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Big Enough
Healthy Weight Gain for Teens
By Sue Marquette Poremba
In our local high school's football program, the players are listed with their grade, height and weight. I scanned through the list. My son seemed to be the average height among the players – 5 feet, 10 inches – but at 130 pounds, the only kids who weighed less were at least five inches shorter.
"You need to get another 30, 40 pounds on him," the football coaches told us repeatedly. Easier said than done. He spent a lot of time in the weight room and drank protein shakes made with whole fat milk and ice cream. He grew three or four more inches, but only gained five more pounds. He worries that he'll never be big enough to successfully play the sport he loves.
Even in these days when most conversations about teenagers and weight are about obesity, many young people have the opposite struggle – they are extremely thin and would like to gain weight. To many of these kids, being too thin is a stigma and targets them for cruel teasing. "I didn't want to be too thin [as a teen]," says Mary Hake of Crooked River Ranch, Oregon. "I was called bean pole and Olive Oyl. I was sensitive and easily upset, so the boys thought it was fun to pick on me."
Lisa Marie Metzler of McBain, Mich., says her son has also been the subject of teasing because of his slender frame. Friends and relatives urge him to put more meat on his bones. "Some think that teasing overweight people is bad, but if you're thin, it hurts to have people say negative things, as well," she says.
Metzler's son followed a regimen similar to my son's – protein shakes and weight training – with the same results. "He wanted results to be immediate, but I also think he learned that he wasn't going to change his body type that significantly without overhauling his whole lifestyle," she says.
Unfortunately, for a growing number of kids, "overhauling their lifestyle" means using steroids, which are both dangerous and illegal, or steroid-like substances like creatine, which can be found in stores that sell nutrition supplements. Just because they are legal doesn't mean they are safe!