Daughter getting fat in school

[joey197860]

Teenage daughter has gained 22kg in new boarding school. No medical explanation for it and she's very happy, wrll integrated and academically excelling. School has a shop on site and girls have access to kitchen in the evenings. Daughter had major surgery last year and specifically should not eat sugar loaded food. What am I to do? I want to pull her from the school at the end of this term. The school is absolutely no help when I discussed this with them.

Absolutely no chance of pregnancy.

But possibly linked to previous surgery? Please don't ever go on a school Dr's opinion again, always get your dc to a GP asap if there's such concerns as this going on.

OP you’ve ignored my questions about your daughters age, weight and height, where she is in relation to puberty and growth and the nature of her surgery / type tumour removed.

Is she active - has something changed in terms of the amount of exercise she does. What does she say in terms of how she feels about her weight gain and the food she is eating?

@JunglistRaver Thanks for sharing. Very insightful. I don’t want to derail the thread. But this sounds very like people I’ve worked with who’ve grown up in care.

I’ve always found it interesting that growing up in local authority care is generally recognised as not the best start in life and potentially damaging, however good the children’s home or foster care might be. Yet growing up in the care of a private boarding school isn’t recognised as such.

From a child/young person’s perspective, the effects are surely the same. Being in an institution, rather than a family home in a neighbourhood. Looked after by (initially) strangers paid to do it, rather than family or family friends. Having to sleep in dorms and shared bedrooms instead of having personal space and privacy. Being subject to rules and regulations to (understandably) control such a large number of children. Having to learn to ‘survive’ the peer pressure, cliques and poor behaviour of a large number of others, with little respite.

It seems to me the main difference is the added pressure that your parents are (usually) choosing to put you there and paying a fortune for it. So expect a return on the investment.

I see we’re 14 pages in and the OP has repeatedly ignored questions about her daughter’s age, weight and height. Why is this?

OP also has a very detached way of posting about her daughter. The surgery sounds pretty major. A tumour is always a worry and there is a period of time that you don’t know if it’s benign or not. I’m guessing her daughter had to go through all this whilst being away from home.

The school doctors ar private/ boarding schools are not great. Get proper help for her and investigations done. I’d also be investigating mental and well as physical.

How old is she op? And how heavy was she when you thought her the right weight? Has she hit puberty yet?

Really good point and yes in some ways it can be worse as your parents (for whatever reason) have chosen to send you away. So you need to deal with that also.

I think maybe from about 15/16 it’s ok as at that age you start to distance yourself from your parents. But it should always be the child’s choice.

How old is she? How do you know she's gained that much weight? Was she underweight before? Also how do you know there's no chance of pregnancy when you don't live with your daughter?

I am usually pretty anti Boarding school but I believe that in a very small number of cases the awful homelife can mean its a better option .

I'm not sure if me posting this will be deleted but I think it's important that everyone investing time in supporting a mum who is blaming school for her daughter's situation and claiming nothing but love and care from home, reads this report of how she deals with her children

"I cut off the Internet, cut off all money, call them once for dinner and if they don't come throw it in the bin. I cancelled all holidays and I never gave phone ( you should have heard the begging, pleading and wailing). If they ignore me, I ignore them. They are beginning to turn round. It's slowly dawning on them how much I do when I don't do it. We don't have a television so they come asking to order books onto their kindles. You simply have to be brutal and go counter to the current culture. Let me tell you that we everyone else they have impeccable manners and are all sweetness and smiles"

I find the last bit somewhat chilling ... it's all about the external impression the kids give. So I would extend that to suggest whether the weight gain is 1lb or 100lb and due to illness, hormones or just a buttered toast habit, this family is all for show. Harsh? Then argue it, OP.

I love eating junk food but even I would struggle to put on 3.5 stone in 4 months! There absolutely must be a medical issue and you're right to go back to the GP. The recent tumour/surgery are surely relevant.

By the way, teens are often prescribed the pill or similar to control heavy periods so get rid of your judgement about an earlier question.

