calling all mums of teenage girls!!!

[lynneylou]

My daughter will be 13 in october and since may this year has gradually lost her puppy fat and has gone from a size 14 to a 10. However, she hardly eats a thing now unless its chocolate! she refuses breakfast and says it makes her feel sick, hardly ever eats her sandwiches at school and doesn't take anything else with her for break. Evening meal, she can never finish, even if I give her a very small portion! I appreciate her stomache has shrunk, but worried how much more it will shrink, she said she was bloated the other day after eating only half a muffin!! is this normal and something she'll just grow out of???

[libby1980]

Losing 2 dress sizes in just a few months sounds quite drastic - have you discussed with her what size she would like to be? i.e does she still think she is overweight at a size 10? Maybe you need to sit down with her and make sure she undertstands that healthy eating and not eating are completely different, and the damage she could do to herself by not getting enough nutrients etc. Does she sounds happy generally or have problems in other areas of her life? I think sometimes people use food as a way to control other aspects of their life that feel out of control. Good luck.

[lynneylou]

thanks for reply, she seems happy, lots of friends etc, I dont think she believes that if she eats normally and healthy that the weight will stay off. Ive talked to her about how not eating will effect her general health, skin etc and even threatened to take her to the dr, but she just responds with it's not my fault if my stomaches', shrunk!!

[suffragette]

I think she has hit that age when appearance becomes increasingly important, so I would advise introducing lots of salads which will help her stay slim, but allow you the comfort of knowing she eats healthily. Chocolate is the last thing she needs if she wants to stay slim, healthy and spot free. I accept chocolate and spots is a bit of a myth, but teenagers still believe it, so use it if it encourages her to eat a little more healthily.

How about giving her a salad sandwich for school and insisting she eats it, or maybe try healthy snacks like sliced carrots and cucumber with baby sweetcorn and provide a different dip with them to add variety.

I suppose a cheeky way to encourage her to eat is to point out she will become constipated if she doesn't eat healthily and this could lead to embarrassing outbreaks of trapped wind at school. I can't imagine a teenage girl would want to experience that in front of her friends.

[libby1980]

Why don't you try these? Or failing this, go see your doctor and ask him/her for some advice on how to approach the subject with your daughter.

http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/info.htm
http://teenadvice.about.com/library/teenquiz/1 5/bleatingdisorders.htm

[lynneylou]

thank you for the advice. believe me i am always trying to vary her lunchbox but 9 times out of 10 it comes home uneaten no matter what!!