraging their efforts (and actually has the knowledge base to do so), but they're going to have to want to do it. I can't make them want it, but I can present the facts and offer support. And I've got to try.

I've been watching this thread closely since it began and there are several things I want to say from the perspective of someone who was an obese child/teen:

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TELL THEM THEY NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT
I can't tell you how humiliating and depressing it is to have a parent, authority figure or older person tell you that you need to lose weight. It hurts, it sucks and for a teen who probably already suffers from poor body image (or will, after you say something) they can easily spiral into depression. Your siblings know they're fat. They don't need you to tell them they are. Telling them that they need to lose weight won't help them at all.

I became suicidal at one point because all I heard from my mom and doctors was that I needed to lose weight. I DIDN'T KNOW HOW. Nobody told me or taught me anything and just told me "lose weight." I was a teenager and ate what my parents made, how the heck would I even know how to start? I hated shopping trips with my mom because when I would have to buy a bigger size she would tell me I needed to lose weight.

Teach and model healthy eating, but DON'T TELL THEM WHAT TO DO
Telling a teen what to do won't make them change. Teach them and introduce healthy eating habits, but avoid labeling food "good" and "bad." Making food "bad" just makes it more desirable. Instead talk about how certain food make them feel or make their body work well (for example, chicken has protein, maybe your brother wants to build muscle? Your sister wants to tone?).

Find an exercise they like and help them find a way to do it
Even though my mom was the source of a lot of my weight angst, she did the best thing for me by taking me to a gym when I was 16. The same, supportive gym I go to now. I found I really liked step classes and later spinning classes and because exercise was a habit I formed it was no big deal to begin eating healthy and reduce my portions earlier this year (which led to weight loss). Yeah it took me years to get to the actual weight loss point, but the most important thing is building healthy habits that stick for the rest of one's life. Your siblings are teens so they have plenty of time for that.


I know how much being an overweight teen sucks. I was probably 220-230lbs back in high school and wearing a size 18. The only thing that really helped me was the fact that I was able to find an exercise I liked...that set me up on the path that I've traveled down now.

I can't really offer much suggestions about your mom, but by helping your siblings out in the most supportive way possible, you can make sure they set out on a healthy path.

I do sympathize - my sister is extremely overweight and heading downhill fast due to excessive junk & sugar consumption (last checked, about 150lbs overweight).

That being said, I don't know of anyone who lost weight because a sibling (or anyone really) pulled them aside to help them address the issue. They know they are fat. Please don't think they don't know that they have a problem just because they point to the other - give them more credit than that. They look in a mirror naked. They know. Just be a proper role model, be supportive, and let them know that you support them no matter what. But I think you are trying to fix a problem that isn't yours.

Let's be honest - if family/friends could just help people so easily, 3FC would be a pretty empty place. Look in the maintainers section- those former fat chicks did it for nobody but themselves, no matter how many times others told them they were fat or tried to point out their 'problem' that they knew they had.

Obesity isn't the worst of your family's problems, so focusing on weight is a bit like talking to them about their grades while the house is burning down around them.

You're also coming across as extremely judgemental, which is understandable. You see a problem you were able to fix and expect them to do the same.

Instead of seeing your mother's buying health food along with the junk as a half-hearted measure, you could have seen it as a start.

Instead of seeing it as "not enough," you could see your sister's participation in sports as a great accomplishment (especially while being overweight where there tends to be ungodly pressure from peers to be thin).

All my life (since I was 5 years old), I tried to lose weight the way everyone expected me to - what I call the "perfection method." It's how we do tend to expect weight loss to occur. To the point that when someone makes more than a few mistakes, people (even here) will tell them "you must not be ready for change."

I've now lost more than 100 lbs by half-hearted methods. I have no doubt that you and many others here would judge my efforts to be unacceptable and half-hearted.

For more than 30 years I tried to lose weight the way everyone thinks it should be done, and I always became discouraged and gave up. When I decided to diet "backwards" by only making the smallest, most comfortable changes - I couldn't find anyone else doing the same thing (at least not who were willing to admit or talk about it).

Dieting this way has meant my life hasn't seemed to change at all, because the changes were so small, they weren't noticeable. I wouldn't even have noticed them if I hadn't been writing them down. One day I couldn't shower while standing and barely had the strength to wash my hair, and one day a few years later I was able to walk 30 minutes on a treadmill.

Instead of focusing on the positive, and praising and encouraging the "half-hearted" efforts, you're focusing on what your family isn't doing. You're not giving credit for what they are accomplishing.

That's natural. We're not taught to acknowledge small changes. In fact, we're taught to see ANYTHING we do to lose weight that isn't 100% perfection as failure. Nothing is ever good enough and every small slip up is a failure.

