Eating through my daughter

[rachelsroses]

I was desperate for my daughter not to have my disordered eating that I’ve made her overweight by buying her all the things I don’t eat.
I have orthorexia and I buy all my forbidden foods for my daughter and now she is overweight.
I eat a healthy meal while she is at school and make a plate of my forbidden food for her for when she gets home.
I know it sounds ridiculous but I’ve only just realised what I’ve been doing and now I don’t know what to do because I don’t want her to have my restrictive diet but I also don’t know what is normal eating.

No I’m not trying to be unkind. I specifically referred to the OP’s illness, not the Op.

I had an eating disorder destroy my entire family and my poor father died of the stress of it.

You don’t know the first thing about me so you stick your “trying to be unkind”.

Because calling it child abuse and berating OP does nothing to help the child. Encouragement and support to change this pattern will.

What is wrong with you that you don’t understand that?

Im agast at these posts.

Huge child protection issues here that some people seem to be minimising

They are not huge at all.

phone social services now and tell you know of a child who is being fed junk food by their anorexic mother and see what they tell you. I can promise their reaction will not convey huge at all.

How do you know encouragement and support will change things? What is wrong with you that you don't see there is a child at serious risk here?

It's not just the physical harm, it's the psychological damage that is being caused to a child

I didn’t say it was the psychical harm though did I? I said it isn’t a huge child protection issue

What solution are you suggesting? The child is not going to be taken into care in these circumstances, and even if she was the physiological harm of that would also be huge.

Far more huge!

The psychological harm is having a mother who is extremely unwell. But that would exist in care too - her daughter will still love her and want her to be healthy. Yes, the child is being fed the wrong foods and is overweight but so are about one-third of Year 6 kids. Unless it's extreme, no one is going to take the child into care.

The OP desperately needs help to get better for the sake of her daughter but this is not a child protection issue.

I think the Op deserves all the support in the world. She sounds like a lovely & very well intentioned person who is having a very hard time.

I don’t think it’s a “child protection” issue in that Social Services will be along with the blue lights. Of course not.

But that is not to say that her child is not at risk of harm. Her primary carer goes 3 days without eating and her other parent is in the dark about it. The Op could have an accident, faint etc around DD.
Also it’s very unlikely that child won’t cop that Op has issues with food in the fairly near future.

That I why I’d hope the OP can tell her DH and GP and ask for help. But I’d hope the same if Op had no childen. Because she needs help.

Start planning your meals so that you eat a nutritious balanced lunch, then nutritious balanced tea together with your DD. Eat the same things each week on set days. Plan ahead so meals are expected and routine.

Talk to your husband. He clearly has his own food issues which need attention. He could also start eating family meals.

Both focus on providing a healthy and strong example to your DD. Be a great role model.

What an utterly ridiculous and unhelpful post which is going to do anything but support the op to get help.

Do you know how many overweight children there are in schools. If SS start taking every child whose parent overfeeds them into care they’ll need to close down.

This is not a child protection issue let alone a huge one.

What completely vacuous post. The OP has a serious eating disorder, manifesting in her compulsively cutting out essentials from her own diet and feeding her DD the things she sees as ‘forbidden’ for herself. If she was capable of doing the things you suggest, do you not think she would have done them by now. The family needs targeted and professional help.

Yes, I'd agree. The poor OP sounds very unwell. But this doesn't sound like a child who needs to be taken into care which is what was being said by others. Of course she needs to get better for her own sake, but also for her daughter's and I really hope she can get the help she needs. Anorexia is a horrific disease once it gets its vicious claws into you.

For those - as usual - advocating ‘Be Kind’

Feeling shit when other people confirm problematic behaviour or resulting harm is often a consequence of sharing that behaviour with others, even as part of a cry for help,

It’s uncomfortable but we are all adults who should at this stage have the emotional intelligence to understand that sometimes feeling bad about something we do is the sign we need to change it.

OP’s husband is either oblivious or being gentle as not to hurt OP’s feelings. Which has resulted in a child being the outlet for a grown adult’s food issues.

At what point does Being Kind become part of the problem?

Child abuse is child abuse, calling it anything less minimises the seriousness of this.

If OP was hitting her child would we congratulate her for recognising the behaviour…No.

Abuse comes in different forms.

Op have you seen someone, ar eyou sure you’re not anorexic?

Whay do you mean your husband thinks you’re greedy, does he say this? Are you very underweight? Is he not concerned if so?

What do you think should happen in this scenario?

You can not diagnose somebody online. You have no idea what is in her head.

Orthorexia and Anorexia are distinct conditions defined by different preoccupations with food.
With AN, disordered eating behaviors center around fears of being overweight or gaining weight. AN is about calorie and food quantity restriction. In ON, disordered eating behaviors arise from an obsession with healthy eating. Instead of quantity, your focus is on the quality of food.
Both thought processes can cause avoidance of certain foods, rigid and ritualistic eating habits, and nutritional deficits.

The diagnosis you receive will depend on more than just food attitudes which you as a forum reader simply are not privy to. AN features intense fear about weight gain and a distorted body image perception.ON does not involve intense fears about body shape and weight, though weight control can still be a priority when you live with ON. You don’t even know her BMI. If she’s average weight of 5.3 and 7 stone her BMI would be 17.4. For eating disorders, a Body Mass Index (BMI) below 15 generally indicates severe malnutrition and hospitals rarely look at BMI as the only deciding factor. Less than 15 usually points to severe risk. Less than 13 or dropping below 75% of expected healthy weight generally dictates emergency stabilization on an acute medical ward. Admission is triggered by physical complications such as a low heart rate (< 45 - 50 bpm), dangerous electrolyte imbalances, or a body temperature below 35°C.

You have no idea what her BMI is or her physical conditions.The OP will know her ED well and what it is , better than you.

So anybody with a child overweight is abusing their child.

You don’t know it’s anorexia. You don’t even know how overweight the child is or how underweight the op is.

The woman is starving herself,

That’s clearly not what was said, why write something so very silly.