[imsurroundedbyfish]

I have a best friend who's 14, like me. She's very pretty and a really good friend to me but there's something that is really getting on my nerves and upsetting me...

She thinks that she is overweight, and she's really not!

She is ALWAYS saying she's fat, or making some comment about her weight or exercise. She's just overly paranoid, like every break time or lunch time she's like "my legs are fat" or "do you think i'm fat" or "should i do more running" or "should i go on a diet"...

She's now starting to talk about skipping meals, and I must have told her about six hundred times that if you skip meals on a regular basis your body starts to store the food it does get into fat because it doesn't know when it'll get its next source of energy. But she won't listen!

And she isn't fat! She's told me she weighs just under 8 stone, and she's probably about 5 foor 4 or 3, being only an inch or so shorter than myself. We've calculated our BMIs in science and PE and whilst mine is at the top of the "overweight" sector hers is slap bang in the middle of the "healthy weight" green sector.

She eats perfectly healthy and runs every day, in fact, she's really good at running, she can do the 1500m and come 2nd or 3rd, I bet she could even come first. She's always running round her town, even further, for an hour or two every evening.

I can't make her understand or see, that she isn't fat. We keep telling her that because she's doing a lot of running she's building up leg muscel and hence yea, maybe her legs are getting a little bigger, but that's not fat at all.

She complains about being the only one who hasn't yet started her periods. Me and my other friends, have, again, told her loads of times that it might have something to do with the fact that her body weight is still changing so much and isn't stablecz she's trying so hard to lose weight, or maybe it's cz she does so much running, some athletic types NEVER get their period, I've been told that. And we have told her loads and loads of time. But she carries on trying to lose weight. Then she still complains about her period not coming.

I don't know what I can say to her to make her see herself the way we see her, that she's not fat, doesn't need to diet or skip meals.

It's upsetting me, probably more than others, because, according to the BMI chart I am overwight and she isn't. So if she's calling herself fat, what is she calling me? Its just plain annoying that she won't understand that and also won't listen to everything else I have told her that I mentioned on this post.

I don't know what else I can say to her, or do to make her get it?

Please someone help!

Thanks in advance
Xx

[Chesslie]

Hi. I am 14 too. I think that you should just tell her that it is starting to bug you. Say it in a respectful way of course. Hope it helps!! :)

[imsurroundedbyfish]

Hi. I am 14 too. I think that you should just tell her that it is starting to bug you. Say it in a respectful way of course. Hope it helps!!! :)

Hi Chesslie :)
I have told her, and so have others, many times, and sadly it doesn't seem to be working...

[Wondergirl]

Is it just talk so far, or has she started to purge herself with laxatives or by vomiting after she eats? If that's the case, it's time to let an adult know what's going on, because then your friend is slipping into bulemia.

The main thing is to continue to be her friend and listen to her. Don't argue with her about her weight or tell her what she needs to do or shouldn't be doing. Just change the subject -- "Have you heard Lady Ga Ga's new song?" or "Will you help me study for my spelling test?"

[imsurroundedbyfish]

Is it just talk so far, or has she started to purge herself with laxatives or by vomiting after she eats? If that's the case, it's time to let an adult know what's going on, because then your friend is slipping into bulemia.

I don't THINK she's doing anything like that. She said that once she was thinking of going annorexic but another of our friends managed to talk her out of it...