DD 16, what to do!?

[Ifyouwantmeillbeinthebar]

Looking for a bit of advice and guidance with my eldest DD who is 16, I’m sorry if it gets a big rambly, there a few worries and not sure if connected

I am admittedly a bit over protective, especially with her, my first born as the teenager years are uncharted territories (though two younger siblings are not far behind) so I’m not sure if this skewing my judgment.

DD is a really good kid, she helps a lot at home, has a mostly good sense of right and wrong and does well in school. She was right at the front of the queue when it came to handing out creativity and it’s meant that she really excels at music, art and performance, something we have always encouraged but that has also came with a good hand of dramatics and she can also be quite an emotional child.

I should also add at this point that her dad, my husband is currently deployed so might add to current situation.

DD has a girlfriend, really lovely girl with a lovely family. This is DD’s 2nd girlfriend, the 1st ending, I think because things became too intense and afterwards we had a chat about boundaries and friendships with others being important etc. This seems to be a much healthier relationship, DD spends much more time with friends though I do often check her if I feel it could go back to all being a bit heavy.

Firstly we seem to have stumbled into some disordered eating, DD is vegetarian and has been for a few years however she has been slowly removing other foods from her diet, fish, milk, eggs because she wants to be vegan, certain fruits and vegetables because they didn’t taste nice after Covid the list goes on and it’s actually becoming really tricky to cook a meal for her.

Due to working and my DC all being old enough to fix theirselves breakfast, snack and lunch i haven’t noticed until the last few days how little DD is actually eating now but it’s not a lot, yesterday for example a couple of spoonfuls of yogurt and fruit that her sister had made, a coffee at Costa and half a bowl of pasta that I had to encourage her to eat because she was feeling sick. I have also noticed her in the mirror pulling her jeans out from her waist in the mirror and sucking her tummy in. She has always been slim and I’m unsure yet if she has dropped any more weight, though obviously it’s absolutely on my radar.

The reason I brought up the GF is that their has been a few things said that I’ve taken notice off, the first was upon meeting GF’s DF he mentioned that GF used to be a lot heavier but has lost a lot of weight recently, GF is really tiny and petite, she also wears quite baggy clothes the 2nd was them both sitting on the sofa and DD accidentally nudging GF with her elbow and saying your elbows are so shard and bony and DD said something like that’s the nicest thing anyone has every said to me which they both started giggling at, I found this quite shocking, am I wrong?

I think what had made me not take this too seriously until recently is that DD LOVES eating out, and would happily go out for food every day if her finances allowed, this food restricting only seems to be at home and I wondered if an attention thing (though realise that doesn’t mean that everything if ok)

Mixed in with this is sleepovers with GF, having an 11 and 14 DD’s in the house as well I’ve been very careful of what I’ve allowed as don’t want to set a precedent for boundaries when they might change if one of the girls were in a relationship with a boy.

I did say she could stay at GF’s house the night before last and she not only came home saying she felt very unwell, which turned out to be because had had a bagel and some sweets in 24 hours but also with bites (non insect kind) all over her neck which she thought were really funny.

Im not naive, I remember being 16 and I also know she is almost an adult but I just can’t help feel she is spiralling and I want to get a hold before it goes any further.

Rightly or wrongly I’ve told her she is grounded just now until she can start acting in a responsible and respectful way to herself and others (DD 11 looks up to big sis and doesn’t miss a thing she does) I’ve reminded her she is a role model to sisters.

Internally Im angry at her more than sympathetic, which I realise isn’t great but I can’t help but feel with all the jokes the outward pinching of skin in front of me and being so obvious about not eating as well as seeming to forever be spending her money in noodle bars, bubble tea shops and Tesco meal deals that she is really is pushing the act to worry me and get attention, though maybe that just makes me sound really ignorant and awful.

Any help on navigating any of the above would be great.

So I struggled with disordered eating when a teenager.

1. do not lie about what is in her food and feed her meat. She will never trust you if she,say, notices the packet in the bin. Instead get vegan protein. Not that you would but a poster suggested it and I cannot think of doing anything worse than establishing your mum might lie about food when she is having issues.
2. Appreciate that you probably have never starved yourself before but once you have eating anything makes you feel sick. You need to acknowledge this and explain that it goes away after a few weeks of eating well but that feeling sick after a few spoons of yoghurt is a sign to keep going rather than stop.
3. you need her to eat more volume stuff so lower expectations on what it is. If she eats 1500 calories of Greek yoghurt and fruit for a few days she will start to feel less sick. Then she can go back to meals slowly. Try and explain that she feels so bad when she eats because she’s actually hungry. Vegan protein shakes and things that don’t feel like food for a week will not hurt her and be easy on her stomach.
4. if she knows why she’s grounded and then if you say look if you drink this and attempt to eat every meal then I’ll lift it, it might be enough to kick her round but I used to just burst into tears and go hide in my room.

it sounds really early in disordered eating so you’ll probably be fine without support. But seriously no one talks about 2.

