11 year old DS food issues!

[nancy10]

My ds is 11 and has just started secondary school.
He has lots of friends and a good social life outside school. People are always complimenting how polite and friendly he is.
But at home he is the complete opposite. He has begun stealing food and hides it upstairs, this can range from a few biscuits to a whole box of cereal. He lies and is extremely annoying towards his two younger brothers.
He won't touch anything at meal times (we now know this is because of the food he takes.) Tonight he ate a whole giant sized bar of dairy milk that I had bought for the boys to all make cakes with. He eventually told us it was him after a lot of rowing. He seems to have a really unhealthy obsession with food.
It's annoying but I'm concerned about the slyness that goes with it. We have never deprived him of food so can't think why he does it. We have spoken to him time and time again about it but nothing seems to work. Any suggestions!

That's very interesting and, obviously, concerning. Is he a normal weight or is he losing/gaining weight? A diet of cereals and biscuits will result in malnutrition... could explain the 'annoying' behaviour towards his brothers and the aggression when you challenged him on the chocolate bar.

I think your first step has to be to secure all 'snack' food out of his reach - everything you can eat straight out of the box. Literally lock it away. Then you need to insist on him eating at mealtimes with others. If you know he isn't full up on snacks he should be hungry and therefore won't have an excuse not to join in. If he still doesn't want to eat in front of other people, despite being hungry, then I would be very inclined to take him to see a doctor. Disordered eating takes many forms.... it's not all 'anorexia'... and, if caught early, can be resolved. Good luck