Folks, I'm having a moment of desperation as regards my middle son.

He is 11 years old, autistic, intellectually handicapped and I don't expect him to be making health decisions of his own accord, especially when there's a Hershey bar staring him in the face. So it's up to the grown-ups, you know?

Anyway, he is 4'7" and 104 lbs. He is obese. Now I just got (today) in the mail a letter from the school that he failed every single aspect of his physical fitness test.

I have begged and pleaded with my husband to make us an LC household, and for the kids, probably not LC as defined here but I don't see that we need ANY crackers, granola bars, cookies, etc. Why on earth would we? We don't need it. And the kids would get used to it.

I know I am all effed up as regards refined foods as I started my first diet at age 10, ate 1000 calories a day for years (complete with fainting spells, doing horribly in school, depression, hair falling out and so on) just to maintain a normal weight. I was far from "too skinny." One year may have been borderline on that - I was 98 lbs. I am 5'1. Most of the time during my teenage and adult years, I was between 108 and 115 lbs. As I got into my 30s I maintained in my 120s.

I only ballooned after my second pregnancy and it has been downhill ever since. But my point is...I have always been addicted to carbs. Always. Even as a little girl. And while eating them, I have to eat a very low amount of calories in order to even maintain my weight. I believe this is physical. So it's not so weird that at least one of my children received that from me. (My oldest son, age 28, is on the skinny side, 5'8" and I believe 135, and my youngest son, age 8, is still very very thin, at least for now.)

But my point is...

My middle son, who is now obese, ballooned all in the course of one year. He was very low weight for his height until then...eating the SAD. Now he is SCREAMING for food food food food food food night and day. He begs the teachers for food. (Yes, really.) He sneaks food. And so on.

I know it is the carbs.

I have begged and pleaded and cried and stormed and anything else I could think of - including presenting studies - to my husband, who is 5'9" and 250 lbs. but keeps saying that if he "just starts taking walks" all will be well. Yeah, that's working out. He says the same thing about my middle son.

He just won't go LC and/or unrefined in our household. He just...won't.

The in-laws are another problem. They take my children every two weeks. I have begged, insisted, etc. that they stop taking the kids to McDonald's. Just recently I put my foot down and told them they could not take the kids to McDonald's. I was calm but firm.

In punishment for my telling them what to do, they took my kids to McD's not once but twice that day. Yes, for two meals in a day. Two different McD's. WTF???????????????

I have told my husband our middle son is going to be 300 lbs. and in a wheelchair if he is this young and already this big. I have shown him the fitness test results. He says "I'm only going to buy LC foods at the store this week!" (he insists on doing the grocery shopping) and then he'll come home with "healthy" cereals, crackers and the like.

I feel like my son is going to die if we don't help him. I have never in my life seen any human being so addicted to carbs, and to wheat. He will literally lick his plate. He will beg and beg for snacks between every single meal. If he had his way he'd have a snack between breakfast and lunch, then a snack after lunch, two snacks after coming home from school, dinner, "dessert" and then two snacks before bedtime. He can not stop.

What the hell can I do? My in-laws laugh at me and blow me off, my husband won't help. Three out of four of us are obese, two of us morbidly so. He STILL won't listen. Help me. Please. Anybody. Do I become the total b*tch and when my husband brings home treats, I say to the kids "No, you can't have that even though you're looking straight at it...here you thought you would have this fun thing and now Mommy is going to take it away"?