There are two problems with teens trying to lose weight.

The first of these is that teens live in a far more “junk food focused” environment than most adults.

School dinners often consist of fries, burgers, macaroni cheese, donuts and more.

Teens tend to love milkshakes, hot dogs, meeting at McDonalds after school and as they get older they start drinking alcohol.

If you ate a burger and fries every day at work it’s likely your colleagues would be shocked. At school it’s no big deal.

The other part of the problem is motivation. Discipline tends to come with age. I’m young enough to remember how hard motivating and disciplining myself at that age was. It’s hard to avoid chips and cookies.

So the best way to break these two problems are firstly to make eating a healthy diet as easy as possible. Send your teen to school with a healthy lunch rather than relying on the school canteen.

Secondly, *create* motivation. Keep weight records. Offer rewards at milestones (you get the new wide screen TV when you’ve lost that first stone, the DVD recorder after the second and so on).

Lastly try to get your teen involved in some physical activities to burn off some extra calories. Even if they’re not “sporty” - and the idea of football or basketball makes them recoil like a slug covered in salt - persevere and try to find other suitable activities.

Bike rides. Adventure holidays. Walks. Rock climbing. Frisbee. Try them out. See what they like - and whether they prefer to do them with friends or family.

Set an example to your teen - getting into shape yourself. This makes it easier for your teen to eat and exercise properly because they can just tag along with you.

And remember that if they find some physical activities they enjoy (like sex? OK just kidding!) you’ll find the coach and their new sporty friends will typically take better care of themselves and will be more likely to eat right and exert the right kind of peer pressure than other kids helping you maintain the necessary “supervision” when they’re out as well as at home.

Lastly, make the diet aspect as pain free as possible. Expecting a 15 year old to live on brown rice and grilled chicken just isn’t realistic.

But if you can experiment and find some healthy foods they enjoy - fruit juice (not Sunny Delight!), fat-free yogurts etc. then getting the nutrition right is far easier.

And we’ve discussed elsewhere on this site having the odd treat. How about if your teen loses 2lb of weight or more in a week you treat them to pizza on a Saturday night without whingeing? They can get their friends round, eat junk and you’ll both feel good about it because it’s a win-win situation.