Teenage dd and eating

[GreenBag53]

Dd 13 has closed up last 2 years. She has social media but one of the rules was she hands her phone over every night and we can monitor her social media. No problems with that except I’ve found messages to a friend saying she has a problem with food, and her father forces her to eat. This is simply not true. DH and I (are together) have been concerned for a while but try not to make a big deal of it. She’s never been a great eater, doesn’t eat bread, potatoes, butter, cheese, most meat, cereal, fish and would live off Chinese, chips, bolognese, crisps, grapes and sweets. DH will tell her if she wants a biscuit, then she should have some fruit eg as an alternative or to at least get something healthier inside her as well, this, seemingly she construes as ‘forcing’ her to eat. How do I tackle this?

Kids say all sorts of shit. If you’re monitoring every interaction a kid that age has then buckle up.
Don't poke the bear with eating disorders, if it beds in its the worst thing imaginable. Keep promoting a balanced diet, don’t make it a thing.

If she has social media then you need to check her feed not just her interactions. It may need to be 'disrupted' every now and again by linking to genuinely healthy eating channels rather than stupid faddy influencers.

Mum of dd with and ED here - she has ARFID tendencies, that tipped into anorexia in year 11. I had to save her life as she became so ill she didn’t believe she had to eat to live.

From how you describe it, this sounds like ARFID or ARFID tendencies. Making your dd eat is not going to work for much longer. She will rebel soon and this could be just the start. You really don’t want to be battling eating.

My dd eats very much like you describe. Even the grapes.

Apologise for coming across heavy handed. Say you’re concerned about the variety of foods she is eating and it’s been from a place of love. Allow her to eat what she wants. Talk about a rainbow of foods for the fruit / veg side. When she reaches for the biscuits, light touch, but not every time ‘would you like eg a piece of melon or some strawberries’ with that. Don’t talk in terms of junk or tell her she has a really poor diet. As for different meals / meat etc, eat a eg spaghetti bolognaise and ask her if she’d like to try a bit, make a meal she doesn’t eat with something she does inside. So if she eats sweetcorn, put that a couple of in one meals a week. Perhaps the same meals to bring familiarity and she may eventually try it.

My dd ate a limited range of foods from age 6 until age 14 and then relaxed a lot and now eats almost anything.

For a few years I really thought she’d go into full blown eating disorder but we muddled through. To be honest, I tolerated her eating far more sugar than I “should have” but she had to eat something.

I agree with pp not drawing attention to it and work within the parameters your dd can cope with.

There’s nothing wrong with living off Chinese food … a few billion people do … can you build on it healthily?

Also move sideways a few steps eg My dd LOVES ramen and I can make that with a chicken bone broth and egg noodles and I put out a huge platter of different stir fry and sliced veg and she can build her own meal.

I also looked for healthy switches and made these without comment eg dd was happy to trade kettle chips for the little mini apple rice cakes in the toddler aisle. She also didn’t mind plain homemade popcorn. And over time she decided she likes cashew nuts, breadsticks+hummus and raw carrot batons.

Just slowly stop buying as many sweets and biscuits. Don’t stop her reaching for them. But if it’s not there then she’ll have to make the effort to buy them herself- I told dd that I had bought enough for one week, so she had to make it last until my next shop. I also ALWAYS asked what treat she would like - I gave her one or two choices so she had some control and less tempted to go and buy her own!

If she fancies sweets might she eat a little pot of jelly or frozen yoghurt or dried mango Or a milkshake?

The other thing I did was bought some cheap mini storage jars in a sale - glass ones with bamboo lids. They look so appealing and she was more likely to eat my healthy snacks when I presented them beautifully.

Thanks for your comments, some good ideas. I do limit sweet stuff, never have a lot in as DH and I don’t eat them, but I have to hide stuff because she won’t have 1 biscuit she’ll have 4. She does buy her own with pocket money. She is tall, underweight, fairly active and surprisingly healthy teeth! As for monitoring her social media, I ignore the swearing, the girl dramas and the boyfriend chat etc, but the comments about her dad and food threw me.

Keep a very close eye on this. My Dd is “in recovery” from an ED (anorexia and ARFID) and while the professionals may call it recovery I very much don’t. It started out very similar to your Dd and went smaller and smaller and smaller until she almost died and we spent last summer in hospital. The key is not to lose communication, if you come in too hard you lose the trust. If she’s eating let her, yes she needs some healthy foods but there’s ways to make those work along with her safe foods. You make a big thing it will escalate quickly, especially coming from DH of her backs up. My DD will work with me because I have always been open and honest with her throughout and talked to her like she had an opinion, she hated her therapist, her Dr, her DF and literally everyone else at one point and she still can’t eat in front of anyone but me and sometimes her DF not even her wee sister (recovery, really?!) but despite everything I am keeping her going. The trick here is to keep a weather eye on it and don’t let it get too far, I was asking for help for too long before I got it and it was almost too late, if it wasn’t for a community nurse (not the Gp not the A&E Drs) who stayed up all night and actually delayed going on holiday to stamp her feet for an immediate intervention from the only ED team here Dd wouldn’t be here.

Thanks. She always has tried different food and if she doesn’t like it, fair enough, no problems. I just feel the list of things she will eat is getting smaller and smaller which is making me worry. I need to let it go I suppose, as long as she’s eating!

She’s underweight. My AuDHD dd is similar to Theresalittlewitch right down to ARFID and anorexia. My dd never got diagnosed as she was too anxious to engage and I had to keep her out of hospital as she wouldn’t have coped and we went private. I was told after the event she would probably have died in there due to extreme medical anxiety.

I really cannot wrap my head around why you are attempting to restrict your dd from eating calorie dense foods? If she has these eating patterns, she may very well be ND. People with ND are often extremely resistant to treatment. My dd still hasn’t accepted she’s ill and this started nearly 3 years ago.

I agree with @Mummyoflittledragon
DD has had anorexia for 5 years and her consultant says at this point he doesn’t care if she hits her calorie target eating Krispy Kremes all day as long it’s calories. She’s nearly died many times through restricting.

Maybe she restricts her eating because it’s the only thing she can control because you read her private conversations and presumably every other aspect of her life? I’m sorry OP but seriously? Fair enough to restrict her phone at night but to actively read all her chats?

When you say it like that it does sound bad. I get what you’re saying, when DH and I were 13 our parents had no idea what conversations we were having. We’ve got 4 older kids (in their 20s) so never had this.

4 biscuits and she’s tall and underweight… you are giving her an eating disorder,

I have a 14 and a 16 year old in the house. They eat freely out of the snack drawer, I ask them what they want to eat and that’s what we cook. Yes … Cook. Chinese, pizza, burgers - all those things can be healthy when cooked in your own home.

I think you are both causing damage to your daughter by not giving her any privacy and being punitive with food.