Daughter getting fat in school

No matter what the outcome of the weight gain, please remember to think before you speak, and if you can't, then don't say anything at all in fact this is probably better.
Marks fade to near enough nothing, so whilst they maybe alarming you now, they WILL fade.
My bottom half is covered in stretch mark scars, but I don't bat an eyelid at it, and never really did when they appeared age 11 or 12.
I did however go to an all girls school, and hated it, developed an eating disorder and ruined my whole teenage years and education in the process.

Tread very carefully in how you proceed around her please.

I presume this was a benign tumour, not cancer? Is she not under hospital care? Yes of course you should seek proper medical advice. This is an extreme l we gel of weight gain

The car will...lose weight??

she's very happy, well integrated and academically excelling.

Are you sure?

Is she trying to please you by saying this?

It really does sound like emotional eating. Rather than being greedy.

Why have you always sent her to boarding school?
Are you out of the country or have reasons for preferring a boarding school?

As a parent you will always relinquish a certain amount of control/care when your child is a full time boarder.

An eating disorder can go either way- anorexia or weight gain.

Have you actually talked to her about her weight and why she thinks it can be happening?

TBH I cannot believe, with her history, GP and blood tests wasnt your first thought, and pulling her out of school was. And you have moved her school previously? For what reason? Was it at a natural change point?

It’s really not. Yes it’s rare for a medical condition to make you our fat on without eating excess calories.

But that’s not what I said.

Theres usually huge psychological reasons behind it. And physical medical reasons and ND diagnosis.

for example, hyper fixation on food when you have adhd. PCOS can causing bone crushing exhaustion. Making it difficult to move as much as you should. Along with cravings so bad it’s debilitating.

Bad childhoods, abuse, bereavement, ptsd and a million other psychological reasons can mean it’s not as simple as just eat less and move more.

@joey197860 This isn't just a school doctor issue - it's a school issue.

I'm unclear from your posts how much contact you've had with the pastoral staff.

If you're paying £25K or more a year to the school, you need more than a word with the school dr (they are only there occasionally.)

Have you spoken to the staff who are looking after her - house mistresses, matrons, year heads etc?

She's possibly unhappy, Being at boarding school for years doesn't mean she enjoys where she is now.

she's very happy, well integrated and academically excelling.
If this is true, leave her in school, please. It's her security,

Possibly express concern for her health and arrange a consultation with a dietician and appointments as necessary. This is for her, privately, without you.

Then - you need to butt out. How dare you criticise a child you've sent off to live alone, for what she does or doesn't do? How dare you? How dare you criticise her body? Her actual body, that she lives with every day (unlike you. She's not with you every day, is she?)

You don't want a 'fat' daughter, that shines through your post. Treat her respectfully, and support her rather than criticising (and this includes a lot of 'keeping your opinions to yourself', in present circumstances) and it will all be fine. Women want to look the part society dictates, so she'll do the thing if you give her space.

Why not ensure every moment you have together is a joy, without criticism? (Realistically, you have a teenage - I hope -daughter, there's going to be some pain...)

It might seem like that to those that are hard of thinking.

Burn 1000 calories and take in 900. The weight will come off.

Put a gallon of petrol in your car and use a gallon and half. What do you think would eventually happen there?

Yep, and if we stopped treating weight gain as a moral failing and as the medical symptom it is, we would all be in a much better place to recognise when things are going wrong. 10lbs weight gain in 6 months - think lifestyle. 3.5 stone in 4 months? You’d need to be eating over a thousand extra calories PER DAY consistently to cause that and basically not moving at all. The problem if the lack of understanding that there are literally thousands of underlying causes that can create an environment where someone might gain weight, whether a large or small amount. If you’re less than 3st overweight you are not the same as someone 8 or 9 stone overweight and your underlying cause is likely very different, and yet the front line treatment we prescribe is exactly the same.

