DD sneaking food - please help me plan how to discuss this with her

[AinsleyHayes]

NC as this is so deeply personal but I have been here for years. For context, I have a long history of a really difficult relationship with food. I started sneaking food and bingeing around the age of 9, and in my teens I began making myself vomit. I am now overweight and it has been one of my greatest fears that I would pass on a disordered relationship with food to my DD, who is 10.

It has become apparent that she has been sneaking food and I need to discuss this with her. I have no healthy example to work from: my mother has also had major food issues and when I tried to confide in her that I was bingeing and purging she signed me up to Weight Watchers and it was literally never spoken of again. I have been incredibly careful never to comment on weight or body shapes in front of DD in the way that my mother always did, and from a very young age I have encouraged DD to 'listen to her tummy' and never made her clear her plate if she was full.

I feel like I need to have a plan of what I want to say, but I feel that my own frame of reference is so warped that I need someone to read it and tell me if it is the right thing to say.

I plan to tell her that I know she has been taking food and eating it secretly. I am thinking of telling her that I have not always made healthy choices when it has come to eating and exercise and that I am now working very hard to undo some of my past poor choices (she knows this as I have started exercising regularly). I plan to say that when I look back on those poor choices, sometimes I would eat because I was bored, or because it was easier than dealing with an emotion such as sadness or frustration. I will not hide or secrete food from her and she will always be able to choose foods to form a balanced diet in our home but I am going to help her to unpick some of the early bad habits that she has started to form.

Please be kind. Thank you.

Why do you think she is sneaking food? To hide it from you? Because she’s hungry?

how is she sneaking food? To her room? On the way home from school?

I’d address that first.

my dd “sneak” food- they have little stashes of treats in their bedrooms. I am fine with it, they rarely eat it but it’s there should the fancy a bit of chocolate or whatever. I’m the same. Mainly because I don’t buy a lot of treat food so if it’s left in the communal area dh will eat it before we get chance. He has his own food issues from childhood, his parents bought massive wholesale pallets of stuff so his mentality is if it’s there it “needs” eating.

Thank you for responding. I think she is eating mostly out of boredom, and increasingly habit. She isn't taking it to her bedroom but she will mindlessly go back and forth to the kitchen to get snack after snack during her relaxation time before bed. I am generally putting her little brother to bed at this time and although DH is around he isn't actively supervising her.

10 year olds eat a lot wait till 13 there hungry all the time. Ours will all day, only if there was an actual weight problem would we think about doing something

She is gaining weight. She is in early puberty and I know that this is a factor but her tummy is becoming noticeably more prominent.

How old is she?

that doesn’t sound sneaky, just she’s snacking a lot. it could be a growth spurt pending or if she’s older that PMT where you just need to eat all the things.

what sort of snacks? If you are on a health kick just make sure everything is relatively nutritious- carrots and hummus, fruit, peanut butter and rice cakes etc. stop buying crisps, biscuits etc- my approach that that sort of stuff is I don’t routinely buy it, but if anyone wants it we can walk to the shop and get it.

I wouldn't call helping yourself to snacks "sneaking food".

Why can't she have the snacks?

There are many possible approaches to this, but mine would be:

1. don't have any food accessible to her that it wouldn't be healthy for her to take, at least for the time being. Make healthy snacks freely available (I bought mine a mini fridge and stocked it with decent nibbles) and don't pay too much attention to how or when she eats it

2. take ALL of the pejorative language and shame out of it; don't use the word "sneaking", don't in any way imply that eating is a discipline issue or that snacking is a dirty habit, iyswim

3. by all means chat to her about healthy habits, drinking plenty of water, choosing things that will give her nutrients and energy etc - almost as an interesting science project, the body works on fuel, the brain and muscles need certain things etc - but don't bring your own dysfunctional history with food into it at all. She doesn't need to know that you used to binge-eat or that you struggle with your weight, and she certainly doesn't need to be frightened with talk of paying for "poor choices" decades later. Keep discussions of food and nutrition light, interesting and completely free of shame.

This is genuinely helpful. Thank you.

To be clear, I wasn't going to tell her that I have previously binged. I don't need to tell her that I struggle with my weight as she can see for herself that I am overweight.

Is she really sneaking food? Can you not have an open pantry policy or at least a healthy snack section so you make sneaking a non-issue?

I used to sneak food because we weren’t fed enough. It wasn’t because of poverty, it was because my father had disordered eating and tried to impose it on us. I’m always worried when I see parents say that children are sneaking food.

I have also found that my own dc has a small stash of treats in her room. Many acquired from school. That means they are sweets she could have eaten, but didn’t and saved for later. I choose to look at that as a win. If she wants to have a bit of control I don’t think that is a bad thing.

We do have an open pantry policy. She is free to help herself to fruit, oatcakes, yoghurt etc. To give a specific example - grandparents had the children yesterday and bought them a three-pack of very large cookies as a treat. DD and DS had one each yesterday, and the one left over was intended for the children to share today. I have found the empty bag today and checked with DH, who didn't have it. This means that last night she had her evening meal, a very large cookie, a yoghurt, two or three pieces of fruit, and then secretly another of the very large cookies. We have always taught her that she can help herself to a healthier snack but she knows that cookies are treat food, and we have always asked her to double-check before eating the last of something in case it is being saved (eg for packed lunches) or so we know to add things to the shopping list.

Agree with the advice you've had, do not use shameful language around this.
My daughter was doing the same and I just said, come and ask me if you're hungry and we will find a snack together as sometimes things are being saved for packed lunches etc.

