My child seems to have a food addiction

[fucketyfuckwit]

Any parents of secret eaters?

I keep finding wrappers everywhere! The last straw has been an empty pot of hot chocolate powder and a spoon down the side of the sofa. Last week it was a box of icing.

DD is 10. Overweight and seems to be addicted to food/sugar.

Any advice please. I don't quite know where to turn next.

and I really fancied a hot chocolate

@fucketyfuckwit what's your relationship with food like,

Have you considered adhd? Chasing dopamine can cause binge eating, especially sugary stuff.

I keep the sugary stuff in the car these days.
DD was eating bags of icing sugar and hot chocolate powder etc then feeling crap and constipated.
She still has snacks (always biscuits and crisps included) after school but I can minimise the junk by keeping it out of the house. She has colour in her cheeks again and doesn't have stomach aches every day.

Some of the replies on here are so snarky! If you were 'starving' her she wouldn't be overweight or carrying extra weight.

Try not make a big deal about walks, don't be like - right we are going for a walk! Move! Tell her you're going to say the beach ( if close by) and do a coastal route type thing. Or going to see the horses somewhere and walk in the country, or a park and walk to the park. Just walking is boring and it will get her back up. Maybe even say let's make a hot chocolate in a flask to take. The highlights ones are only a few calories and a handful of marshmallows would be a good sugary treat. Try make exercise and movement fun for her.

X

She sounds hungry. I wouldn’t stress about the weight. Give her more food that is healthy and filling.

@00100001

Ok, so salmon dinner. One fillet of salmon, how many potatoes?

Because actually it doesn't sound like she's having much at all really.

2* Weetabix and milk would only be around 250 Cal's

Her primary lunch is likely to be around 350-400.?

And her dinner is what? Maybe 400?

She's probably hungry...

I agree with this actually.

If she is tall eesring age 12 at 11 isnt really an issue

@BuckEmOrf

She isn't going to the same secondary school as her friends next year so maybe that is it. But she is going to the best private school in the area, a small school which encourages each child to do 2 clubs per day, many of which are sports clubs. I'm really hoping that when she makes new friends there they will encourage her to go to sports clubs with them.

Does she want to go to this fancy school? Really? If not, this could be linked.

She probably is hungry and all the suggestions of boiled eggs and apples may not help. What about a hot chocolate with skimmed or semi skimmed milk - protein. Baked potatoes when she's starving with protein, or a yoghurt and berry smoothie.

A boiled egg and an apple are filling and better for her than a hot chocolate or a berry smoothie... They're sugar drinks.

How does a jacket potato provide protein?

Oh, sorry, I see that you meant bad protein to the jacket potato.

Hi Op,

If you can afford private school you should be able to afford to get professional advice on this.

Fwiw my mum did similar to you to my sister when she was around 8 because she was too ‘big’. She banned snack food and bribed her to walk on a treadmill. My sister ended up with bluminia and depression in her teens. She still has problems years later.

Sneaking and hiding food suggests to me she is already starting to feel shame around food or that she has to hide what she is eating from you.

Honestly this is likely just puppy fat and when puberty hits and she grows it will drop off, I really would not be focusing so heavily on her food intake and trying to control it like this. The extent of your control makes me wonder if you youtself have food issues.

I was the same as a kid OP, I have learned for 2 reasons:

1. it started after a lot of disruption - 3 house moves and 2 school moves in the space of a year - stress eating.

2. boredom - I would have loved to have had some hobbies facilitated for me, or do some crafts with my mum or something. Not saying you don't do that but it could be something to think about.

We had a treat box in our house so I snuck chocolate bars and ate them in the loo, but if there had been no treat box I'm sure I would have done the hot chocolate thing. It was a long time before my mum noticed or made me aware she had noticed, and I am positive it led to my 'set point' being a size 16 and I cannot get any smaller (healthier) for love nor money now.

I was already fully aware I was 'stocky' - I remember vividly being in reception and being very aware that I was fatter than my friends (seeing photos, I wasn't that bad). And I had no idea what to do about it so I think that resulted in comfort eating too.

Wonder if any of that resonates.

A boiled egg and an apple are filling and better for her than a hot chocolate or a berry smoothie... They're sugar drinks.

But a boiled egg and an apple won't hit that sweet spot if she's craving sugar - which she clearly is in some way if she's eating hot chocolate powder out of the tub with a spoon!

Sugar isn't poison in small amounts - much better to have it play a small but normal part of your diet than to ban it altogether.

A boiled egg and an apple are filling and better for her than a hot chocolate or a berry smoothie... They're sugar drinks.

This was another poster's idea but I don't think it was a bad one. The OP's daughter has no access to anything sweet from the sounds of things - I'm an adult and understand nutrition and even I would be unhappy if the only sweet thing I ever got as a snack was an apple. And frankly when I'm starving an apple doesn't cut it! How many adults never have anything sweet? Yet on MN we expect children to have these super healthy diets with literally no treats.

OP I was your kid.

Because my mum didn’t let me have chocolate, coke, sweets, anything remotely sugary. It made it precious. It made it forbidden. Other kids had a Kit Kat at lunch why can’t I?

I ate in secret. Then when she bought even less remotely treat things, I stole money from her purse and would go to the sweet shop (at 9). I would go to my grandparents and absolutely gorge myself.

Be really careful because not having it in the house, making it forbidden, may actually be having the opposite effect to the one you want. It did on me. And when I left home, and I had my own money and could choose what I wanted to eat, I lost four stone.

Hunger does sound likely and is the easier issue to tweak as a first approach.

I'd move away from cereal for beans/ eggs on toast. There's a greater range of nutrients there which keeps the digestive system going for longer. Porridge is also a good slow release start for the day.

