Fat shamed my daughter and now feel terrible and looking for advice on how to handle it.

[99problemsincludinghavingteenagedaughters]

NC for this…

I’ll start by saying this is completely out of character for me and I’m normally very careful of the language I use around my girls, however this has been a fairly long going issue and I snapped this morning and now feel terrible.

DD11 has gone from a very slim and active child to one with little energy and has turned into a bit of couch potato, she has also gained quite a lot weight. This on its own wasn’t too concerning she is my 3rd child so I’m well aware of the hormone change and the Y7 energy and personality slump, she has also changed shape and has got her period this year.

What is however is really worrying me is she has been binge eating which has built up over a quite a long time and now is the worst it’s ever been.

It started with the odd extra chocolate biscuit for snack time or can of juice (not allowed unless she asks) which I’d find hidden behind the sofa, I never made a big deal as thought normal kid like behaviour and she was also really active, XC running, riding, triathlons so using a lot of energy, we just upped her meal sizes and spoke about healthy food choices (in general and not in relation to the extra snacks)

Skip 18 months and we are here, it’s got so bad that even bags of sugar aren’t safe…

Snack on Friday afternoon after school was a pack of mini cheddars, 2 slices of toast an orange and a doughnut and as soon as I’m in for work she’ll ask what’s for dinner.

She will hide packaging, wrappers, cartons cans behind her bed, down the pack of toilets, under the sofa. If we confront her or even just try to talk to her about it she will either deny or ignore, mimic us and storm off.

todays catalyst was I found out in 3 days she has eaten an entire tub of ice cream, a family size tub of mango piece’s in fruit juice, a jar of Nutella and was getting stuck into a bag of Doritos at 10am

For the 1st time I was very straight with her and told her she was getting bigger and it’s because of her diet, I didn’t use the word fat but I did say that her dream sport/goals won’t be reachable and she just won’t have the fitness level or physique to do it and that she really needs to stop binge eating or else we will have to take her to the Dr.

She did get very upset and hasn’t spoken to me for the rest of the day, I’ve since apologised but commenting on her appearance/weight but that I’m worried about her and we need to address it but she is having none of it.

I know I haven’t handled this correctly but I’m very open to advice on how to take it from here…

How serious do we think this is sounding, is it something I can work through (correctly) at home, or should I now be reaching out to a GP

(So not to drip feed she had a test for diabetes a few months back in relation to something else and got the all clear. We also took her to the HV when she was a toddler as was really desperately thirsty for juice, she would try and get to and drink all the cups set out at toddler group and no drink was safe if out, she also often has a pear drop smell to her breath and with her now eating raw sugar have always wondered if there is something medical going on)

Also the hiding is shame.

It's not always shame. Sometimes it's far more simple and they hide it because they know they're not allowed something so they hide the evidence. For example my kids weren't allowed energy drinks, whenever my son had one he'd hide the evidence.

Clicked submit too soon.

A child could know they're allowed a penguin bar, but that they're not allowed to have the full pack, so if they have the full pack they could hide the evidence, and often that is not shame.

It's no different than telling your child they can only play their playstation for an hour and they play for 5 and lie and pretend they switched it off after an hour. Is that shame? No, they just don't want to be in trouble for not doing what they were told.

But people with binge eating end up getting into cycle of shame and helpnesses, also overweight. So it is a serious issue which usually impacts mental and physical health. It does not have to be life threatening disease, some conditions majorly reduce quality of living. Maybe it's nothing but op is not wrong to worry for the well being of her daughter.
She also admits she didnt handle it well and is open to suggestions.

