Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Food/recipes

For related content, visit our food content hub.

Worried about my 12 yr old DD, seems to be dieting..

6 replies

ZacharyZoo · 23/01/2007 13:34

My 12 year old DD is petite, her body is changing and she has a bit more shape now, she is very active (County Hockey, cross country runner, dancing) and has always has a really good appetite, eaten a good range of foods, and lots of it, never puts weight on as she has her dad's metabolism which just burns food very quickly. Have noticed in the last few weeks that she is emptying her packed lunch into the bin hardly eaten, when i asked her why she said that she is sick of sandwiches, so we started to make pasta salads instead, which she seemed to enjoy. but she is still emptying the other stuff into the bin. So she is surviving on a pasta salad, a smoothie and a bottle of water, from 8.00am to 3.30pm. She used to hit the biscuit tin,toast etc when she came home, but she doesn't eat anything now until we eat, which is sometimes 7.00pm. I notices today that she left most of her breakfast too.
She said to her step mum that her new friends at school say that she eats too much, and i think this is the reason that her eating habits have changed. I am getting really worried, especially as one of these friend eats absolutely nothing and looks really unwell to me. I am torn between digging deeper or just not commenting, don;t want to make an issue of it, but am worried that this is a bad path to follow. She weighed herself at the weekend (5st 11lbs she is about 4ft 10ins) which i have never encouraged her to do. I never get on the scales, and would never talk about weight or size, i enjoy my food and have always encouraged the girls to aswell.
Her younger sister is 9 and though she is the same height, only weighs 4st 10lbs, but obviously isn't at the stage that her body is changing, she also has an enormous appetite, she can quite easily eat as much as my husband if not more. I don't know if DD is comparing herself to her sister.
The ridiculous thing is when she was a baby i was always being told that she didn't put weight on quickly enough, she only weighed 17lbs on her first birthday! i look at her and she her blossoming into a young woman and she appears to be denying herself food to keep in with her new friends... any advice, don't know which way to turn.

OP posts:
DimpledThighs · 23/01/2007 14:21

ZacharyZoo - I think this sounds like her eating is disordered. She is at a vunerable age and I think the best thing you can do is seek help immediatley either through your GP or an organisation. The earlier you do this the better.

You could be wrong but if it was me I would act now.

bbc information

national centre for eating disorders

anorexia and bulmia care

ZacharyZoo · 23/01/2007 14:32

Thanks for those links they are really interesting. Her best friends mum is a good friend of mine and she has nursing/fostering experience, i may talk to her first as DD spends quite a lot of time there just to see if she has noticed anything. I have DS aged 9 months she adores him but don't know if this is a bit of a reaction to his arrival, maybe i am looking for reasons that are not there and of course in true motherly fashion blaming myself!

OP posts:
DimpledThighs · 23/01/2007 16:59

am bumping this in case anyone else with more experience is around.

DimpledThighs · 23/01/2007 19:31

ditto

tamum · 23/01/2007 19:37

My instinct would be to try and have some kind of talk to her without making a big things of it and see if you can get any idea of whether it's as bad inside her head as it sounds, just because it's only been a few weeks. You could even try and initiate a casual chat about anorexia if there was something in the paper, maybe, and see how she reacts. I agree with DimpledThighs about seeking advice sooner rather than later, just wonder if you might need to get a bit more to say to convince the GP? If it is as bad as you fear then it would be worth asking about CBT, which has a tremendously good success rate for eating disorders, apparently.

ZacharyZoo · 24/01/2007 09:55

We made risotto together last night, and she ate all of it, and had fruit in the evening. She had most of her lunch yesterday and had eaten when she came home from school, think i am inclined just to watch things for a week or two, but will speak to mums of friends that she spends time with to see if they have noticed a change in her. Wondering if it is just that she doesn't want to eat too much in front friends. Am also getting her to help me prepare the food, so she is more interested in eating it. Thanks again for your replies.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page