I've lost over 100 lbs, and I still feel the need to APOLOGIZE for it, because it wasn't fast. I still haven't had a month where my weight loss exceeded 3 or 4 lbs for the month, and it's usually half that. I feel like I've "failed off" 100 lbs, but I was able to "fail" the weight off, when I was never able to "succeed" the weight off.

Heart-to-heart talks, criticism, bribes, threats, insults - they never worked for me as a child, because my parents didn't understand that I was trying as hard as I could. And none of us realized that was the very problem. I felt like a failure because I couldn't meet their or my expectations for myself, so I saw myself as a failure. And seeing yourself as a failure is the first step to becoming one. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Instead, I think you need to praise the great things they ARE doing, because reward works far better than punishment (and talking to an overweight child about their weight - what they're doing wrong - is punishment. There's no way to make it feel any other way).

Tell a child - or anyone what they're doing right and they'll work that much harder to do more.

When your mom bought the healthy food with the junk - did you praise her for buying the healthy food, or did you criticize her (with words or the expression on your face) for buying the junk. If you praised her AND THEN criticised her, she didn't hear the praise, she heard the criticism - because that's how the human mind works.

Another thing that isn't being addressed is more important than the weight issues at this point. It sounds like the house really is a fire and health hazard (if the kitchen can't even be used), so addressing the kid's weight problems is skirting the more important issues. It sounds like you want to fix SOMETHING in their lives, and this seems to be the easiest for you to tackle. You're putting a bandaid on a skinned knee, while ignoring the gun shot wounds.

The whole family needs to be in counseling. They need a support team. Social services may need to be involved. And if it only results in your mom doing the minimum to get them off her back - praise the effort and the changes like mad so that maybe she'll feel good about the changes she makes and will be willing to make more.

She also may need to be on medication for the depression and the hoarding. From what I've read, the medications often help a great deal.

This isn't an easy fix. It will require lots of hard work on many people's parts, and starting with the weight issues probably isn't the most efficient or effective way to address the many, many problems.

I would suggest that you go into counseling yourself and get a counselor's perspective (ideally a counselor with experience dealing with family and weight issues). He or she can give you some perspective on when, if, and how you should go about trying to help your family. They'll have the impartiality, the education and the experience to give you more helpful advice, and be more prepared to help you first "do no harm."

And that's the hardest part, because a lot of people tried to help me as a child, and mostly it did a great deal of harm, not because the people weren't well-intentioned, but because they didn't understand that everything they told me, I was telling myself anyway, and berating myself for being unable to follow through. Their criticisms, no matter how gentle they tried to be (and often they didn't try to be), hurt worse than beating me with a lead pipe would have.

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine (cocaine addicted rats will actually choose sugar over cocaine more often than not). If your brother and sister were addicted to cocaine and you couldn't remove cocaine from the household would you be telling them to "give up cocaine to help their brother or sister?"

I'm not saying (as my previous post may have sounded) that intevention from social services is not necessary. My point instead was that carb addiction is rampant in this society - so rampant that intervening only in obese homes is hypocritical. There are obese families who are trying to conquer their weight issues and are doing "everything right" and still failing. But in this case, the weight issues aren't the biggest issues. Living in a chaotic home with a mentally ill mother is the biggest problem, and trying to deal with the weight issues isn't going to be helpful (especially since carbs may be their only available coping mechanism. Take that away and you may see something worse emerge like drug use, promiscuity, or criminal behavior).

This problem is too big for you to take on without the help of professionals.

my sister grew up in ontario, they had a very diff welfare and education system, she struggles as well to get loans, the welfare there is a joke and the education system had diff priorities than here. when i was speaking of differences thats the reason i said im from nfld not canada, i would think the us and ontario to be more similar than nfld and ontario.

i also lived in the states as well as i said previously and i had culture shock they were so different, im not saying they are as different as white and black, but there are quite a number of cultural and societal differences. i dont want to drag this thread off topic, but there are so many differences that you just dont see on the surface.

i definetly wish id bottomed out at a lower weight and i certainly wish growing up someone had stepped in to help me and my parents. if they had than maybe my grandfather wouldnt be dead, most of my family wouldnt have diabetes and maybe i wouldnt have reach 335 lbs in my late teens. yea it would have been embarassing at first but i would have reached adult hood with alot better chances and opportunities in life. i think the idea of using them for each other is brilliant. hopefully they will than want to make some changes and your mother will get involved as well since she knows how to lose weight. i hope your siblings become healthier and enter adulthood without the struggles of being overweight

Yes, they know they're "fat", but I don't think they grasp what that means. Most people, especially when they're younger, think of "fat" in terms of appearance. Their doctor did an extremely poor job of conveying the gravity of the situation. (For those not following, the doctor failed to adress my brother's weight until he reached 300lbs. He has yet to say anything about my sister.)

