children dieting/anorexia

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My 8 year old has always been funny about food and had periods of refusing to eat and being very restrictive.

Im very worried about her, she has been increasingly restrictive about her food the last few months. I had been thinking she was not eating her evening meal as she was eating lots of 'school diner' as she always said how much she loves school dinner and how its delicious. However at her recent SEN review I found she does not eat harldy any dinner and her TA battles with her to make her eat one or two mouthfuls. So she is eating much less in total than I thought.

She is getting noticably thinner and has sunken eyes and Im very worried about her.

Ive talked with her about how important it is to eat and about the vitamins in the food and whilst she agrees with me and makes clear she is understanding what Im saying she still wont eat her meals. She fears being fat and thinks her face is fat and her thighs and bum are fat and does not want to grow up.

Im not sure what way to tackle it and what will make it better and what will make it worse.

any advice appreciated.

It might help if you weren't so worried about your own weight, and about slimming. Children copy their parents, especially their fears/insecurities and preferred coping mechanisms.

I know that you don't have much money and so can't always or only eat the best foods for natural effortless weight loss ( and good mental and physical health generally ), such as meat and fish and fresh vegetables, but perhaps if you were to stress the health giving aspects of such food, ( high fat meats and oily fish and eggs and so on ), rather than concentrating on the "slimming aspect" of reducing your calorie intake of ( inherently fattening ) carbohydrates she might start to eat more. It may be that she sees food in general as a threat, because you do.

For instance if you explained to her that eating as much as she liked of meat, fish, and eggs would not make her fat, ( and focussed on eating more of those things yourself, such as tinned tuna, frozen fish, ham/pork and other cheap meat/fish, aswell as eggs ), and made it clear that it's almost exclusively the carbohydrates ( especially glutenous cereals, and foods high in fructose such as fruit juice, soft drinks ), that are the problem, she might begin eating more of those essential things again ( meat/fish in particular ).

Good luck!
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Last edited by ouinon on 16 Nov 2010, 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

yes I explained to her about the nutricious aspects of food and all the things in your post and she agrees and appears to understand but carries on restricting her food. I give her healthy meals and say to her that she will not get fat eating her meals as they are healthy and say that its the fatty crisps and cake which makes people fat, not chicken breast and brocoli but she wont even eat her veg (which I know she likes as she has eat before). Its not a lack of knowledge about what is healthy food as she knows that.

I do recognise that me and her nana being obese and trying to loose weight will effect her. I was very scared of being fat as a child as I was revolted by my mothers fatness and so know it has a negative effect. However I cant not try to loose weight or magically be thin all of a sudden so that she cant see me looseing weight.

What reason does she give for not eating meat/fish, eggs, and veg etc? What is her take on why she is eating so little?

Its very tricky as she lies baout it so much, she claims to agree with me (about the health benefits etc) and then leaves her meal. She claims to eat her school dinner but I find she has left it. If I ask her why she wont eat it she says she is too stressed, other times she says she has been put off it by something (a womans face, a joke by her sister, seeing a fruit fly in the kitchen). Other times she says its cos her face is too fat and her bum is too fat.

Its the lack of protein that bothers me the most, she wont even eat things she used to be mad on now.

I asked at camhs when she had her mental health review but she just lied to the camhs worker and said she was eating and they believed her. Ive got another appointment with them on friday so I will bring it up again and on next tues I have her psychologist from a specialist centre and I will ask them too. But in the mean time I think its good to find out other tips esp as holding out for help from profecionals is often futile.

Last edited by lotusblossom on 16 Nov 2010, 6:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Does she see you apparently only eating such "good" food, meat, fish, eggs, veg, etc, and still gaining or not losing weight, still worrying about it?

If that is what she sees she would have reason to think that even meat, fish, etc make you fat and avoid those too.

Do you in fact only eat the foods that you say are "safe"/good? She may think, "If so why are you still worried about your weight"? Or do you eat other food, carbos etc, at other times, when she isn't around for instance?

She might reasonably/logically think that if you still worry about your weight while only eating supposedly good foods that she risks putting on "too much" weight if she eats almost anything.

Do you sometimes/often think/believe that yourself, that whatever you eat you put on "too much"?

PS. I have met you and I don't think you are overweight, I thought you looked wonderfully sensuously curvy.
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Last edited by ouinon on 16 Nov 2010, 6:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have a binge eating disorder and eat crap in binges but have a healthy diet in regualr meals. I have brought this up with her as we had this argument before as she thought fruit made you fat as me and her nana ate lots of fruit, but after explaining to her it was the cakes and crisps we ate that made us fat she agreed and said she understood but still is restricting her food. She has seen me binge on cake so knows that I dont just eat healthy food. Ive explained to her that cake/junk is like cigarettes and addictive and unhealthy. She saw me struggle to give up ciggarettes so it was a realistic comparrison for her and she seemed to understand.

my elder child has recently gained weight with puberty and I think that has worried the 8 year old as the elder looks very different (but normal just a woman shape rather than a skinny child shape). the elder has a good appetite and eats her dinner and I think this reinforces the idea that eating your dinner makes you fat.

Last edited by lotusblossom on 16 Nov 2010, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think as well she is very stressed from school. I think she is upset about the break up of my relationship as it definately seemed to get worse from then and she was very close with my ex bf, but she wont talk about it at all. I dont know how I would make her less stressed about school and less upset about the break up of my relationship esp when she wont talk about either (or talk about the food).

