Everyone knows humans are best at confronting problems when they ignore them. Nothing will make your fat child lose weight quite like pretending it's not an issue and never mentioning it or bringing it to their attention.  It's useless to tell your kid that s-he's fat if you keep shovelling food in it's mouth. You have an absolute control on what your kid eat. In the worse case you don't know whether s-he use the coins you gave him for an apple or a candy. But parents can simply buy healthy food and forget the cookies.  No need to tell the kid to work-out you can bring him for a walk (My mountaineer friends with kids can bring their kids (under 10) for a 4-6 hours walk) or play foot/basket/any/ ball in the park.