I just had a talk with my sister phrased in terms of our brother. I spelled out what "pre-diabetic" means. I explained the gravity of the situation in terms of consquences to his joints (knee problems in his case), future mobility issues, expotentially increased risk of heart disease, etc. using our brother as an example, though clearly all of the same things apply to her. I said nothing at all about her weight or their appearance (which in my opinion in the worst frame through which to approach the subject).

I asked her to help our brother and gave her specific examples of ways she can help him. She can ask him to come play basketball at the Y with her. She can remind our mom to make healthy food choices and discourage her from buying sugary foods. For those not following, my mom's a medical professional and former health educator, she absolutely knows which foods are and are not healthy. I'm not telling the 7th grader that she needs to be the one who enforces good choices. I'm telling her that she needs to remind our mom to do what she intellectually knows is best. The idea here is to encourage them all to support the others without directly saying that they, too, need to lose weight.

I really think she got it. She cares about our brother and wants him to be healthy. They might not say it, but they do care what I think. My sister recently listed me as her hero for a school project. I'm hoping I'll get a similiar response from my brother. This isn't going to be a one-time thing. I anticipate having these conversations somewhat frequently. To clarifying I'm not done going after our mom on this. As long as she continues to make poor choices on their behalf, she's going to have to hear about it from me. I'm not expecting big changes; even small changes would help. If they're able to stop gaining, that alone would be a huge improvement.

Ironically, they have had some education on healthy eating. Our mother was a health educator. They know which foods aren't healthy and (in general terms) why. Again, I don't think they grasp the seriousness of the situation, and our mother does nothing to consistently enforce good choices. Good choices (healthy foods and excercise) are made available to them but so are bad ones (all-you-can-eat buffets and tons of sweets). My husband and I do model healthier behaviors (neither of us is extreme), but I'm not sure how much impact it has.

It probably sounds like I've already been preaching at them. For the most part, I've saved it for our mother. This is the first time I recall having a direct conversation with the kids about their health/weight. It actually may be the first time anyone has had a direct conversation with them. (The tons of snide remarks and unsolicted off-hand suggestions they've both surely received not withstanding.)

This is an excellent suggestion for anyone else who is also facing this issue. My sister is active in sports and enjoys physical activity. As she continues to bigger, it's impacting her atheletic ability though. Eventually (likely this year or next) she's not going to be able to make the teams that are competitive. As she drops sports, she's going to become less active and, thus, gain more weight. I'm hoping to get her in better shape, so that she can make the teams again next year.

My brother's a lot more difficult on this one. Every year we encourage him to play football, and the coaches try to recruit him for his size. But he just doesn't want to play. He enjoys games but doesn't like having to practice. Unfortunately this doesn't just apply to football. He doesn't mind playing sports, but he'd rather hang out with his friends than attend practice. So he tries to avoid getting involved with anything. I'm hoping at the very least we can get him playing basketball with our sister at the Y.

I find that interesting. In the 4 years I spent in the US I found it to be quite the opposite,subtle differences on the surface but the root of culture/society seemed very similar to me, but that could be from literally growing up in 16 cities in 5 different provinces and 2 states.
I find this all fascinating, but yes, completely off topic.

Is their weight really a critical issue?

Yes, absolutely. At 16 my brother is ~6'4" and approximately 315-320lbs. My sister is 12, ~5'6" and ~190lbs. They're not just obese; they're also overfat (referring to body fat which I believe is a much more accurate indicator of overall health). They both carry a lot of weight in their midsection. My brother wears pants with a 40in waist under his stomach (so his true waist is 45in+). My sister is currently wearing a 13/14 also under her stomach on her much smaller hips. I'd say that she's ~40in around the largest part of her stomach. No, their doctor hasn't really addressed my sister's weight, but this is the same doctor who waited until my brother was over 300lbs to say something! More importantly, they're both continually gaining weight. At the rate they are gaining, they will both become morbidly obese as young adults.

Why am I worrying about their weight when they are other problems at home?

Because when they each turn 18, they won't be able to just walk away from their excess weight. Their lives will dramatically improve when they're no longer living under the same roof as our mother. (Right now, they don't have a lot of other options as explained in a previous post.) The poor eating habits, health issues and other consquences of obesity will follow them into adulthood. For the most part, our mother's problems won't.