Poor kid, British boarding schools seem to be becoming dumping grounds for foreign parents who don't want to do their own parenting. There are too many recent cases were children with complex needs are dumped in boarding schools and then the schools are blamed when it ends in disaster.

I can't imagine a scenario where this child's complex needs are better served in a boarding school, than in a loving, supportive home. That's assuming she has a loving and supportive home. I suspect she doesn't.

Well she did say she was happy in boarding school. I’m inclined to think now this is true.

What 'type of girl' would that be then? A sensible girl who wants to prevent pregnancy? Or a girl who needs to control her hormones for other reasons, i.e. painful periods/acne etc. What a bloody stupid and horrible comment.

When people have "insulted" you, it's been in response to what they see as you NOT caring for your child; for what seems like a quite determined absence of curiosity about what's actually going on in her head. You come across like you care more about your image of your child and what kind of person she is and your image of yourself as a perfect parent with a perfect family than you do about what's really going on with her as an individual, and you flatly reject any suggestion that doesn't fit the image. People can only go on what you've told them.

There are 4 basic possibilities here:

1. She's started overeating because she's miserable. (Did you ask her if her eating habits have changed? I guess you must have done, during the conversation where she told you she wasn't happy about the weight gain. But you didn't tell us). Have you asked if she wants to leave boarding school and go to a day school? Ditto.
2. She's gone on hormonal contraception and isn't telling you because she knows you'll lose your shit. Obviously there could be overlap between this and #1 (an abusive relationship, sex she doesn't want, etc). But the misery obviously could be for various other reasons.
3. This is all to do with health issues to do with the surgery and / or the condition that led to the surgery. Maybe something went wrong and messed up something hormonal.
4. It's health issues that aren't anything to do with the surgery (PCOS maybe, could be a few things) and that's just coincidence.

3 and 4 are the most likely; you need to get it properly checked out. But if there's nothing there, it's time to start looking closer at 1 and 2. But whatever it turns out to be, please, please be very careful to not let your daughter see your class-based snobbery and contempt towards fat people. (I mean, she probably has already, but you might be able to walk it back a bit).

What you don't have is an option 5: it's all the boarding school's fault and they need to "close the kitchen at night". Teens have pocket money and they'll buy snacks if they want; it's perfectly possible to eat 1000+ extra calories a day for about £3. They'll control their own portion sizes at the school meals too. And her freedom to decide for herself what she puts in her mouth will only increase as she gets older. You won't be able to call her university and tell them to feed her less. All teens have to learn to regulate this stuff for themselves, boarding school or not.

Talk to her (gently, kindly, not accusingly): about whether her habits have changed and if so, why. About whether she's been feeling hungrier since the surgery. About whether anything's making her unhappy. About whether she wants to change to day school. Act accordingly with the medical investigations. But just treat it in a matter-of-fact way, like anything else that's going on with a person that clearly isn't medically normal - like if all her hair had fallen out or something. Like: there's an issue here but we're going to consult the experts and get the right advice / treatment, and there's no need for embarrassment etc. No shaming; none of this "people like us don't have fat kids" vibe. She WILL pick up on that. Treat her gently. Good luck.

I agree with this. Very terse responses and deliberately ignoring many relevant questions. Almost like OP is trying to get a thread into trending and keep bumping it with as many short answers as possible.

MildredSauce: Perhaps I'm judgy thinking the mother of publicly/privately educated children would be intelligent herself but she negates this by starting straight from "OMG there is no rhyme or reason for this". Posting on a forum rather than methodically working through the medical, physical, mental, emotional and pastoral issues that have been in play over the last year.
Plus the fecking awful "not that kind of girl" pearl clutching response provides another insight into OPs attitude and outlook.yy
..........

Yes you are 'judgy', very, and resentful.

The op seems perfectly reasonable to me, she is worried and intends to get to the bottom of the problem. When she first posted, her worry was obvious, she was expressing her feelings. Since then she has explained things quite well as far as she can and no doubt will tell us more when some investigations have been undertaken.