It sounds as if that is the problem, that she sees you eat the supposedly healthy stuff and yet you still worry about your weight.

I suspect that she will continue to restrict her food until she grows up and moves away and reexamines this eating pattern independently, or until you manage to kick the foods that you are addicted to/keep bingeing on, ( fructose, gluten, dairy, etc ).

It's quite scary how children imitate/pick up their parents' patterns of behaviour. And she is likely to have the same biochemical reactions to many foods as you, so is likely to find gluten, dairy, fructose, as much of a problem.

It's not surprising that you don't lose weight ( consistently and permanently ) if you still binge at regular intervals. I still binge on fructose/sugary stuff to some extent/sometimes, but have found that the biggest factor weight-wise is the gluten and the casein. And neither was easy to kick. I have kept going back to casein, saying, oh it's ok, etc, but think I may have finally learned that I'm better off without it, am four weeks cf as a result. But the cravings can be grim/serious, so I totally sympathise with the binges.

If your daughter has similar reactions to foods as you she may genuinely feel "better" in some way when she avoids some of them, but she is probably learning from you that all food is "dangerous", and to be avoided as much as possible.

I have been gf for over three years now, but the longest other time I was gf was almost two years ( a couple of years previously ) and was because I had recognised that the way that I behaved on gluten was destructive not only for me and my mental health, but for my son, because it made me so depressed, hysterical, aggressive, irritable, impatient, etc with him, aswell as his father, and that it had to stop.

PS. Your last post: Perhaps she got the impression that you thought that your "weight" had something to do with the "failure" of your relationship? ... Or did *you* start to worry more about your weight soon after it ended?
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no she knows it was not my weight that was the relationship problem.

I dont think Ive worried more about my weight, but Ive not binged so Ive been looseing weight (tend to binge after social iteraction so being on my own Im not so stressed).

Ive recently been doing a hypnotism program which has ben helpful with the bingeing too but I was careful to play it on my mp3 so as not to influence the kids. (you would like the program as she recomends gf/cf and as I already did gfcf its very suited to me) Its a good program and tackles a lot of the things I have difficulty with such as angry eating and self sabotage.

She also had her TA change.

so I think the cause is probably a combination of stressful things happening and a social and genetic predisposition to eating problems.

However I still dont know how to help her not restrict her food so much.

When and/or what do you eat if you are stressed, or have been put off your food by something, or are thinking that your bum is too fat or your face is too fat?

The only suggestion I have is to provide an example of a different relationship with food ie. change your own eating habits.
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Im not put off food, I tend to eat more when stressed or feeling fat. For several years Ive been trying to model coping with feelings by meditation, yoga and art and writing but everything like that is a work in progress and Im not perfect. As with everything else I shall endevor to try harder.

Just caught up with what you said about her TA change; yes, I can see that having an effect as you say because unfortunately the pressure to be a certain shape and weight is so gendered, concentrated on women. And if her main role model has been a woman who worries about her weight it might almost seem like the "thing to do" to increase the "success" of the TA.

Maybe rent lots of films about big women who love their bodies and/or women eating with joy! "Bagdad Café" and other films which show big women with no complexes? Become actively positive about big round voluptuous women? Put posters up around the house of big women proud of their bodies looking fantastic? Try and find ways of making her see curves as something good?

Is there any food that she will still eat sizeable portions of that contains fat and protein? Introduce food which is full of good fats and important vits and mins which doesn't "look" like much, like nuts, and bacon, make every bite count.

Good luck.
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If you see her noticeably fading away, then I would suggest you act on your very valid concerns and do a food diary over about a week, without her knowledge, but with the cooperation of the school, so you know exactly what her intake is, it could be even less than you suspect. I would then bring this to the attention of her paediatrician, on the pretext of bringing her in for a "general checkup*. Eight years old is not to young to have anorexia, but I believe the younger its caught and nipped in the bud the better the outcome, I'd say her prognosis would be very good.
Examining the why s and the wherefores, especially regarding your own food issues,( and so many of us have them) is something to work on in the longer term. Important I agree, but her physical symptoms sound like they need dealing with pronto.

An eight year old who has become noticeably thinner and has sunken eyes - I would be very worried too. This is not something that you can deal with by gradually changing your behavior and becoming the "perfect" role model (none of us will ever be able to be the perfect role model). This is a medical problem. Is your daughter restricting liquids as well as food? Is she blacking out? (My daughter went through a phase when she was doing this, and she did NOT tell me that she was blacking out -- they generally won't tell you that).

Your daughter is very, very young for an eating disorder, and the effect on a young child's body can be even more devastating than on an older child's body, since her body is so much smaller, so there are fewer resources to buffer against the injuries she is inflicting on herself.

I would urge you to seek professional assistance in working with your daughter on this. There are many complicated psychological issues that must be addressed, and there are medical issues as well. Both need to be assessed and addressed by people with expertise in this area. It's going to be hard for her and for you - at least for a while. But you have to do it - her life is at risk.

thats a very good idea about the food diary, esp with getting school to do it as then I will have something to show the camhs (children and adolesant mental health services) as its been a difficulty getting them to listen.