My mother does have a plan to improve their living situation. She's looking to buy another house. (Hear that sound? That's me smacking my forehead.) If they move, it will dramatically improve their living conditions at least until she has a chance to fill it up again. This should give the kids a relatively normal home until they move out.

Yes, I'd like for them to all go to counseling, but I don't think that realistically that's going to happen. I can't force my mother to do anything. In her opinion, it's everyone else that has a problem.

Why am I so hard on my mother for her role in this?

For those of who weren't following closely, she's a medical professional who's worked as a health educator before. She's counseled others about healthy eating and excercise! Their eating habits are the worst they're ever been. We did not eat this way when I was a child (before they were born and when my brother was very young). She refuses to take responsibility for their eating habits. This is an educated, professional woman who takes her children to all-you-can-eat buffets when all three of them are obese! I could give dozens of examples like this. I'm not trying to say that they should all be on strict diets; I'm saying that the kids shouldn't be allowed to have all of the soda they can drink. I know she has mental issues, but she's able to function in other areas. When I try to talk to her about this, she has a hundred excuses on why it's not her fault. She's the one buying the food!

Yep, yep and yep..

Medical professionals are not immune to obesity, depression or mental illness. In fact, the incidence is about the same or even higher than in the general population. Although medical professionals ARE often less likely to seek help for a variety of reasons, including fear of being stigmatized (and losing their reputation if not their job), the belief that because they do "know" what to do that they can do it on their own (even when they "know better), and the fear and belief that they should be held to a higher standard than everyone else and therefore are deserving of less compassion and/or assistance than anyone else.

It sure would be great if knowledge made us immune to obesity and mental illness, but it doesn't. If it did, I would have conquered my weight issues long before I finished high school (I was reading college texts and journal articles on obesity when I was in junior high).

Depression and obesity (and ocd issues like hoarding), aren't "choices" your mother has made. It may seem that way from the outside, but it's just not true. Once a person gets into a downward spiral, reversing it takes a lot more than just knowing better.

You would think a professional would recognize the symptoms and get help before the symptoms became unmanageable, but often that's not the case - largely because even the person themselves thinks that their knowledge protects them - that they should and can do it themselves (maybe not today, but sometime soon - only the soon never comes).

You do have leverage to get them into counseling. You can give your mother an ultimatum (get everyone in counseling or I call CPS, and I keep calling until you get the help all of you need).

And counseling would help you too (even if they refuse to go), because a counselor can help you determine whether the help you want to give, is going to be of any help at all - or whether you'll only be making the situation more difficult and stressful for your siblings (which I suspect is going to be the outcome).

January Snow...

I just really feel like you're looking for a different answer than everything that's been said...and there isn't one.

The symptoms of the problems going on in that househole are obesity and hoarding...and I think you're grasping for a solution to these things.

You just can't treat symptoms. You can't. That's like cutting a weed off at the dirt and leaving the roots in, expecting the weed not to grow back.

I know its got to be devastating for you to watch this happening to the people you love, and feel helpless to do anything about it...but hon, you have to accept that you can't fix this. You can't make this better by telling them what to do, and you can't make this better by instructing them on healthy eating or exercise alone.

They need therapy. All of them. They need help that you just can't give them. All you can give them is love and support, and help urge them to seek counseling. Any more interference from you can only do more harm than good. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, that kind of thing.

Speaking as someone who grew up in a somewhat dysfunctional household, I rarely and eventually never had regular meals (Breakfast/lunch/dinner)
Quite often there would be next to nothing in the house to eat, and when there was it would often be a pack of candy bars. I was too young to get shopping in or cook up a meal from scratch, so my eating habits was a case of eat as much food (Even if it's a bunch on snack junk food) because I didn't exactly know when there will be food again. Some kind of survival mentality I suppose.

Depriving children or even teenagers of consistent meals is a sure fire way to teach them to binge eat. My best friends parent also hoards and she grew up in a house which wasn't realy fit to be lived in, and it definitely caused a lot of stress/anxiety. Which is again another good way to prevent healthy, normal eating habits.

I'd say the best solution would be to address the hoarding issue, and put back some feeling of control into your siblings lives. It sounds more like they are reacting to a bad home situation than anything.

Hmmm ... while I appreciate your concern about your siblings, you are not their parent. You really don't have any right to interfere in this situation other than talking to their mother, which you already did.

And, as a social worker, I don't think there is any reason to call in CPS. Social workers are not food cops; and being a pack-rat is not a crime. Their major concern would be that the children are getting enough to eat and are well cared for. Even you admit that your mother makes an attempt to buy some healthy foods. She is obviously intelligent & educated; so we must give her some credit for that; and the fact that she raised you OK, right? My parents raised our younger siblings different than us too; that happens more than you think.

