DD14, suspected ED. Feeling overwhelmed.

[Whooopthereitis]

Since late summer, my active naturally slim DD has had a focus on being “healthy”. While I wouldn’t knock good intent, it’s become apparent there is more to it than that and she’s losing weight. She continues to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner - though who knows about lunch at school as hard to monitor. She has cut out snacks. I estimate eating about 1400 calories a day, which clearly isn’t enough for a girl who does a sports or dance activity 5 days of the week.

Following two teachers raising concerns about her weight loss with me I feel like I’ve been burying my head in the sand. I have made a GP appt for Friday, but feel totally overwhelmed. Should I try to stop her usual sports activities before then? We’re due to go on an active holiday next Weds - does that need to be cancelled/rethought? She’s due to go on a school ski trip in December - will that be at all safe/possible? Perhaps I’m catastrophising; but although she admits she could eat more and DH is supportive that we get GP input I feel like I’m the only one taking this seriously.

Any advice on what to expect from an initial GP appt and in the following weeks would be gratefully received.

Hi @JT1999 we’re on half term now, so naturally curtails a lot of her sports for a week or two, so it’s helpful on the activities front until we have specialist input. That said, she’s unimpressed that I’m not letting her do a run or long walk today… Since she was a toddler I’ve said that parenting her can be like having a dog; she needs a good run round outside each day to be settled. So other then once-a-day in lockdown, spending a day lounging around is alien to her. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I think being less active will be as challenging as eating more food.

On the food side, there were a lot of tears about finishing her porridge this morning. She starts off great, but then stops. When I asked her what made it hard to finish, she said it was just “difficult” - and why should she eat it if she doesn’t feel hungry. i get the feeling it’s the loss of control/independence she was finding hard (and the thought of losing that even more once she’s been properly assessed). Perhaps not finishing the plate is her only lever of control; we got there in the end though.

i still don’t feel I have a handle on what has caused the changes; when I asked her she says she really doesn’t know (and I don’t think she’s lying/covering something up). She has in the past had OCD like behaviours (hand washing, intrusive thoughts) but these have come and gone. I wonder if it’s that underlying anxiety-fuelled need to control in a different form (I did mention this to the GP). I truly don’t believe it’s about body image, other than she wants to be “fit”. She doesn’t see herself as having been fat, and doesn’t seem to fear getting back to a healthy weight in itself, just overwhelmed at the effort that it will take - and doesn’t want to have to stop doing what she enjoys most to get there (which is of course the football and the hockey).

She will be a better footballer with a bit more mass on her.

I do think there are a lot of body image content that girls get fed via social media that are negative, I wondered if it was to do with that. Many women don't know what they want to look like either, other than being unhappy how they are, and the ones that do know what they want to look like don't know how to get there. It's a minefield. But if you want to be an athlete you have to eat like an athlete as well as training like one. Hopefully wanting to get back to football and hockey will be the inspiration she needs.

Our cheerful popular emotionally intelligent NT teen developed an ED out of nowhere. Her words sound very familiar to your DDs. She also could not explain to us or the professionals why she got the ED she has led a pretty charmed life. That was why I didn’t twig there was a problem for so long as just could not believe it.

She also said she “couldn’t eat” and had “got into bad habits”. She has done modelling and for her think it was linked to liking being model thin but it went too far. We took firm loving control of her eating and despite initial fight back she gave up and cooperated. She’s basically ok now bmi bottom of normal but we will never be complacent again.

You may never know or may only know further down the line. There's research on the starved/malnourished mind. Sometimes cutting calories is actually what tips people into a full blown eating disorder. My daughter was anxious about school and not eating enough and I think that's what happened for her. She started to enjoy the control and the feeling it gave her. She has also said she'd been struggling mentally but felt this wouldn't be taken seriously so it felt like a way of showing how mentally unwell she was.

I think that's why you have to be a bit careful of talking about nutrition too... especially with a child with OCD tendancies, you don't want her fixating on only being able to eat certain types of food..

Btw, I've seen a lot of parents of kids with eds reference their kids having OCD. I think they frequently go together, a bit like neuro diversity.

And yeah, absolutely nothing to do with body image for my daughter. She did develop an obsession with the number on the scale though which has been the biggest barrier to recovery.

Yes “healthy eating” became a good excuse for cutting back on food generally 🙈. Honestly you try and do the right thing and it ends up being wrong - joys of teen parenting.

My dd didn’t want to lose weight either. Unfortunately when she lost a chunk of the weight, she liked due to increased attention. From everywhere. And this led to a desire to restrict further.

It sounds different with your dd though. My dd was about 110% wfh and naturally should sit at a slightly higher bmi, whereas your dd will already have had the sort of attention I’m speaking of before weight loss.

I was told anxiety predates the onset of anorectic behaviours, often by a year. And in year 11, she was really anxious and wanted to be like the popular girls. They didn’t eat lunch and dd copied them. Then she decided to be vegetarian (which is also a way of restricting intake) and it really snowballed from there. And culminated into her deciding to be the most popular and most liked and most beautiful in the school. So a lot of body dysmorphic stuff and self esteem issues.

Unfortunately, restricting food causes mental illness in some. Not in others. It’s a genetic lottery. And the brain chemistry changes @Weightlossworried talked about. Restriction also causes the brain to shrink.