Help for my 13 year old dd (repost in chat)

[LadyBrienne]

I put this is eating disorders but didn’t get much traffic so please forgive reposting here

She’s reasonably active - 4 to 5 days per week sports team

However she eats a lot and has gravitated over the last two years to food of low nutritional quality - ice cream popcorn pasta rice bread cream cheese - rarely will voluntarily eat fruit or veg despite nudging

She is now worried about being fat - doesn’t help that some of her friends are incredibly thin genetically

She is not medically over weight but I am worried about her self perception along with her increasingly bad diet

There is a wide range of healthy foods at home - she just doesn’t eat them

Suggestions ? I was thinking of some one on one with a dietician to help her understand food choices in a non judgement environment (That’s code for “get outside help so I don’t f@&$ it up and cause her to have an eating disorder)

All help gratefully received .....

If she’s training 4-5x a week can you approach the coach?

Best approach would be for the club to invite a dietician to run a workshop for all the kids and parents. Will be useful for all.

Then she won't feel singled out either as if you’ve got her help for her “problem”

Thanks Really - good suggestion - I’ve already emailed the coach to follow up with him on that

School as well- dd’s have a scheme where athletes at a certain standard are offered extra curricular help- talks from professional athletes on school and sport, dieticians, s&c etc.

If no luck from club could try the pe dept.

The sport NGB should have access to providers of this type of thing though that the coach can invite.

Thank you 🙏🏻

No worries.

A sports dietician should understand the food/exercise/growth relationship too. Dd has been to a few workshops and they are good for teens and parents in that they aren’t restrictive- no cut out this, that and the other. The take home message for us is cook from scratch as much as possible, but the odd chocolate bar or bag of crisps does no harm with the exercise they do. Also not to try and calorie count or limit food intake- with teens you don’t know if they’re in a growth phase or not.

Just your normal balance diet with an eye on eating variety and non- refined food.

At this stage I wouldn't go setting up appointments with dieticians etc - unless you want to make a whole lot more of this than there potentially needs to be?

I'd just keep stressing nutritional foods, make sure they're available. Will she eat fruit? Crudités? Salad on the side? Chopped peppers? Handful of nuts? Etc

Talk with her about what she will eat and keep encouraging her. I'd honestly be downplaying this right now in the circumstances you describe

Dd had a terrible diet last year. So much sugar and I struggled to get any veg in her at all. She's 14 now and getting much better. I've never restricted anything for her but always reiterated that she needs to get a balance of protein, carbs and she needs to be eating a lot more veg and fruit. In the end through lots of trial and error I found some recipes for dinner that had a decent amount of veg and it turns out she likes salad. She also started doing some of her own cooking after enjoying her food tech lessons at school. So now she has things like fajitas which she makes with lots if peppers and onions and she has a side salad with most meals. The spaghetti Bolognese I make has veg in. If I make stew I put veg with it and she does eat a bit of that although it's more of a struggle. She also loves Asian food so I've been experimenting with ramen, stirfries etc with her. So basically keep talking about adding veg and fruit to diet in different ways and get her cooking!

I dont think I'd be involving dieticians etc. She's at a vulnerable age and you should probably keep relaxed about it and not make it a big thing. Teens tend to eat a fair bit of crap anyway. I have no idea what dd eats at school and when out with friends and I'm not going to concern myself with it. At home she sees what a good diet is and I know she's getting good nutrition here and that is enough for me.

I’m having the same issue with my DD13 except she’s not as active as yours. Trying to get her to eat breakfast is difficult as is eating properly at mealtimes - she’ll pick at food and say she doesn’t like it. It’s stressful. We talk about the importance of healthy eating and cooking etc and she understands but just won’t eat properly. I find making soups (and smoothies) helps - I blend them so she can’t pick anything out.

I dont think I'd be involving dieticians etc

Maybe not 1:1 but It is entirely normal for sports clubs to run dietician workshops. Kids competing in sport need to learn how to properly fuel themselves.

They will tend to listen to a professional. Especially if explained in a way that emphasises performance and improvement.

My dd doesn’t always follow the advice, but she does try to eat more fruit and veg, and balance her diet more- she knows chips are just carbs, for example, so she will need to find a protein source elsewhere.

They are also pretty good with ideas for healthy snacks. If she’s doing sports 5 days a week they often end up starving and hitting the vending machine- but a chocolate milkshake is better than a bag of haribo, for example.

Thank you all for the input and ideas

I’ll talk to her head coach today

Best approach would be for the club to invite a dietitian to run a workshop

If someone had done this for DH, he might not have struggled so much with binge/purge cycles when he went to university. As an athlete he could eat whatever he wanted as a teen but it developed into a serious sugar addiction, which then led to obsessive calorie counting and purging through extreme exercise. He still has traits of this now, although manages much better and has a far more sensible diet.

Thanks Henwee - sorry to hear of your sons struggles