to tell my 6 year old DD she's getting fat?

[HerRoyalVagisty]

...that's it really. She eats all the time, raiding the fridge at every opportunity. She's just had cereal and toast, then helped herself to yogurt and I've just found her in the cupboard helping herself to biscuits. She is always asking for food. She's in the cupboard whenever my back is turned, or the fridge. She asks for food all day long.

I've offered her fruit but she has refused.

She could happily snack all day.

She has always been the right weight for her height but I've noticed she's gaining weight and I need to change her eating habits before it gets out of hand.

I've just been explaining why she can't have anything else to eat just now, and that we have to cut back on treats and eat more healthy foods. She protested and then I said "your teeth will go bad and look! Your tummy is getting fat!"

Have I sown the seeds of a future eating disorder or was what I said relatively harmless?

Don't have biscuits and snack food in the house. Don't eat them yourself.

Feck me it's gone from the OP using the word fat and actually admitting it may have been wrong, to some of you twisted posters calling her a "bad mother" accusing her of "planting the seeds for an eating disorder" "abuse" etc etc blah blah blah. Calm the feck down it was one incident which I think the OP now realises might have been a mistake. Maybe you should all call in social services right away before she casues any more damage to her child Jesus!

can i add OP i don't think you've been abusive in the slightest and i doubt it will cause long term damage.

I'm sure most people on here have said something they wished they hadn't

Until I had my child I would have agreed with most of the replies here. However my 8 year old won't stop eating or nagging constantly for food. If we go to a play area she will constantly nag me for food and is not interested in playing. She has been like this since she was a toddler. I have told her she can only help herself to fruit but she will eat three bananas in a row. We rarely have unhealthy snacks in the house.I ration her food strictly but if she goes to someones house for tea she eats so much that when she comes home I can see that her stomach has expanded! I have recently tried to explain the link between eating constantly and having a fat tummy (which must be uncomfortable) as a final attempt to help her regulate her eating.

Is it a fat tummy though? like a layer of fat? or is it just a full tummy?

It is normal for little girls to have bellies that stick out a bit until they go through puberty and their hips widen.

Well done for coming back op many others wouldn't considering the roasting you've had!!

Well done for coming back.

I know this may sound a bit out of left field but is your DD getting enough to eat in the food you are offering?

I posted earlier (probably lost in the daft vitriol this thread engendered) and would repeat, I think that a food diary is very useful. Your DD doesnt need to know that you are doing this but it will help give you an overall view of what she is eating.

We did this with our DD when she started to gain weight despite a very active life.

What we discovered was that DD (aged around 8 or 9) was drinking huge quantities of what we hadnt realised was a high sugar drink. We cut down the amount that she drank and the extra weight fell away very quickly.

DD is now 17 with a very healthy attitude to food.

You can turn this around without your DD really being aware.

Op you're not abusive or a shit mother. Some people need to get a little perspective. If you're worried you've upset her or she is hung up on your comment, reassure her that she is beautiful but maybe have a conversation about the health implications of overeating (without using the f word).

Oh, and I was like this as a child, if there was chocolate in the house I would find it, I was always after food and, tbh, I did get a bit chubby. In fact, it was only when I hit my teens and became more aware of my looks that I changed my eating habits and slimmed down. Wanting to avoid getting fat doesn't necessarily cause an eating disorder (but yes, 6 is way too young to have to worry about this).

You're not a bad mother OP and whilst pointing out that your DD is getting fat wasn't the wisest move, it's done now and you can't take it back.

What you can do though, is take control of her eating.

There is no way a child of 6 should be standing on chairs to pilfer food and deliberately disobey you. If any one of my kids did that, they would be so badly punished they would never do it again.

What if she had stood on a chair to pilfer the medicine cabinet? I'm quite sure you would have ensured she was never able to do that again.

I think you need to nip the disobedience in the bud, especially if you're saying that she gets enough good food and exercise....that can only mean she's stood on a chair and pilfered the cupboard fuck knows how many times if it's made her fat

Oooh I'm loving the word 'pilfer'. I don't think I've ever said it before, let alone typed it...and yet I managed to over use it in my last post

Tee2072 I think your nutritional value of apple v. chocolate digestive is slightly awry.

The information I've found alleges:
How many calories in an apple, Eating, Average, Raw 100g ave. medium apple (kCal) 47, (fat) 0.1

Plus the fact that it also contains a decent amount of fibre, vitamins A and C and potassium still make it a better choice of snack than the biscuit. And nobody eats just one biscuit anyway

Sometimes healthy food is calorific, but they're 'good' calories.tis a bit daft comparing a biscuit to an apple.

worra I'm interested - genuinely - in what punishment you would give.

I'd give whatever punishment I knew would hurt the most and that's dependent on the individual child.

Surely you can think of something that would make her instantly burst into tears if you told her she had to do without it for a week?

If you can't, you'd better start trying before she gets any older because if she's still deliberately disobeying you with no real consequence when she's a bit older, that's likely to be a lot more dangerous than climbing on chairs and reaching into cupboards.

WTF? YABU.

Teach her how to eat healthily, have healthy snacks on hand and stop buying biscuits. Never, ever pick on her appearance, though. That's just nasty.

Think of something so awful she'll burst into tears and make her do it.

Awful. Truly awful. Punushing a child should not be vindictive and unduly cruel.
You need to talk to her and realise it has consequences, not humiliate and upset her.

Weird parenting style.

Oh I tell you what then, think of taking something away from her that'll make her grin and think "Haha who cares?"

Don't be so ridiculous.

Punishments are supposed to hurt otherwise they're obviously not punishments.

As the OP will have found out if her DD has raided the cupboards so often, despite the fact she's been told not to, it's actually made her fat.

Argh. So annoyed I can't spell

I don't get why you're still buying shite OP.

And making a child cry when she's disobeyed her parents over and over again, is not humiliating, unduly cruel or vindictive.

Jesus we don't smack children any more (and rightly so) but that's all the more reason to make sure punishments actually work.

I didn't say take something away and let her grin.
Your tactic of humiliation and misery might be effective but it's damaging, I'd be terrified of you not respect you.

Crikey. What if it doesn't work. What next? If you've started so harshly?

Education is better. I don't want to get to the stage where I'm constantly making my child cry.

The point is it does work.

And it works a lot better than hand wringing and 'talking about consequences' to the point where the child has ignored you so many times, they've put enough weight on to look fat.

What good is that?

And again, it does not humiliate a child to take something away from them that they want enough to make them cry.

Some 6yr olds will cry at the drop of a hat, especially if they're in trouble.

And it may damage and terrify you slow but luckily my 3 DC's are not that delicate. They're very happy, polite, loving and well behaved.

Slowest I think the idea is they learn from their punishment and don't do it again.

I have to say my dc would only steal food the once.Something like that would be loss of all screen time for a week-they'd cry.

They wouldn't do it again.

There have to be punishments.