12 year old girl addicted to sugar?

[vilamoura2003]

I don't know what else to do, I wondered whether anyone else has any experience of how to handle it.

For a long time we have noticed our daughter is obsessive about sugar and we have tried to educate and teach about making the right food choices. Unfortunately it just isn't working. I don't want to have to stop buying it therefore restricting access to it, because when she is on her own in the real world, she needs to make the choices for herself.

She will try to put tea spoons full of sugar on cereal, would drink hot chocolate all day long if we didn't try and say she should only have one a day. We have had to say pocket money is not allowed to be spent on sweets as she will spend all of it at the sweet shop.

On a daily basis she will have:
Breakfast - cereal
School lunch box - sandwich with two pieces of bread, packet of crisps, cereal bar, fruit flakes and a yoghurt (frube like thing).
After school snack when she comes in which is a two finger kit Kat or something of a similar size then tea with the family, followed by a yoghurt and if she can get away with it a couple of digestives with her yoghurt.

Does this sound a normal amount of food? I think it sounds plenty. I have just had an email from the school to say I owe them money, she has been buying stuff every day from the school canteen on her dinner card - a sausage roll every day sometimes accompanied by a waffle or cookies. I have found a stash of wrappers in her room where she has been taking two kitkats per day and eating them both, and to top it off she said yesterday could she give a packet of chocolate buttons to her friend at school in a Christmas card, we said yes, she then went upstairs and snaffled them instead - so lying about an act of kindness to eat more chocolate :-( Now she has been found out, she claims she was hungry.

I have toyed with taking her to the doctors to have some bloods taken to check whether there is a medical problem?

I am embarrassed to say I have today resorted to shouting and saying how disappointed i am, have taken her phone off her as punishment for lying and have threatened that I won't be buying any more sugar.

She just doesn't seem to have an off switch and would honestly just keep going. I think my mum has noticed a problem - when we went out for a coffee one day, she started trying to add sugar to hot chocolate, I said she didn't need to add sugar to a drink with whippy cream and marshmallows on the top, she had a slice of cake (so did I), and I had scraped a little of the cream off the cake as it was a bit rich, she then asked if she could eat the bit I had scraped off having just downed her own cake and hot chocolate. Maybe as I am more conscious of it, I am getting paranoid.

You hear people with eating disorders etc saying about horrible experiences when they were younger, being called fat etc, and I don't want to harp on about it too much for fear of causing some pyschologocal harm, but it is becoming a real bone of contention :-(

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

Oh gawd -I've killed the thread too

Thank you everyone for the replies. I take it all on board. It is quite scary to see how many people say her lunch box is terrible. I used to help in a school, village in an afluent area, and her lunch box is no different to 75% of the class, and I would say a fair few are far far worse with chocolate or cake.

She is currently a normal weight, starting to get a bit wobbly around the stomach region.

I buy things like the kit kats etc for the rest of the household to have as a snack, as sometimes myself or my husband will fancy a treat - maybe a couple of times a week. There seems to be a fine line between demonising food and allowing access to it so that she will learn to self regulate herself. I will cease buying for now altogether, and try to fill the house with healthy snack choices.

I know shouting wasn't the right answer but I was so cross she had lied and used an act of kindness to eat more chocolate (when she had already had a two finger kit kat) - if she was really hungry there is fruit on hand and carrots etc.

She has pulled a face about breakfast this morning, again, she put about 8 shreddies in a bowl. I said that wasn't a substantial enough breakfast, I added some more, asked if she wanted a banana cut up - she said yuk. She went to the sugar cupboard and I said, no we aren't going to have sugar on breakfast cereals, we are going to be healthy and cut back on sugar. She just pulled a face and did a Kevin and perry impression.