My concern would be competitive weightloss with GF. Of course removing lots of food groups is cause for alarm. She is going through an enormously important stage of her developmental growth and she is putting it at risk. I would insist that she takes a daily multivitamin and mineral complex and see if you could book her into a dietician so that she could learn how to eat a healthy vegan diet and get all of the nutrients she needs.

Thanks everyone, all very useful.

I will hold my hand up and say I probably haven’t gone about this totally correctly, it’s seems to have all to come to a head over the last few days and with DH away, visiting relatives and all life’s other little hurdles it has just floored me, hence asking for advice.

I have alway made a point of spending one on one time with the girls, we are also such a good team as spend a lot of time just us (DH forces) so are very closed and talk a lot!

I have also always been careful of the language I have used around food, diet etc, the girls all have their own hobbies and sports and are all active so we talk about the right kind of fuel and they know being healthy and strong (in body) is worth far more than weight, however I know eating disorders generally stem from a need for control rather than diet.

Im going to sit right for a few days and monitor more closely what she is eating and if I think we are verging into something more serious I will make a GP appointment and go from there.

Can I also just add it was not me who suggested that might feed her meat and non vegan foods, I would NEVER do this, it was another poster.

Sorry my bad @Ifyouwantmeillbeinthebar , it was @Dotjones that actually suggested it.

Check her social media. You need to know if she's on proana pages etc.

Well done OP - your latest post shows that you have listened to the people posting on your thread and adjusted your approach in response. It sounds like you've got a great relationship with DD, I hope you can sort things out and nip this in the bud before it descends into disordered eating.

Don't don't don't do this. Breaking her boundaries and feeding her meat and lying means she will stop trusting you, will hide from you and may even refuse to ever eat food you make.

If it is an ED and she discovered you lied to take away her control you've lost all trust. And that's dangerous.

As someone who had an ED for a decade this comment is insanity. 16 year olds aren't 5 they know what real meat is like.

Maybe put on Louis Theroux's talking Anorexia or a Stacey Dooley one. Might scare her out of it to see how bad it gets.

Maybe put on Louis Theroux's talking Anorexia or a Stacey Dooley one. Might scare her out of it to see how bad it gets.

You can't scare someone out of an eating disorder!

I wouldn’t be putting any documentaries on about anorexia or eating disorders. It can be used as inspiration. There used to be stuff online that was labelled as pro ana and thinspo. So definitely nothing like that x

I have no direct experience but can comment about the direct experience of my friend's who's daughter was in a same sex relationship at 16 and who also went down a worrying route regarding becoming very restrictive about eating. Basically the two girls were in a kind of 'friendly' competition with each other over their changing bodies and as they were sleeping together and seeing each other's naked bodies regularly it became much more easy and intense to make comparisons and monitor each other, than it did if her DD was just comparing to other female friends for example.

They were very intensely enmeshed with each other for a couple of years, living together at a very young age, not eating properly but supplementing themselves weirdly on noodles and bubble tea just the same and when mum showed/voiced concerns about this and the eating etc it was dismissed by them both as 'homophobic' (something she certainly isn't).

It ended when friend's DD discovered cheating with her GF now engaged to another girl and friend's DD now with a man, it's only a couple of years after the fact she has grown closer to her mum and disclosed the comparing of their bodies etc and how this fed into their restrictive eating. It does need to be watched closely but it is a minefield.

With regards to the lovebite etc - grounding is a lot but I certainly remember asking (telling) my own DD to cover hers on the occasion she had one with make up or clothing if we were out and about visiting her grandparents as a sign of respect. Nobody looks good with their necks having been mauled on, I know it's a badge of honour to young teens as if nobody else in the world is having sex/getting off with each other - imagine their faces if we their parents started showing a load of lovebites on our necks they'd die from cringing at us ha!! Same goes, really.

Absolutely awful advice @Dotjones , wtf, do you honestly think she’s going to ever believe anything the OP says in future?