I was hardworking, ambitious and academic but I put on a lot of weight in boarding school, partly because there was too much of it but also because I was unhappy. But even if you'd asked me then, I would have said I was fine. it's taken a lot of therapy to unpick what was wrong with my childhood.

She's been through a lot of stress - tumour and moving schools - I'd be more surprised if she wasn't comfort eating.

I remember my daughter coming home for the first half term from boarding school and instantly noticed that she’d put on a bit of weight. Apparently she was eating cooked breakfast every morning. I had a quiet word with her and told to keep that for weekends only.
i would have a word with the house parents and the matron. The matrons are usually in charge of after school snacks and yes there does tend to be a good supply of toast and cereals for supper.
talk to the school about it and raise your concerns.
Is she comfort eating? Is she homesick? Issues with friends. You need to have that discussion with her.

Oh, the boarding school's on an island with no boys or men? Or in a magical realm where rapists / child abusers don't exist?

There's always a chance. A low one, sure, but a chance. Hideous things can happen, to any child and any family - including yours. Denying the terrible things in the world isn't the way to avoid them.

I don't know where you get "resentful" from, OP. What could I possibly resent? Other than someone not engaging their brain when it comes to supporting their child, of course.

Is she reasonable? Last comment was "Everything else has been tried" when it clearly has not and another dig at UK obesity by saying "There are plenty of other countries where obesity is not a problem. Anything goes is acceptable here".

I disagree that explanations have been good. I don't know what you've been reading but there are some massive gaps! Of course it's the OPs choice to respond to whatever she wants to and she certainly owes no update from investigations, so I'd not hold your breath with the "no doubt" comment.

I’d get a private doctor to check for thyroid issues, the rate that the weight has gone on does indicate a medical issue or excessive binge eating.

I am going to repeat the thyroid suggestion. When my thyroid stopped working properly I put on thirty pounds in weight in less than two months, a classic symptom, but for some obscure reason the doctors simply did not test my TSH levels for more than six months even though I had thought that might be the problem and specifically asked for that test AND THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO IT when they took blood samples at the hospital; they had fixated on the idea that it was heart failure (it wasn't) and treated me accordingly. When one of the heart nurses finally insisted on a TSH test because there was no record of one in my medical notes, it was at 29.8; 30 is emergency hospital time.

So if the doctors in your area are as thyroid-blind as they are here, it is probably worth insisting, and insisting you see the result, if only to make sure that isn't being missed.

Perfectly reasonable?

The girl had a 2.5kg tumour on her ovary very recently and up until this thread it didn’t occur to the Op to take her to their own doctor.

She is focused on wanting the school to change how it works to accommodate her wishes. Her idea of dealing with it was to remove the child from somewhere they a very happy being.

If ops posts are to be believed this child has been through a lot. Not just the tumour. With a mother that likes to style themselves as ‘brutal’ to teens. And yet op is very sure her daughter couldn’t possibly be over eating due to emotional issues.

Op is still focused on ‘this is why people in this country are fat’. Yet we don’t know if her daughter is actually fat. There’s a good chance the daughter was very underweight and is now around a normal weight . And even if she is it could be being caused by a medical issue. A very specific medical reason isn’t the reason many people are obese. And the fact that Op thinks that’s relevant shows you she doesn’t think it’s a medical issue.

Besides which obesity is horrific to live with. But while people constantly focus on the fat and not fixing the reasons behind it (whether psychological or physical) it’s not going to improve. Locking the kitchen at night isn’t going to fix the root cause here. Bringing her home and restricting access to food isn’t. Whether it’s over eating due to trying to deal with emotions or a medical issue. That’s likely to cause an eating disorder.

and as I said, we actually have no clue if this child has excessive fat on their body. It’s just as likely she was under weight when she started at the school. Which is why it’s not worrying them.

Hi @joey197860 if your DD had a tumour removed, could it be that she’s producing too much of a hormone like estrogen? Or that she has an issue with her pituitary gland?

I would ask for hormone blood work to be done if it hasn’t been already.
Is she on the Pill? Can cause weight gain and with comfort eating too, could that be the reason?