My two need food between school lunch (tiny) and dinner. We eat late as we have sports/ activities across the early evening. A light tea rather than grazing is a good approach so have the food on a plate/ bowl and sit ar the table for it. It's a better way to encourage more filling choices and tends to save on forgotten calories from picking.
One DC is weighted towards hunger earlier in the day, the other needs to eat more later.

Have some "junk" through the week, but give her choice, buy smaller packs so there isn't a stock avaliable for raiding.

Use whole foods, not reduced fat. They satisfy the appetite better.

My 8 & 10yo eat about the same as me. Their growing needs roughly balances with my body mass needs.
I went ravenous as a teenager and my mum didn't adapt to it. I used to end up lingering at the table after dinner and secretly make beans on toast to fill up then wash-up and hide the packaging deeper into the bin. It was pure hunger and I've always had a healthy, intuitive relationship with food and been a healthy size.

Introducing reluctant children to exercise isn't easy. I've always fared better with solo exercise, dance, yoga. I've come to love running in adulthood and found parkrun to be the opposite culture to the torture of school running. My dyspraxic child enjoys karate and like me is repelled by team sports and balls. My other child is easier as he like the more conventional offer of team sports.

Both of my sons "podged out" at that age and then grew tall and lean. We got "fat letters" from the school in year six for both of them, but by son number 2, I knew he'd be ok.
I think this is what is happening. I am a lot more relaxed about snacks in the house and at 13 and 18, they are both tall and slim. Don't forget, she will be a lot busier in secondary school. That seemed to slim my sons down.

Let her have some sugar on her weetabix. I cant imagine eating weetabix without any sugar.

fair point about eh sugar cravings.

My beautiful daughter now in her twenties is a secret binge eater and has been for a very long time. She is very overweight and it really affects her health and self esteem. I feel so much for her.
I think we are from a long line of binge eaters who have more than just a sweet tooth, but haven't got an "off" button when it comes to carbs. I tried to get help and support from HVs, GPs, school nurses but everyone brushed away my concerns, saying it wasn't possible for a young child(she was around 6 when I first tried to get professional support), was told she'll even out, talking about it will make it worse, that me even raising it with a GP would give DD a complex and that I was projecting on to her etc

It's not just about having sugar on Weetabix, imho it's about a deep seated addiction which seems programmed in from a young age. Other family members if not obese have other addictive tendencies (alcohol, drugs, gambling).
We ate very healthily, I lost weight, didn't have junk food in the house, role modelled exercise etc, but she still over ate even on bread or bananas. We had many years of hidden wrappers. It got worse when she had pocket money and could buy directly from the shop near school.
We found it very hard to know what to do. Various GPs advice was to just encourage her to eat less and move about more. We were refused dietetic support. We encouraged every sport possible. Whereas if I compared the support given (quite rightly) to a friend's child with borderline anorexia, the support and treatment was outstanding but some of the issues appeared to be quite similar. I think my daughter has been fat shamed a lot.

Sorry that's not helpful in terms of what to do next, but I would encourage you to get professional help and push hard for as much support as you can get.

She may be hungry as what you wrote isn’t a huge amount of food and she could be on a growth spurt. People do have a skewed idea of what a healthy weight is . There was one overweight child in my middle school but depending on what you think is overweight, well is she really? I look to myself and some of my friends. I’m in bottom 20% for weight for women my age and height according to a BBC calculator I did last year. I have a friend who is very overweight and has developed type 2 diabetes and one who is very underweight, her Doctor was encouraging cream added to her porridge such was their concern. They are both in denial as to how extreme they are concerning their weights.

I actually think is she is bloody miserable she is being split up from her friendship group and that they are being sent to the best private school in the area. They want their friends. DH was sent off on the train from Surrey in to London from age 11. He received the best education money can buy but he always says how lonely it was was not going to the local school, that his friends went to.

I would definitely agree that she is probably hungry. My 5 year old(who is tiny) has 2 weetabix for breakfast plus fruit, my 10 year old would definitely need more than that.

Terrible typo that she is being sent to the best private school in the area.

My 8 and 11 year old wound be incredibly hungry eating just that. I don't really restrict their snacks (unless I'm preparing a meal in which case if they can't wait they can only have fruit) does she need to 'steal' the babybels? Is she allowed them if she asks?

I'll get a box of five and she'll sneak three in a day. She shoves wrappers down the side of her bed/sofa/wash basket.

Mine used to do this when I bought something - not sneak as they can eat what they like. They soon realised though that if they ate it all on day 1 then there would be none for the rest of the week. I now have a huge cupboard of things like oat bars, biscuits healthier style crisps that has built up as barely gets touched as the self regulation has been learned and no restrictions. (Dd1 did eat an entire net of satsumas yesterday though)

I remember being heavily restricted as a dc and the second I got a chance I'd binge on biscuits/sweets etc. I used to sneak extra chocolate and biscuits in to my pocket at the childminder as they actually had them in the cupboards. I was hungry and probably had low blood sugar therefore craving that

@TheAirbender

Have you considered adhd? Chasing dopamine can cause binge eating, especially sugary stuff.

Yep, I started stealing whatever sugary stuff I could get my hands on from the kitchen and eating it in secret when I was about that age. I moved on to taking change out of my mum’s piggy bank and spending it on sweets. My mum was obsessed with restricting junk food so I would go to my granny’s and lock myself in the bathroom to eat toffee sauce, like the stuff you buy to pour on ice cream. I would even make bowls of cake batter and eat it raw.

I’m now 31, fat and completely addicted to using sugary and fatty foods as a stim when I’m following the dopamine. My weight yoyos by stones every other year and I can’t break the cycle no matter what I do.