At wits end with packed lunches

[eenymeenyminyme]

DD16 refuses to eat sandwiches at school. We've tried pitta, wraps, etc but they just come home coz she 'didn't fancy them'.
She likes the idea of school dinners like her friends have but I can't afford the £50+ a month that it would cost.
I do put some money in her lunch payment account and she spends it on muffins which she'd happily eat for lunch every day but that's just not nutritionally sensible.
She's got me over a barrel as I either give her food and she'll bring it home or I'll give her money and she'll eat muffins or I give her nothing and she'll not eat anything.
What can I put in her lunch box to tempt her to eat sensibly, which isn't bready?!

I don't think you can do anything. You buy a selection of items for fridge that she says she likes, add maybe £5 per week into account. What she then chooses to do with the food or money is up to her.

At 16 years old she should be able to voice to you what foods she would like you to buy for lunch, add to shopping list herself, and work out if and when she is hungry.

IWillWearTheGreenWillow cross post. I'm sorry that you've had to go through this and am trying to prevent my vulnerable daughter from having to go through it too.

assume those who are suggesting she can just go hungry haven't had to deal with anorexia.

As neither have you, if she was anorexic the answers would be quite different.

If she doesn’t fancy the sandwiches has she said what she does fancy to eat?

I’d stop giving her money to spend on shite and tell her if she tells you what she wants to eat you’ll buy that and she can make her own lunches.

Let her eat what she wants - she's 16, she knows what a healthy diet is, she chooses muffins, let her eat muffins. She'll spend her own money on unhealthy food anyway....

When she starts to see negative effects of a poor diet - weight gain, bad skin, leathargy - then she can choose healthier food.

She isnt anorexic and even if she was making a BIG DEAL out of feeding her is not going to make it better (yes I'm anorexic and bulimic)

You're being ridiculous OP.

Let your 16 yo make their own lunches. It's not rocket science. There;s no need to "tempt her to eat" she's 16 Years old, not 16 months old.

SHe just is pushing her luck by wanting crap food, like most teenagers do.

Provide good food at home that she can make herself...and leave her to it!

Making off hand comments about a disease as serious as anorexia, and implying that your child might develop this, just because she doesn't want sandwiches in her lunch is a bit ... thoughtless of you.

All she's ding is wanting to choose exactly what she has for lunch, which at the moment is muffins and school dinners, like her mates...

At 16 but her vitamins and leave her to it. Have plenty of food options in the house. If she eats muffins she eats muffins. I would try and find the £50 though, it’s quite reasonable for a whole month of lunches.

Honestly trying to "tempt" her to eat sounds like a pressure that is more likely to cause eating issues than leaving her to it. Offer her options, allow her to suggest things to buy, give her a budget to but items then step back and allow her to choose. If she doesnt eat lunch she can eat at home.

My yr7 ds doesn't do lunch at school, eats straight through the door at home afterwards. My dd yr9 spends ages making bento box style salads and loves leftovers. I encourage them to eat when they are hungry.

@eenymeenyminyme, I apologise for shouting. I understand you are concerned about your DD, but I think you need to ask the following questions:

1. what makes her vulnerable to anorexia particularly? Being 16 and having exams are not specific risks in themselves. Mitigating those perceived risk factors will be more effective that trying to dictate her eating (which is more likely to backfire).
2. Have you any evidence at all that her eating is disordered? Choosing muffins over a salad bap is not disordered eating.
3. is there any other evidence something is wrong? Change of mood, increasingly secretive / alone, not working, not engaging with things she used to love, avoiding friends/family, always have "just eaten"?
4. Honestly, we were told that if anorexia is going to occur the thinking now is that it's something in the brain that just tips, most likely during the febrile teenage years when hormones are raging and everyone wants to fit in but be special and unique. There are certain personality traits that often align to it, but it can't be predicted any more than it can be guarded against with particular behaviours, because it's an illness.

So what this boils down to is that you want to show your care for her by making her nutritious lunches, which is entirely a positive thing. Unfortunately, she's 16 and that doesn't register, and to fit in with the group she'd rather eat muffins or go hungry than fish a sandwich out of her bag. That's an evolutionary trait, to make yourself part of the herd where you're safest from the lions.

If she's eating well at home, I honestly don't think you need to worry. Nagging her to eat well-balanced lunches you've prepared will never teach her to manage her own food well in the long term.

What's the issue some PPs have with making lunch for 16 year olds? They are doing GCSEs. It's about the busiest, most stressful time of their school years. I happily make DC's lunch in the mornings.

I don't have a problem with it. I merely suggested that since it's causing OP so much hassle, she is at her 'wits end' with it, that perhaps leaving the 16 year old to it would be a move forward.

You say you happily make lunch for your DC's, as do I, but if it were quite do problematic as OP is finding, you wouldn't be happy to do it.

I think perhaps OP is slightly intense. She wants to micro manage what the DD eats and has used the fact that none of us have experience with anorexia against the advice we offered, despite the fact the DD in question isn't anorexic anyway.

She then went on to say, quite a while back, that people were attacking her - more none sense.

I'm sorry but it's all a bit bizarre and over the top. If a 16 year old is refusing to eat what you make them it is perfectly feasible to suggest they make it themselves.

