You are listening to Feeding the Mouth That Bight You with Ashley Parrish and Jessica Pfeiffer.

A weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world. As always,

we are joined by psychologist and author, Dr. Ken Wilgus.

Hey, everyone and welcome back on today's episode. We are doing another Q&A.

So we had a question about a teen who is gaining weight, or we've also had questions about

teens who have poor diet or they don't exercise and parents being concerned because they

have family history of medical issues.

What do I do?

How do I encourage my teen?

That fits in the category of just remembering that even in serious circumstances like physical

health, and as you know, with a lot of our teenagers, the diet that's out there and available

when we're not around, the lack of activity that's now required in life and even sedentary things like games and so forth.

Obesity is a very big problem.

And you couple that then with, but this is a young adult.

And I need to be impactful, but in a way that still sustains their self-respect.

Then it gets down to a couple things.

Number one, it's rarely, it's really never a good idea to talk about, if you're going to talk about food and the things you're eating, then I would say for virtually all ages with teenagers, you wanna make sure that you cast that in the category

of this is advice.

Honey, I'm sorry, I know that you don't like me asking this,

but I'm worried and you know I worry.

And so I saw you yesterday eating this and that

and whatever, do you think I'm way over eating this and that and whatever.

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