That is hard, you don't want to be cruel by leaving him out but you and the rest of the family should not have to miss out because of his bad choices.

Maybe if he misses out on some things, he will want to try harder.

OK so 'treats' are cupcakes? Why not air popped popcorn? Or a movie from RedBox? Eating every 2 hours? Why? Does someone in your home have health concerns and needs to eat every 2 hours so you all tag along so that person isn't lonely?

Pinki, why not remove the food as a reward? I work in a health field where over consumption has dreadful outcomes. We do not hand out candy for ANY holidays or celebrations. If someone lowers their blood glucose level we reward them with a little plastic nurse duck as a reminder how we are all in this game with them.

Your sson has a bad habit. Remove the 'treat' food from his access. Only have healthy snacks in the cupboards. OK, I know. Why should you go without just because sson has a bad habit? Well why is food considered such a treat? It is merely fuel, not a reward.

Since I have been on this personal crusade a reward for me now is time watching a movie I REALLY want. Or taking my photos and getting them printed out and into frames. We do not need so much food and what we do eat is laden in satuarated fats and sugar. And if you say you only buy 'healthy' then why the concern your sson is overeating?

Tap into something that motivates him apart from food. He needs rewarding but not with cupcakes. You had an early lunch then ate again at 12 noon for a treat. How many calories did you each consume within 3 hours?

Hmmm, this sounds like one of my nieces. She's obese, and also sneaks food. Definately some sort of eating disorder. I DO agree with Sue that he should get some counseling, and maybe go to a nutritinalist, but if BM is not on board there's not a lot you can do. My niece , I feel so bad for her, she's been fat shamed her whole life by her mom(no skinny minny herself I might add) and MIL. I think that fueled the sneaking. Example: I love to cook, and during football season I make lots of fun "tailgate" food. I had an appetizer table out in the livingroom, and we were all in the kitchen for a minute, except for niece. We go back in and she had eaten half a dish of taco dip. But she won't eat it IN FRONT of us. Poor thing.

Someone who is 150-200 pounds overweight has SEVERE psychological issues. A friend of mine who is a psych professional and addiction specialist is a recovering alcoholic (30 years sober) - but she is now almost 200 lbs overweight and even she will admit that she traded one addiction for another.

There's no comparison with someone who even has 50 extra pounds with someone who is 200 or even 300 pounds overweight.

Children should be taught good nutritional habits. But an addiction is something totally different - and no one can force an addict to get clean.

Overcoming addiction, even with all kinds of support, is incredibly difficult. I wish I had some practical advice for you that might help the situation.

Your big issue is doing family activities with SS, but he can't participate even though he obviously wants to. How to handle that?

Maybe set the bar low at first. Like, if you have a puppy, an adult dog and an old dog, you might go around the block with all three, then depending on how the puppy and old dog are doing, they might stay at home while you go to the park with the adult dog.

So when you invite the skids to go for a walk, it's just a short walk with a stopping point. In fact, a great idea is to have several stopping points, so that SS can, for example, wait at a bench at some point while you and SD go around the block again, then he joins you for the final circuit home.

I think finding ways for him to join you doing 'normal' stuff is more important than him joining in theme parks (unless you go to the theme park a lot) because it's more real life, and will give him tools for adapting in other situations as well.

Now that he is 16 (in my mind, he is pretty much an adult at that age ie you can't force him to do what he doesn't want to) all you can do is continue to give him the tools that he can use when/if he decides he wants to do something about his weight plus plenty of love, support and acceptance. It sounds like you guys have been doing that and have helped him find physical activities he likes doing and teaching him about nutritional content of food and what constitutes a healthy diet.

My only other suggestion is seeing if he would respond well to a weight loss group - they can give lots of praise for loosing weight and doing well (if that is what he craves) and support when things don't go so well. I recall reading that the best way to loose weight is with help of a support group but also that of those that are obese only about 15% will ever be successful at loosing and then controlling their weight. Statistically he is unlikely to ever not be obese, sad I know, but at some stage it might be worth just accepting that.

As for the days out: I would say that if you want to treat SD for a day out at the theme park, then go for it. But you might also then want to even things out a bit and have a treat for SS too... a day out or a class or tickets to see a music concert he wants to go to (if you think you spend $100 on a day at the theme park, you can get him something pretty nice for that and I'm sure he won't mind as much about not going to the theme park if you phrase it diplomatically). As long as SS isn't being left out every weekend he is with you guys and it is just occasionally I don't see a problem with it.

I don't think it's fair to say overweight people have an addiction or have psychological problems. You're just adding to the fat shaming. Last year before I started working out I was 150 pounds overweight. Close to 300lbs, and I never ate fast food or sat around and eating Doritos on the couch. And no, it's not like a drug addiction where you make a choice to go stand on the corner and buy crack, you have to eat to live so it's not like you can just quit. Leave him alone, when he decides to make a change he will. But you hovering over it won't make a difference.

From what I'm reading you're a really good stepmom dealing with a kid that has a terrible health issue. You have him EOW so this is not a problem that you created but one one that you get to deal with. You're trying to include him and showing him healthy ways of eating in your own home, Good Job!

This is an issue for his parents, DH and BM to deal with and it sounds like they're just ignoring it. Besides being dangerously overweight he's also at the lovely age of 16 where he may not really be interested in doing what his little sister is doing. If he wants to tag along with you and SD then fine but I'd make it known ahead of time (you're the adult you make the rules) that if he needs to duck out that he'll walk home ALONE or if he want to sit out rides that he'll do it ALONE.

There are doctors who think it's a form of child abuse when a child is allowed to become morbidly obese. 350 at 16 is large. How tall is he?

It sounds like it he would do well to join a weight-loss group geared at morbidly obese's kids. Plus I would look on websites about this subject that could give insight as to how supportive parents should proceed. You're in a difficult situation for sure and it sounds like his mother is not going to be helpful in getting him to be a healthy person. No one needs bags of candy for themselves at Halloween.

At 16, he is old enough to go to an amusement park and be by himself should he not be able to keep up with you guys. Let him see firsthand the difficulty of being morbidly obese and wanting to play in the world. Don't say anything condescending or mean to him, just let him be and let him see for himself what it is like. Treat him as you do SD. Just make sure he has a phone with him so you can find him after you guys are done playing on rides.