@milliefiori "What's the issue some PPs have with making lunch for 16 year olds? They are doing GCSEs. It's about the busiest, most stressful time of their school years. "

Jesus christ, it's not so stressful that a 16 yo can't make their own packed lunch of a morning/evening. Saying GCSE years are too stressful for a 16 yo to make their own lunch is ridiculous! There's something entirely wrong with the 'work/life balance' if a child is that stressed doing GCSE that they can't spend 5 minutes making a sandwich and putting a drink and an apple in a bag/box.

I'll bet the same "stressed" 16 yo manages to find time to make their own drinks, find time to go out with mates, make cakes, make snacks, sit on their phone for hours at a time etc.

If you want to make your 16yo lunch then fine, go ahead - but don't pretend that it's something that is too stressful for them to do

We have experience of anorexia in our family, and the OP is being blase witht he illness.

Anyone who has any knowledge of anorexia will know that it doesn't matter what you put in their lunch... even if they specifically requested those items/picked themselves/prepared themselves and prepared all food in a particular way, put in a particular box with a particular bottle ... doesn't fucking mean they'll eat it....

My two ds's (15 & 17) prefer to take a snack to school, one or two of- apple, banana, crisps, cereal bar, occasionally cold pizza, sausage roll etc - but have lunch when they get home from school at 3.30-4pm. For late lunch they make homemade 'pot' noodles, pasta, sandwiches, toasties, salad or have leftovers. They've both done this since yr7.

Perhaps this might work OP for your dd?

How about making savory muffins? I started making spinach and cheddar ones for baby weaning and have carried on making them for me! She should be able to bake them herself with whatever ingredients she likes the sound of.

Sorry just spotted pp said savory muffins already ;)

I have a 15 year old son, he won't take a packed lunch and despite having money in his school account often goes without lunch.

He is invariably too busy at lunch time, no doubt playing football.

I used to angst over it but I don't know, he'll eat when he's hungry and often gets home from school and does a teenage version of the hungry caterpillar

Why do you think she isn't she eating the sandwiches? Is it because she doesn't like them, because she wants to restrict her intake, eat healthy or wants to eat with her friends. Are you concerned that this not eating lunch is the beginnings of an eating disorder or not? You aren't being clear one minute it's your worried about her just eating unhealthily then it's she's vulnerable and in a bad place

Realistically you can't force her to eat lunch. Even if she is restricting you can't make her eat it unless she wants to.

So find out what does she want to eat? If she wants something healthier what about some sort of salad?

Another option is you just accept she won't eat lunch, so work out what you spend on her packed lunches and already on the canteen and say she has that to spend in the canteen. Or she can buy lunch food and take it from home.

Then obviously make sure she is getting healthy dinners and breakfasts, these are meals you can control at least to a certain extent. If you are concerned about her developing anorexia then tbh I woudnt be too worried about her eating unhealthy lunches. She's clearly getting calories

At 16 you offer the food, they eat it or not. They are fussy beggars and both mine appear to have thrived on the crap food on offer at their secondary school, it definitely hasn’t stunted their growth. They will eat when they want to and as long as family meals are on the healthy side it all balances out in the end.

You are ignoring posts you don't like.

I pointed out my ED started because everyone tried to micro manage what I ate and how much.

When id been away for a few years and returned and had a huge diet variety my mum and aunts were amazed.

I simply pointed out that without the pressure to eat things, certain amazing sand just try stuff I'd actually managed to do it for myself comfortably and things had improved.

It's not about parenting styles. It's a well known fact using food as a reward or making a food a central thing to life is what can cause a bad relationship with it.

But you do as you please

At 16 if she doesn't want to eat a packed lunch then let her starve! In a couple of years she will be legally an adult. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, springs to mind here.

She can get a job and pay for her own lunches. I ate chips for lunch almost every day in high school and survived lol (and have never been overweight). Just be sure to give her healthy breakfast and dinners.

I'd buy muffins from the supermarket and let her take one each day, cheaper than the canteen, she eats what she wants and then concentrate on other meals at home being nutritious, everyone wins.
I ate crap from the takeaway, or even worse, spent my dinner money on cigs at that age.

OP, if I were you I would listen very carefully to what itsgettingweird is saying. At the moment you are encouraging your dd to think of food as something that causes anxiety and needs to be strictly controlled; from what you tell us about her vulnerability that seems a very unwise course.

I have a somewhat older dd (22) who suffers from severe anxiety, a tendency to self-harm and body dysmorphia which sometimes makes it difficult for her to eat. Her anxiety basically looks around for something to settle on. I think one reason it has never gone into fullblown anorexia may be that food has never been presented to her as something to angst about. We like food, we like eating healthily, but we don't worry much about it, and we don't really notice what other people are eating. I really think that has helped her.

Not saying that people who do develop anorexia necessarily do so because of family behaviour around food or that you could prevent anorexia by just getting everything right. But if you do know someone is vulnerable- best to be careful. Remember, anorexia is primarily about a fear of losing control. Telling your 16yo that she cannot have control over her body and that control is enormously important might not be the smartest thing to do here.

My dd was suicidal.

The Crisis Team made it very clear that I could not keep her safe in the long run by watching her every move. The only way to keep her safe was by handing control to her and then be there when she showed me that she needed support. The hardest thing I've ever done, but years down the line- I still have a daughter.

I’m sorry op, but you are being a controlling parent by wanting to dictate her lunch box, let her make these decisions, then she will eat