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Tips on lessening a slightly chubby four year old's interest in food?

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microferret · 28/02/2019 09:33

DH just got back from a meeting with my daughter's daycare where they raised the issue of her weight, and her fixation with sweets and cakes.

She isn't fat, but has pretty decent padding; last time I checked her BMI it was just within the healthy range. We try to provide plenty of fruit and veg and normal child-friendly food, but I do let her have sweets and biscuits because as a child my mother kept these under lock and key and so I developed a major obsession with them which erupted into a full-blown binge-eating disorder when I hit my teens.

I breastfed her on demand until she was two and I now still give her a feed a day (don't judge me. It helped her get over the arrival of her baby brother!) which I thought would help guard against obesity, but the daycare staff think it means she now associates food with comfort.

Part of me feels like it's just genetics. I am a healthy weight now at 51 kg but I was a well-padded child, despite my mum giving me small meals and cutting out junk. Another part of me feels desperate and terrified that she will undergo the hell of EDs that I suffered with. It feels inexorable and I am so frustrated that I tried to do things differently to my mum, but am doomed to the same outcome.

I just don't know what to do. Does anybody have any advice for helping end this obsession with sweets and biscuits?

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