@999problemsincludinghavingteenagedaughters

I have experience of how you feel as I have a similar situation at home with DD15.
I didn't say anything for a long time in fear of body shaming and watched helplessly.
Turns out she was seriously unhappy with how much weight she put on, and we didn't know what to do.
I took her to the GP, who weighed her and told her she was overweight.
GP referred her to a dietician and counselling.
GP also did some blood work.
However, we have not made much progress as she is busy with GCSE this year.
It is causing her a lot of anguish.
She doesn't have bulimia and I also wouldn't say she has binge eating yet.
However, I can clearly see her oscillating between the binge and starve cycle, and I don't know how to handle that.
The beat eating disorder website has a lot of useful suggestions, but at the end of the day, I find it hard to know which route to take.
Having no treats in the house seems a bad approach, but if there are treats, then they disappear so quickly, and then she feels rubbish about eating them.
The dietician recommended no calories counting and eating healthy and DD rebuked it saying she was useless.
She wants a strict meal plan and she thinks 1800 calories is too much.
So OP, my two cents is that it's very difficult to find a solution. You will be damned whatever you say or do.
If you said nothing or did nothing, your DD will blame you in future if she does become overweight or obese saying you could have intervened earlier.
If you did step in, you may be accused of body shaming and causing body image issues.
There is no winning and that's so sad.

A few hopefully useful suggestions from me:
Have treats, but maybe cut back on how much you have. Maybe give each child a stash box for the week as in my case DD was eating hers and also her siblings quota.
Make subtle swaps for things like cereals. Do visit the GP and ask for blood tests to rule out thyroid and PCOS.
Keep up any exercise she can do.
Have regular 121 time with her.

Good luck and don't feel bad about yourself. You posting here means you care!

Thank you so much for sharing and sorry you are going through similar, a lot of what you have wrote sounds very familiar.

DD reminded me this morning to make her a Dr’s appointment so that feels positive I’ll post any updates.

I think you are right to mention this to her, if she genuinely thinks her clothes are getting tighter due to being tumble dried then she obviously doesn't realise that eating large amount of sugary food makes you gain weight! I would think this could be linked to her starting her periods, have a look at this
www.thehealthy.com/periods/sugar-cravings-before-period/
So she could have started this because of that but now be trapped in the sugar crave/crash cycle.

I agree with the people saying substitute things to fill her up more, but I don't think it's necessarily about not being full, more craving sugar. EG brown rice/pasta/bread instead of white, porridge or low sugar cereals instead of sugary ones (grape nuts v good!), peanut butter instead of nutella, make some healthier things like muffins with wholemeal flour/seeds etc. If you buy lots of frozen berries she could make smoothies for eg, most berries are relatively low in sugar, they are cheap in Lidl/Aldi. Try and work out some savoury snacks that she likes, eg cheese, cold sausages etc and offer these to her. As she doesn't sound like she is overweight I think calorie restriction is unnecessary, she just needs to get out of the sugar habit.

As I'm sure you know, eating sugary stuff is a vicious circle, the more you eat the more your blood sugar crashes and the more you crave it. If you could explain this to her in a non judgemental way and ask her to try it to see if it could reduce her sugar cravings (you could say that eating so much sugar is bad for teeth and your body generally, so it's better to try and avoid eating them all the time and search out some alternative that are healthier)

I remember when dd was about this age she suddenly started eating lots of chocolate etc and I figured it might be hormone related. It was lent and we were discussing the tradition of giving something up for it and dh said to her that if she gave up chocolate and sweets (along with him) for lent and succeeded that he would give her £50! I was livid at the time as I thought it was ridiculous to offer an 11yo that sort of money, but she is quite determined so she did it and it totally got rid of her sweet tooth! I'm not suggesting you do this, but it does demonstrate that is could just be a habit induced by her raging hormones!

I was 10 when I started putting on weight. My mum didn't do anything and now as a 34 year old who has struggled with her weight since, I think you're doing the right thing addressing it and supporting your daughter. I wish mine had done the same

Not sure it’s fair to put that on your Mum. If she had ‘intervened’ you might be posting about how upset your mum made you by trying to get you to lose weight as a child?!

Tricky because the way OP has compared her DDs BUT some kids are bigger... and eat a lot more than others. That may have been you? I went through a chubby stage around year 5 and 6 in primary school. As an adult I have to control what I eat if I want to stay in my size 12 jeans! I think its a bit of both tbh of what you are saying.

Was everything resolved at the doctor's and if so what was the advice going forward? Just wondering now that it's been a few months :)

I'm interested in what you're getting at here, any chance of sharing what you think?