Ep. 84 Will My Daughter and Son Slim Down After Puberty?

In this episode of The Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens Podcast, Dr. Jenny Gourgari answers one of the most common questions from parents: 

“Will my teen slim down after puberty?” 

Learn why some weight gain is expected, how to spot when it’s a red flag, and what habits truly help teens reach a healthy weight before adulthood. 

Backed by research and filled with practical advice, this episode will empower both parents and teens to take charge of their health during this critical window.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of The Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens Podcast. Today I am going to answer one question that I got recently from a parent, and that was "Will my daughter slim down after she is done with puberty?" This is a common question, "will my son will slim down after he's done with puberty?" 📍 Does this extra weight have to do with puberty and then will it go away? So I want to answer that question because I feel it is important to know what is going on during puberty because if we think that this is just normal ,physiologic being extra heavy because of puberty, we consider it part of normal development, we don't do anything about it. And guess what? Things can get out of control very quickly. In fact, there was a research study that was done and examined the percentage of teenagers that went on to continue to have problems with their weight when they were adults and the number was very high. 80% of teenagers that had problems being in a healthy weight as teenagers continue to have the same problems when they were adults, and 70% of them continue to have the problem when they were over 30 years of age. So that tells you that the problem, the longer you leave the problem lingering, the more difficult it becomes to resolve it. And that's why I am passionate about helping teenagers get into a healthier lifestyle, balance their puberty hormones so they get into a healthy weight now, and avoid the complications that can occur in adults later on. Because the habits that teenagers build are the habits that are going to keep them going forward. 80% of teenagers, that is a huge number! And I think as doctors, as parents, as teachers, and as teenagers, we should try to decrease that percentage. There's a lot of room for improvement and things that we can do to reverse this trend now. How can we know what to do about it? So this is what this whole podcast is about, and I have talked many times about the main pillars, like we wanna focus on healthy habits, building slowly healthy habits that don't feel like diet, work on healthy nutrition, work on exercise, work on managing emotions, work on managing 📍 puberty hormones naturally work on managing the relationships around us so that we can make small habits, small sustainable habits that over time lead to a healthy lifestyle and a new identity. Teenagers are still developing their identity and this is a great opportunity for teenagers to stop that trend and change their identity and prevent all the problems that can happen in the future. Now, what I wanted to, point one more time is another question, like, how much weight does my teenager need to lose to be in a healthy weight? And that's why you can go and listen to episode one that explain what is BMI and how to find out what is the ideal weight of a teenager. Now again BMI is not a magic tool that it doesn't explain everything like BMI does not capture what your healthy habits are, right? Like you can be in an unhealthy BMI, but you're putting the effort, you're putting the healthy habits, and that is not the same as if you are in high BMI and you're not putting the effort. What I'm trying to say is that this trend it's not unavoidable. It's not that everybody goes through this path. If you change , it's still reversible to change insulin resistance, it's still reversible to change an unhealthy BMI into a healthy BMI. It's still reversible to fix the high cortisol levels due to stress, to low cortisol levels due to less stress is still reversible to sleep better, so you decrease your cravings. So all those things are modifiable factors that if teenagers and parents put the energy into that and they focus and they make it a priority to change that trend, then that is how change can happen. Now the other thing I want to say is that, some degree of weight gain is expected and not just weight gain, some degree of gaining fat is expected. We know that particularly teenage girls, when they go into puberty, it is expected that they will have more fat around their thighs, they will have more fat in their chest and they can have even more fat in their belly. Now, that is a natural process. The more fat in the body also happens in boys, although I have to say in less degree 'cause boys have more testosterone and they tend to be more muscular naturally compared to girls who tend to have more fat in those specific areas. However, there is a difference between how much is expected due to physiologic changes in puberty and how much is too much. Like how much is getting to the point that is a red flag, is getting to those difficult statistics that instead of this being normal, it can lead to 80% of those teenagers continue to have this problem in adulthood. So there is a balance, right? Like you can have this extra fat and in fact you need to have fat in your body. 'cause otherwise, if there's not a certain amount of fat, then boys and girls cannot progress normally into puberty. They may not gain height that they need, right? So we don't want them to be in extreme diets. We don't want them to be malnourished but we do want them to be in a healthy weight, right? So if they gain the weight that they need to go through puberty, gain the fat that they need, but they're still within the normal BMI, which is the tool that doctors use to describe when it becomes too much, then that is okay. But if they're above the normal BMI, then that is likely not to get reversed just by going through puberty. So again, you can go listen to episode one and calculate what is your child's BMI calculate how much weight your child needs to lose to get into a healthier weight. And again, this is not to focus on the weight, but this is just to give you an idea on like how much effort you need to put in order to change the lifestyle, change the trend, because if you don't put any effort into building those healthier habits, then the condition that it's gonna get probably worst if you do nothing. So that is the main point. It's not to focus on the number. It is to focus on the effort that you put to reverse this condition from, extending into adulthood and leading to chronic problems like diabetes, like high blood pressure, like obstructive sleep apnea, like fatty liver disease like high cholesterol strokes, heart attacks, and all those things that happens in adults when they have an unhealthy BMI. Feel free to go to lifestyle fourteens.com/newsletter, sign up for my newsletter so you don't miss an episode. I sent out weekly emails. If you're watching on YouTube, feel free to and subscribe and I'll see you soon. Take care.