Severely Obese Stepson
My SS10 weighed in at his last Dr appt at 206.8 lbs and 4'9". He gained almost 20 lbs from his Dr appt less than 3 months before that. He's just now starting to see a Dr for his weight problem because my husband pushed his ex to do something. They did a blood test on him and everything came back "normal". His BM doesn't think there is a problem and keeps canceling/rescheduling his Dr appts. She usually takes him to the rescheduled appointments, but because of the busy schedules with his nutritionist he's seeing, when an appointment gets rescheduled, it takes at least a month to get back in so he's only seen her once.
My husband has spoken to both the dr and the nutritionist over the phone about the canceled appointments and they have expressed their concern over having to wait so long to see my SS and monitor his progress with what they've been telling him to do.
Since he started seeing a nutritionist, we've added 4 new items to my SS's menu of food that he's willing to eat (he's said he hates all of them, but he still eats them). Before that, he was only eating biscuits, bread, chips, mac & cheese, bagels w/cream cheese, & french fries.....basically nothing but carbs and junk. At the nutritionist appointments, my husband found out that my SS takes in his lunch: Sprite, brownie, gold fish crackers and rice kripsy treats. We only see him 4 days a month so we know that since his mom doesn't think there is a problem that nothing is changing at her house. We know this because my SS "brags" about it. In the past, if you tried to make my SS try something new, he would just throw up so he knows how to puke on demand.
The 4 new things we added aren't the healthiest (Total Cereal, grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti, and fettuccine Alfredo), but my stepson was starting to starve himself at our house because we didn't "have anything to eat" at our house. We, of course, have food in the house and we even have junk food, but he would just say he didn't feel good or wasn't hungry or would wait until my MIL showed up and would beg her to take him to McDonald's (that's a whole other topic). Now, we've basically told him he needs to eat what we fix him or he's going to bed. He's gone to bed as early as 6:30pm because he threw up on purpose when we tried having him sit down for dinner with us a couple of months ago. We are trying to start slow and offer him things that are close to what he eats now, hence why we picked spaghetti and fettuccine as the foods to steer out meals toward starting out.
That seemed to do the trick. Now, we don't have to deal with crying and he's sat down at the table with us the last two weekends for the one dinner we serve him during our time with him which proves that this was all a game (and that my husband should've listened to me 7 years ago when I first started dating him that his son was just puking for attention....again, a whole different topic).
So basically, I want to know, has anyone else dealt with severely obese SS (or child) with such a limited food choice and gone through the nutritionist route of treatment? They are also referring him to a therapist to discuss food issues with him but that hasn't started yet. Just want to know what to expect and if there are any hurdles we have coming that we can kind of prepare for.
Also, we just recently hired a lawyer basically to fix the messed up custody agreement my husband agreed to back when he got a divorce, but I/we are curious as to if we have any chance in hell at getting custody of my SS based on his weight issues and BM basically disregarding everything the pediatrician and nutritionist are recommending? If so, what do we need to get from these two dr's to provide to the lawyer?
Thanks for the time reading my post, everyone!
He's very addicted to carbs.
He's very addicted to carbs. The nutritionist even said that he has a carb addiction when my husband spoke with her on the phone.
The only fruit my SS agreed to try at the nutritionist appointment were grapes....although, he has been eating bananas at our house with his lunch recently (but he ate them when he was a toddler). My husband and/or I would have to find a way to make the smoothie without him seeing what goes in it which would be hard. The protein powder/spinach/kale would have to be hidden somehow as he didn't agree to ANY vegetable (except potatoes in the form of french fries) at the nutritionist appointment.
I've seen him drink vanilla milkshakes before so the vanilla protein powder sounds possible. He agreed to try Lemon Greek Yogurt, but I know Greek Yogurt is an acquired for most people and he said it was awful....my husband said it was awful too after he tried it. Just wish he liked stuff other than vanilla so it could possibly hide the spinach/kale better. Green on white sounds like a battle.
My DH and I are very into
My DH and I are very into fitness; he more than I. But nearly everyday, at least one meal is a protein shake. Your SS likes vanilla and bananas? Use water and some ice, vanilla protein powder, one banana, 1/2 cup rolled oats, and a tablespoon of ground flax. Blend until smooth. BAM! You have a delicious vanilla banana shake, that is healthy and has protein, good carbs, a huge dose of fiber (which I bet he needs really bad), and a serving of fruit.