I can remember being her age very well and now I have a dd that age and have been through this phase with my other child.

It’s the natural time of separation between mum and daughter. It hurts but you have to play the long game here. You can fight her or you can guide her gently as she starts her own life as a young woman. They are two very different approaches. The latter involves perfecting that “this information is not at all shocking “ face and demeanour 😉

Really pick your battles. When she comes out the other side you want her to have memories of you being a rock for her, not the person who made everything harder while her hormones and head were all over the place.

You can do it! Find a way to reset. Sit down with her and have a heart to heart. Tell her about this phase we all go through and be honest about how hard you find it. Come to a peace agreement.

Sadly in my experience of 2 girls recently passed through secondary school, this is absolutely the normal amongst teenage girls now.Nearly all their friends seemed to have issues around food.Mine grew out of it thankfully.There is absolutely no help available unless they fall seriously underweight

Could you suggest she researches a vegan cook book you can buy/some recipes on the internet and you can maybe cook some vegan meals together? She can teach you ;) it could be a nice way of spending time together while also validating her food choices and encouraging eating.

"Try to stop her being a vegan/vegetarian so she eats more healthily. If it helps you can tell her the food you give her is "vegan" meat or whatever, but actually give her the real deal. If she's eating out a lot she'll inadvertently be eating meat and animal products anyway, all restaurants are careless about segregating vegan food from normal food, some deliberately mix it up."

What the fuck have I just read?

WTF have I just read. You punished your daughter for food restriction-on which your only evidence was her not eating a lot one day and a silly joke. Young women who restrict food don’t tend to spend all their money on food. Then you claim she was disrespectful-no evidence of this as most 16 year olds think love bites are funny. She is not a role model she is 16 and it is very dangerous to tell her she must be well behaved all the time because of her younger siblings.
I am thankful my parents did not punish me for my actual disrespectful behaviour, slagging about and not eating much. They just told me about myself, and would have hated me being grounded moaning about the house.
Soon you will be asking for advice on why your children don’t talk to you.

My DD is a vegan and has a very healthy and varied diet.
There's nothing wrong with it at all, but performative under-eating, which your DD seems to be engaging in, is very dangerous.

I'm not sure that this is very helpful to the OP.
She's doing her best and taking on board the advice she's getting from this thread.

I agree, struggling to see what her DD has done wrong here and why she’s being punished and told off. She’s 16, if she wants to have sex she legally can, so grounding her for love bites is ridiculous, if OP is concerned about her eating then she should ask her about it, not punish her.

And I believe that the OP has now realized this.

'You need to understand that she's not a role model for her siblings. At least she shouldn't be expected to be one. First of all, she's 16, and second, it presumably wasn't her decision to have siblings. Rather than demand she be a role model you need to work on making sure the younger siblings don't see her as one'

Yes she is. By being the eldest child she has a huge influence on her younger siblings for better or worse. They will watch and copy and be influenced by her. That's just the way it is - and as for the 'she didn't ask to be' etc. that's absolutely irrelevant.

Have you thought about seeing if you can get a nutritionist to help with some vegan meal plans for her? Going together on the guise of you want to make she is getting everything she needs as a vegan and hopefully getting some healthy meal plans up and she can hopefully learn more about what her body needs and understand that as a vegan, she needs to make sure she is getting a balanced diet or runs the risk of deficiency and as she is growing as well, she needs to be extra careful.

It might help her realise the quantity and quality of the foods she is eating.

I say this as a vegan who takes quite a few vitamins just to be careful

I'd approach it from a health pov. If she is feeling faint and sick, then make a GP appointment. As well as providing a food diary, push for blood tests to make sure she isn't anaemic, etc. I was vegetarian as a teen and often dizzy and tired. Blood tests showed I was dangerously anaemic.

I'd say to DD that if she wants to be vegan then she needs to go to the GP appointment and to see a dietician to ensure she still has a balanced diet, and takes all the necessary vitamins and supplements.

Accompany DD to the appointments if you can. She'll probably try to mask how little she is eating. My DSIS has disordered eating. It has been an uphill struggle to get her to find help especially as she hides it very well and always has a 'reason' for her eating (or lack of eating) choices eg taste, being vegetarian, feeling ill.

Teens can be very susceptible to peer pressure but I'd tread carefully regarding the gf. You don't want to push your Dd away and turn it into a forbidden relationship that then becomes even more appealing. You could however subtly impact how much time she has available to spend with her by finding other ways to keep your DD busy.