I have diagnosed PCOS and yet when I went to the NHS for help, I was prescribed a high carb, low fat diet, possibly the very worst thing an insulin resistant PCOS sufferer could eat even short term. So during one of the group support sessions (over Zoom) I asked the question to the dietician ‘so for someone like me who is insulin resistant, how can I adapt this diet so I have a better chance of not spiking my insulin resistance?’ - she looked at me like I had 2 heads and reported me to my GP as ‘not engaging with the program’. ALL of these problems in how we treat people with obesity stem from the fact we prefer to hold on to our beliefs that fat people are lazy with no self control, than actually address the fact that in most cases, obesity is a symptom.

Stop trying to guilt the OP - she says her DD is happy at the school. She also says her DD has recently had a hormone affecting tumour removed. The weight gain could well be medical.

out on a limb here a bit, but could she have undiagnosed adhd? It presents v differently in girls and can be hard to spot. I have struggled with eating the correct foods and not excessively snacking all my life, and turns out it’s because I had undiagnosed adhd (and autism). Weight issues can can be a common side effect because you don’t have the impulse control and you lack dopamine so seek it out through other ways

https://add.org/adhd-and-binge-eating/

I boarded for two years and put on loads of weight, a lot of us did. It was horrible. The food was generally appalling but we filled up with bread at breakfast, tea-time which often included cake, and frequently at supper depending on what we had then. We also ate a lot of sweets and chocolate which we were able to buy at the weekend. Nobody cared.

All I can say is she will lose it when she leaves, and will lose some during the summer holidays.

Genius!

Look after your daughter yourself and feed her at home.
Happy well adjusted kids don’t gain 3st in 4 months

If she'd gained a stone yes. This level and rate of weight gain is not considered normal. Physical or psychological I couldn't say, but it isn't ordinary eating more biscuits when they're always available. True binge eating is not as easy as you think.

The absolute majority of people who are overweight simply eat too much. It really is that simple. It is actually vanishingly rare for medical problems to cause morbid obesity.

@LauraNorda the daughter has been boarding for years. Did you also miss the bit about the tumour ? But yes, pull those judgey pants up as high as you can

She might not feel well loved. Being at boarding school does make children develop a positive front - it's a survival tactic. Very difficult for them to open up and express how they actually feel about being away from home.

The weight gain needs medical attention but also likely emotional therapeutic intervention.

i am not one to defend OP but when one of mine went through a real growth spurt, both height and weight, she developed stretch marks. Very common of course. At any rate, she got them on her upper arms and thighs, places I could have seen without being at all intrusive. I don't know why OP is so fixated on them though as a lot of teens get them. I'm in my 40s and they've faded, but I can still feel the ones I got at that age.

I fail to see why the pastoral staff aren't onto this and being supportive.

How good is the school at pastoral care?

This should be discussed at their pastoral care meetings and being monitored via the house mistress, boarding staff.

This flies in the face of what I've seen personally in boarding schools, where staff are supposed to care about everything not just academic work.

I'd be finding a different school or having a very serious chat with the head, head of year and her boarding staff.

You being over weight may be just that simple. You being over weight maybe just simply down to over eating with no complexities.

Thats not the case for the majority of people who are over weight.

I hope you don't have daughters.

Were you very strict with treats and puddings OP? Sometimes kids who arnt allowed chocolate, biscuits, cake etc develop unhealthy relationships with those foods as they’re seen as forbidden items. Thus binging on them when away from you. I always think allowing a bit of everything is healthy.

If your daughter is on steriods it is possible to gain a stone a month and it will look like cushings.
I gained three stone a few years ago as I was prescribed steriods.

However I'm going to give you a huge warning, my DD was at a cotswold boarding school. Both the girls and a few teachers were bullies. She didn't tell me. I had a big job and a dying parent. My daughter went from a 10 to a 16 in a year. We use to find cake under the bed when she was home.
She was very unhappy. It's taken years to get over that experience.
My daughter has stretch marks but bio oil helps. She has lost the weight slowly but was made to feel low rent at boarding school for being fat. Even the head mistress asked me if she was unhappy as she was a 'bigger girl'. I have always told her she is the most beautiful person inside and out. Protect your daughter from fat shaming but get her to a doctor. Mine has just been diagnosed with serious gynecological issues. They cause weight gain. And FWIW a fair few of the tiny girls had eatening disorders and a least one pregnancy in her year.
Love her for who she is. Don't screw her up.