Such a sensitive subject I know, I have 3 DD’s and I’m also one of 3 DD’s so well aware of weight fluctuations, hormones, forming unhealthy eating patterns, motivation drops, you name it and also very wary to to be too truthful or blunt with my wording but DD does not also respond well to any kind of deep/emotive conversations so I’m feeling quite stuck on how to handle this.
She was a very naturally thin child, very sporty and then hormones hit and not only did she grow tall very quickly but also rapidly became curvy with more boobs than any of us. Obviously nothing wrong with this, it was just how she grew but as 12/13 year old quite traumatic to her body and she ended up with quite a bad knee injury that both the GP and physio believe was largely to do such a rapid size (height more than anything else) gain and stress that brought on her muscles, bones etc.
She was at that point still very active, thankfully she does have a very physical hobby which she has to do daily and competes at so that has kept her going but over the last year she has become so sluggish in every part of her day and eating has become so terrible that she really is unfortunately becoming quite overweight for her age and frame.
Where she used to to be motivated and do everything at a speed of nought, dance with sisters, lots of extra things to do with her hobby we now have to wait half an hour for her to gather motivation to move off the sofa to help set the table or put washing away. And we are having reports back from settings (not school) whilst her friends are busying theirselves with what they need to do, mucking about, exercising she is sitting on her bottom, nose in phone doing the bare minimum and moving from sitting place to another sitting place.
She is also now so fussy with food, and is such a beige eater, everything has to be covered in cheese or sugar and she really does not like conforming to meal times, she will also binge and then defensively lie. She will go through moments of hyper fixating on certain foods, HM smoothies for example or rice cakes with cream cheese but the list of what she will now eat is getting smaller and smaller with hardly any safe healthy foods that she will eat.
As an aside, she is on a waiting list for an Autism assessment and currently does not go to school, starting online school in September which she is excited about. However not having a structured day, other than her hobby eating largely what she likes because we are all working and watching TV/her phone all day is not helping at all.
I wondered if any of this sounds familiar to anyone or has some (gentle) advice on how to move forward. Ultimately I just want DD to be happy and healthy and get her sparkle back but I’m also finding it so frustrating as we have been gently trying to encourage her for a long to time to start to think about her choices and it’s really falling on death ears.