I'm going to try this next
I'm going to try this next weekend. We aren't the healthiest people in the world, but believe it or not, we have all these ingredients in our house already.
I have no idea what the hell
I have no idea what the hell is wrong with his mom. She's overly in love with her son in my opinion. She about had a nervous breakdown when he started kindergarten 5 years ago. She ended up quitting her job on his first day of school and now collects disability somehow. She wanted to make sure she was always there when he goes to school and when he gets out of school. When she quit her job, her weight ballooned too. She is definitely way over the 300 lbs mark and she's a couple inches taller than me so I'm guessing she's around 5'3". If you asked my husband why she's doing this, he would say it's because she never wants her son to leave her, as in find a wife and have his own family. Making him huge is one way to go about that.
God this it tough. I was
God this it tough. I was overweight as a child, not as much as your SS but still overweight. My parents sent me to Weight Watchers around age 10, although not a nutritionist. So, from the kid's point of view, a couple of things...
One, it is NOT going to get better until you get SS on board. Not BM - SS. Even if BM was getting with the program, it is not possible for parents to monitor a 10 year old child 24/7. And if SS isn't willing to go along with this then it's going to severely limit how much good you can do. Find a way - ANY way - to get him excited about this. Eating healthy foods will make him stronger for sports, smarter than his friends, more likely to be a rock star... ANYTHING. But you absolutely cannot do this *despite* him, you have to do it with him.
Two, be very careful how you approach this with him. It always seemed to me to be an *appearance* issue with my father, and we still have a somewhat troubled relationship because of that. Make it clear to SS that you're worried about his HEALTH, not his weight and I think you'll get further.
I agree with you. He needs
I agree with you. He needs to be on board which is why we are trying to stick with what he told the nutritionist he was willing to eat or try to eat. We've kind of gone off of that a little bit with dinner since there were literally no dinner entrees that he agreed to except for mac & cheese and I believe that is more of a side than a meal.
I'm not sure how to get SS on board. Absolutely nothing matters to him except maybe his bed time and computer time so basically he's doing what we tell him to when it comes to eating so he can keep his computer time and doesn't have to go to bed early. If we offered him a reward, his mom would just go buy it for him when he got home on Sunday night. He misses a ton of school so we told him if he could get perfect attendance one quarter that we would give him $100. His mom gave him $100 because we "were being mean". He's never earned a reward from us because she undermines it constantly.
He doesn't like being active so having him play sports would be seen as more of a punishment, he has no friends and having him hang out with our friends' kids is more like a punishment to the other kids because my SS refuses to do anything or be social. I really think he's getting bullied at school even though he swears up and down he's not and told the dr and nutritionist that he's not.
His weight and him starting to physically be unable to do things is really making it hard to include him in "family" things because he has to quit so much earlier than the rest of us........and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that he doesn't want to be doing whatever it is that we are doing in the first place.
He says he hates coming over to our house because we are always doing stuff where if he's at his mom's house he can sit around and do nothing for the other 12 days in a row before he comes back to our house. We are hoping that fixing the custody agreement and having him at our house more in the summer will prove that we aren't always doing stuff. We have pretty boring lives too. My husband's family just goes out of their way to make their plans on weekends that we have SS so he's included since they don't see him very often.
Sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent. My husband and I were "fat kids" too, but we were definitely no where near this bad and this anti-willing to do anything at all.
I hope we can get to that
I hope we can get to that point with my SS by the time he's 24. I hope he makes it to 24.....
My SS sounds a lot like your SKs. He's been a part of a whole Disney family his whole life. Everyone caters to him. It makes me sick.
Since his mom doesn't work, they live with her parents and my SS grandma can't say no to him either and will give him whatever he wants. My husband just in the last couple years started snapping out of his fairy tale fantasy world when it came to catering to SS and my MIL is just as bad as BM and other grandma.
He told the nutritionist that on an average school day, he eats a handful of peanuts for breakfast, that garbage lunch I talked about in my original post and then gets out of school and eats at least 1 bag of popcorn when he gets home from school, sometimes 2, then, they go to McDonald's and get him a large fry for dinner and then he has 1 or 2 bags of popcorn before bed. So he sounds exactly like your SKs with their whole bag of chips.....only even more extreme.
I haven't found my SS
I haven't found my SS sneaking food yet, but I always feel like what he does when it comes to eating (or not eating) food as some way to be manipulative and some kind of attention seeking thing. So I feel you on this one.