This is all very subjective, and based on an opinion of what you think goes on when you are not there; and an investigator might see things very differently than you do. I agree that in the end, you may do more harm than good, both to these children and to your family relationship; esp by going behind your mother's back, and talking to these kids without her permission.

Finally, if you really want to help them in a practical way -- then invite them all over for Sunday dinner and serve them something you want to; and/or make a healthy but tastey dish, and deliver it to them once a week.

BTW, Dr. Lustig, a New York pediatrician, runs a clinic for children who are over-weight. They do not put kids on diets but use a system of switches -- replacing unhealthy foods with healthier foods (milk for pop; water for juice), plus more; and any kind of favorite outdoor activity must equal TV or PC time. You could share that information with your mother, she might find it helpful; and she could investigate the program more herself.


KAY ~ you are a very wise young lady ...

I'm not sure that we can really say this, without knowing more about the condition of the house. That CPS has been called and has intervened in the past is a pretty good indication that the house (at least in the past) has been in a severe enough condition to be considered unsafe or they would have found the charges unsubstantiated when they investigated, rather than having intervened and set conditions that the mother had to comply with (OP stating that her mother did the bare minimum to meet the conditions CPS had set).


But IF the house is unsafe, then the kids' diets and weights should be the least of OP's concerns.

It is clear that OP doesn't have a good understanding of mental illness, obesity, or what it's like to be severely obese, especially as a child. Which is understandable, even with the experience, the education, and with years studying the research, I still have a lot of trouble grasping the complexity of these issues.

But when people want to help, but don't have the appropriate understanding or tools, they can make the situation much worse, and that's what OP really needs to understand. I'm guessing that she believes the situation is so bad, that she can't make it worse, and my experience tells me that she may be very wrong. She has the potential to make the situation much, much worse. Calling CPS and letting professionals deal with the situation (and determine whether there's even a situation needing to be dealt with) would be less harmful to the family than her taking it on as a DIY project.


Most people don't understand how stressful weight loss is, mentally and physically, even under the best of circumstances. We assume that eating better and exercising more had no down side, but that's not true.

It's been shown for example, that any significant calorie restriction (even when increasing the amount of healthy food) impairs immune function, for example reducing a person's resistance to infection. Researchers speculate that when calories are cut, the body conserves energy by spending less energy on immune function (as a person with both autoimmune and immune deficiencies issues, I have to wonder whether decades of yoyo dieting played a role in my immune disfunction).

This doesn't mean one should never cut calories, but it does mean that a person who is dieting may have to be more aware and protective of their immune system.

Many adults don't understand the risks of dieting without medical supervision and without knowledge of basic nutrition. Adults risk (and sometimes lose) their health and even their lives because they don't understand the risks involved in weight loss (and some understand the risks and take them anyway). Too often, people assume that the effects of obesity are worse than any risks of uninformed weight loss efforts, but that's not necessarily true, and teens are especially prone to dangerous weight loss methods. If weight loss is good, rapid weight loss is better. And sadly, even when teens know the dangers, they often assume they won't affect them, or they believe that being fat is worse than death anyway so the risks aren't important.

If healthy, high-fiber, low-calorie food isn't available to them, they're likely to use starvation, crash dieting and purging, as techniques to lose weight - and the physical and emotional stress and harm then is going to be that much greater. Often worse than the obesity itself.


Even lab rats respond to stress by changing their reaction to food (anorexia or overeating - especially carbs). Carbs are serotonin boosters (at least in the short-term), so in times of stress, self-medicating with carbohydrates is often a natural reaction.


If carbs are the coping strategy, take them away, and some other (potentially more harmful) strategy is going to take it's place. As damaging as food can be as a coping strategy, it's one of the more benign of those available to teens. Without medical and emotional supervision and support, from adults who understand all of the issues, medical, physical, and emotional, it's possible to add even more stress to the child's life while taking away the strategies that have helped the child deal with the stress. In place of food, they may turn to drugs, alcohol, gambling, shoplifting, sex, or other feeling-modifying substances and behaviors.


We don't take weight loss seriously enough, especially with children. "First do no harm," really has to be the first consideration, and I don't believe the OP realizes just how much harm she's capable of inflicting with her good intentions, which is why I pray that she seeks professional guidance before saying or doing anything, because the potential for emotional and physical harm is so great.

I think if the OP were to go into counseling herself and see not only a family therapist, but also a dietitian (ideally with experience as a pediatric dietitian), the professionals can help her, help her family (by counseling her in how, whether, and when to intervene, if at all).

This isn't a job for amateurs.