DD is about to refuse to eat tea. how do i handle it?

[DisasterEggs]

just had a discussion about what to have. she says she's not hungry and doesn't want anything. I know she didn't eat breakfast and picked at a sandwich at luunch.
she does this sometimes and i don't usually hassle because usually if she doesn't eat breakfast possibly ditches her packed lunch at schol she always eats a good proper meal at tea time.
she does the normal teenagery 'i'm fat' 'my legs are fat' stuff.
i really am fat and have had some eating issues which i have probably passed on to her over the years. so i am watching her.

so how do i handle this evening?

is her weight too low?

difficult -you can't make her eat something though can you?

you ignore the food issue totally and you say let's watch a film together and put out munchies for during the film - crisps, cheese, chocolate

and then you sit down with her and enjoy her company

even if as you say you have given her food issues (which I doubt) you need to not beat yourself up for it, it will not help

take the focus off food and onto the two of you

can you do something vegified or salady for her?

her weight is normal/slim. she is quite active (walks to school and dances) and usually eats at least one meal a day.
would it be unreasonable to get her to sit with the rest of us while we eat, put a meal in front o her, but not say anything else about it? and hope she gets hungry l;ater? or wold that be letting her get away with it

I think you actually need to sit down and talk about the potential issues rather than worrying about tea. One meal missed isn't really going to matter, but you need to sit down with her and work out what her BMI is (assuming she's old enough for that to count - or plot her height/weight on the red book thing), establish she's not overweight, talk about how she needs X amount of the different food groups etc.

What I'm trying to say is get to grips with it now, educate her, rather than let it become a problem.

to elaborate, if she feels the food you're providing is making her fat, can you give her food that she will believe is good for her?

need to do a bit of both the above.

are you a welsh star wars fan?

i agree you need to sit down, talk, develop a family diet that you can all agree is healthy and provides the energy, vits etc. you all need.

despite appearances to the contrary i am neither

yes I would say it wouldn't help to focus on this meal, at all.

Look to yourself - that's the most important thing IMHO. It's more about what food relationships she sees around her at home than about telling her stuff.

Make sure that you eat good healthy meals and show her you enjoy them. Don't put yourself down or obsess about one or more particular body part etc....obviously I know this is all easy to say and very hard to do if you do have weight problems and your own problems with food?

but I really think it's the only proper, long term way to tackle it.

I think that for this evening, Lauries advice is spot on. Don't tackle it at meal times, it just puts too much pressure on and noone wants to eat when they are tense.