Also for a few months made a snack box, just food she could easily help herself to without asking, fruits, yogurt, jelly, chocolate and crisps were all in there.

That naturally disappeared after a few months as she just started to say mum I'm having a yogurt if that's okay and I'd always say yes to something. So if it was chocolate and she'd already had a bar I'd just say ah they're for lunch tomorrow why don't you have xyz instead.

Making It easy seemed to have ended the taking and hiding.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Reading your posts is helping me to organise my thoughts.

I don’t think she is sneaking food. I think if there is unusual food in the house like the cookies, you need to specifically say that they can’t take it.
The eating you describe does not sound out of the ordinary for a growing girl. If she is hitting puberty she will get some puppy fat and be particularly hungry at certain points in the month. You need to carry on encouraging her to listen to her body in the way you did when she was smaller.
I don’t think there is a way you could bring this up with her without risking passing on the problems you have. Just make sure she has access to plenty of healthy snacks so she isn’t going hungry.
Also make sure she is getting plenty of exercise, this is an age where lots of children drop out of activities.

OP - just remember that you're already acting in her best interests by putting so much thought into how you approach her and asking for advice about it. You're clearly aware of the pitfalls around food and psychology, and committed to handling it in a way that won't set up unhealthy patterns - that puts you way ahead of my mother, who struggled with her eating all her life and unfortunately gave my sister and I enormous fears and unhealthy thinking patterns around food which we are both still struggling with. I grew up believing that things like cake and crisps and cookies were a) as dangerous as radioactive waste, and b) the most special and sublime things on the planet, so bingeing and purging and shame came very naturally. It's REALLY bloody hard to come from that sort of background, especially being visibly overweight yourself (so am I!) and try to break the cycle and instil healthier behaviours in your children. So give yourself a bit of a break here, it's easy to feel criticised by the barrage of advice you get on a MN thread, but you are already doing the most important bit, which is thinking before you approach her and trying to work out how best to do so.

It sounds like you’ve worked really hard to change the narrative around food for your daughter and model healthier behaviours. If she’s taking a snack and eating it openly, that’s not secretive - she feels safe to eat what she wants in your household. I struggled with disordered eating and had specialist therapy for a long time so I know how immensely hard it can be to unpick years of struggling to make that change. I hope you’re proud and recognise how huge that is ❤️

Maybe she does need a little bit of guidance but she might just be due a growth spurt soon.

If I was you, I’d start by offering her a bit more healthy food at teatime to help fill her up and only healthy snacks in the evening and see how you go. If she genuinely feels hungry when she eats these snacks then telling her they’re a bad habit/poor choice and making a big deal out of it will disrupt her eating intuitively in the future.

If you do need to talk about it, approach the conversation with curiosity and be led by what she says. She’s not the little girl you were at her age because she’s got you as her mum so her motivations and outlook on food and weight may be different to yours at that age.

My mum had ED. I don't think i do, but have shocking eating habits. Tried so hard to do better for my kids.

In a similar situation I stopped buying crisps, biscuits and only had in healthy snacks and she used pocket money to buy sweets etc on way home from school.

I had one session with a dietitian who was very helpful and talked about healthy lifestyles and reasons why people eat. This included comfort eating and eating because bored among other reasons. DD encouraged to think what else she could do to take care of herself when feeling like comfort eating etc. she wanted other things to do with her hands/mouth. Things we tried included learning to crochet and joining a choir!

It was a very intense project to get her thinking differently about food and healthy lifestyle but we found it a very helpful approach.

Thank you both so much for your kindness @sprigatito and @rrrrrreatt. It means a great deal.

@rrrrrreatt if you don't mind, may I ask where you accessed the support to help you? I have been thinking for some time that I need some external help and I have wondered about attending Overeaters Anonymous.

Funnily enough DD has been teaching herself to crochet from YouTube tutorials and sings in a choir! Thank you. Did your DD attend the session with the dietitian?

Yes. At the time she herself was concerned about her weight, had been called fat at school and could clearly see my mum etc as hugely obese.

I did not appreciate the session with the dietitian at the time. I was expecting to come out of there with a detailed meal plan that would solve all our problems. I was furious not to have a quick fix answer.

However looking at it as a whole lifestyle choice/big picture, rather than narrow focus on food was certainly beneficial for us. Address the reasons for comfort eating obviously really import too.

Why don't you cut up and apple or some carrots or something for her to snack on whilst you are putting her brother to bed? It doesn't sound like she's being sneaky about it, she's just peckish. If you like her to snack on healthier snacks make it really available to her and the unhealthy things unavailable so she doesn't even go into the kitchen to find other things.

She isn’t sneaking food she is just eating junk and as you say it will be out of boredom and habit. As an adult I do this! I’m often found to have had a couple of illicit chocy biccies at 9pm.

I think ask her if she is hungry- different people need to eat different amounts. Ask her what snacks you could agree on that she could have that perhaps you could buy in the weekly shop.

We’ve always made the children ask if they want snacks/food outside of mealtimes. Only because we can ensure that yes they have the biscuits but they don’t just eat the biscuits but she maybe too old for that now and I know we may be more unusual in doing that

So she's eaten two cookies instead of one, is that really such a big deal? I'd be more cross about her taking something for herself that should be shared. I don't see her snacking as sneaky either you're busy dad's busy she's bored and peckish. Be careful that your view isn't impacting how you see her behaviour around food.

My DD sometimes has hidden evidence in her room that she’s eaten sweets when not strictly allowed. I turn a blind eye. I did much the same and am a perfectly normal weight now with no particular issues with food.