Didnt help last night as we were out for a meal for father in laws 70th, everybody ordered puddings, she was at the other end of the table with granny. She ordered warm donughts that were covered in sugar and served with jam. After she had eaten them, she used her finger to try and dab and eat every grain of sugar left on the plate and then dipped her finger in the jam and licked it off. This is after having eaten garlic bread to start, shepherds pie and veg with a piece of bread dipped in the gravy - it just seems like greed or addiction to me

I do find this parenting lark very hard - to know what is the right thing to do or whether you are psychologically damaging for life seems a fine line 😟

Vila - I think the issue is nowadays a treats are everywhere. we don't buy things like kitkats for example but there are so many opportunities for everyone adult and child to eat that type of food. Birthday parties, children brings cupcakes or sweets to school for birthdays, Easter, Xmas, Halloween, ice cream out in summer, deserts at restaurants, visiting grannies etc. It's almost continuously available if they want. Hence I would suggest not getting that type of food in yourself, but allowing them to have outside home or for occasions instead. Buying individual ie just a bar of chocolate if you want one, or buying her a bar of chocolate when out if she asks will limit the full avalibiity of buying multipacks.
Less daily in lunches, breaskfast or snacks means you can happily allow her to order those donuts out at restaurant knowing she has eaten relatively healthy the rest of the week

Also I suggest sitting down with her and the rest of the family together so she isn't singled out and talk about how you are all looking to get healthier and reduce daily sugar due to teeth decay and health (rather than weight). Get everyone to make suggestions of what they would be happy to have for breakfast, lunch and snacks. So you have swapped cereal for shreddies and banana she isn't pleased with, but maybe she will say she will be happy with crumpets and cheese instead which is a good step towards ditching sugar. Say chocolate daily as snack is now not happening, maybe carrots she doesn't want, but will be happy with apples and an almond/ milk smoothie. Compromise but direct her and everyone to a healthier option

I think you really are making a fuss over nothing. Mine go through stages where they eat less "healthily" and at 19 and 21 they are very healthy weight. Both tall and slim
You also have to remember at that age they grow out before they grow up.

Villa, also note that there are other posters on this thread with similar concerns to you, like myself.

I think when others have referred to the availability of treats as everyday foodstuffs they are right. Also we don't buy much in the way of sweet stuff but it seems to forever be getting into the house. Both nannas are like drug pushers with sweets. DD comes back from parties with a further stash. A neighbour recently gave us a huge tin of celebration chocolates in return for doing her a favour. It's hard to say no without offending people.Then the bloody stuff is in the house and DD knows it!

T'is difficult.

Bruffin. It's not about weight but wider health I think. Sugar has quite a negative impact long term.

The idea of not having it readily available constantly at home is good and will secure better day to day habits. Hopefully get her addiction under control. Its everywhere and she won't go without.

OP, you can probably expect it to take some time for things to settle down, so I would try not to react too much to her reactions, so to speak. Just slowly and gradually change her diet to more nutritious foods, cut down on the number of sweet things you buy, try to find other things she will enjoy, and then you won't have to worry so much about what happens outside of the house. If she is getting something more sustaining (if more boring) at home, puddings with her nannas will be less of a problem.

My own mother has turned into a complete sugar and cream fiend with greater affluence in old age. I don't let it worry me because we only spend a few weeks at theirs and then dc will be coming home to our own boring house. It is what they get at home that will become their idea of normal.

Thank you so much, we have today been and bought some healthy bits and we have talked about filling snacks. Her packed lunch tomorrow is a whole meal pitta with ham, - packet of sun bite whole meal crisps, some raisins, some grapes, some cubes of cheese and a strawberry shaped yoghurt thing.

I also bought breadsticks, apples, eggs, oatcakes and muller light yoghurts for snacks after school. I will take the dinner card off her

I'd dump the raisins, they are very sugary and unnecessary in that lunch.

Yes dump the high sugar raisins. Give her an apple instead or some veg sticks.

Dd12 is a bit of a sugar addict. She is very slim but will choose the sweet option everytime. I'm fairly strict with her and ds about healthy choices and don't allow chocolate every day and never buy biscuits. If they are hungry they eat fruit which dd will gorge on but I figure she is growing so it's OK.