Child stealing food, now needs to lose weight - anyone else been in this situation?

blue_monkey_2

Wow, lots of replies, thanks. I'll answer a few quick things.

She does not get 2 warm meals, she has school dinners and then sandwich/yogurt in the evening if she has had a dinner at school. However, some of the yogurts have quite a bit of fat in them too.

She goes to Brownies and gymnastics, she is not really interested in doing anything else - I've tried to get her into cheerleading, acting and dance, she does not want to go to them. She is not really interested in sports - if she could sit making things all day then she would. She used to swim and we would have crying fits over it so I stopped the lessons, there is no point in forcing a child to do something they do not want to do.

I think I did not phrase what I wanted to say very well. Because she has been stealing the food she is overweight and I do not want her putting more on - either she loses that weight or she maintains that weight until she gets taller.

Regardless if anyone thinks otherwise, if I cannot get clothes, for her age, to fit her waist, then there is an issue. The next few sizes up are too big in the leg, therefore she comes out of the shop upset. She cannot get dresses with zip on, so she has has no pretty party dresses - again, she comes out of the shop upset. So somewhere I have to strike a balance and either way, she is getting upset. I guess I need her to maintain the weight she is until her height catches up - if she can lose some of that then this is great.

She is not the 'fattest child in class' as someone mentioned - this is where part of the problems come from I guess, it is easy to say it is just puppy fat but I do not want it to get ou of hand.

Nikki, you have been very honest with me, thank you - and brave, I thought I would get a slating but I want to deal with this responsibly not just say 'you are too fat, stop eating' when I need to educate her on what she eats and what is in the food she eats.

There is no issue of what she is eating now as there will not be anything in the house - all bad stuff left over from Xmas is being chucked away. Yes, it has been 2 weeks of treats, however, tonight it is all going so there will not be any treats in the house anyway - this was more how I deal with this, with her.

No, we do not get direct payments or anything like that. Young Carers is age 11 here, children go to it when they get to Secondary school and the kids who go all meet at lunchtimes and and after school as they have a unit done up for them, I have already chosen her secondary school for that reason (and we should get in as it is in catchment), that it will get her some space and know of others in her situation, although it is still 3 years away. The friends she has, the parents all work so they get picked up by others after school so they are not able to come to play either - again though, my son tends to put them off coming every again anyway.

Going to have a read again to see what I have missed.

poet123

"Shes only 5 and used to talk about being 'fat' so Im sure by 9 a child would be well aware of their body shape. Im not saying thats a good thing but its life!"

No child of that age would talk about being fat unless she had been exposed to such comments from the significant adults in her life, or been allowed to watch unsuitable programs. To reinforce her view by the actions you detail is storing up real trouble for the future.

claire16c

meritaten wrote: »

Its not made a big deal of?????????????????
food is locked away, she is allowed one treat (what exactly is 'treat 'food'?) a week and you talk of 'allowing her some of HER xmas Sweets?'
sounds like its made a VERY big deal of to me!

Its locked away because she was apparently taking food when she wasnt supposed to be - and of course was picking the chocolate bars over anything else - as a child would. No different than locking a medicine cabinet, and the cupboard where the cleaning stuff is also locked too. Because she wasnt doing as she was told. A 5 year old shouldnt be helping themselves to food of any kind without permission.

Now its locked and shes lost all interest anyway. Well not locked with a key, but has a catch that she cant work out.

Yes I allowed her some of her xmas sweets - if it was left to a 5 year old theyd probably eat the entire bag in 1 go and then not eat their dinner! Its common sense. What kind of parent or carer lets their kid eat rubbish all day long?

Its not really much different to any other children Ive looked after who didnt have any kind of issue around food.

Some other boys I looked after, the mum had to keep the treats on a top shelf otherwise they would have stocked up on them and then not eaten their dinner. They then started climbing onto the cabinets when I wasnt looking!:rotfl:

And no she isnt allowed 1 treat a week. Shes allowed treats on 1 week day, and at the weekend and at ad hoc times apart from that. (and she also has school dinners so they always get a dessert with that, so thats another 5 times) So its several times a week. But shes no longer allowed to get away with stuffing herself with unhealthy food when she was told no! And if youve had a dessert like an apple crumble or pudding or something at lunch time, you dont really need another one after dinner! So its hardly a big deal no.

claire16c

poet123 wrote: »

"Shes only 5 and used to talk about being 'fat' so Im sure by 9 a child would be well aware of their body shape. Im not saying thats a good thing but its life!"

No child of that age would talk about being fat unless she had been exposed to such comments from the significant adults in her life, or been allowed to watch unsuitable programs. To reinforce her view by the actions you detail is storing up real trouble for the future.

Actually its from school friends.

For example, tday in the car she said to me 'Jimmy at school called me fat before.'

Its not adults, its other children.

blue_monkey_2

Food for emotional needs. Not sure on that, she will eat and eat and eat until she is actually sick. I think she has no concept of 'full' so I limit just what she eats. I have always had to do this.

However, when she is stealing food then I cannot so this.

I will use the word stealing: as DD: 'mummy, can I have a biscuit?' Me: No, not right now, maybe later - she will then take them when my back is turned, not one but handfuls. So, she has taken them when I have told her not to, that is stealing. Just because it is in the house it does not mean she can just have it - the fruit and yogurt is in the fridge and that is open to 'take all you like as long as it is not before lunch/dinner' however, the biscuits are not. However, there have not been biscuits for a while so this is a mute point really. Cereals I have been measuring out.

We do not have sugar covered cereals other than weetabix mini's, everything else is pretty boring tbh. Because of my son's diet, most things are cooked from scratch. Anything that we eat, so can she. We eat bolognese, pasta meals, stews, meat and potatoes, fish, rice, etc... please don't think that she is having a plate of salad put in front of her as this is not the case, everything is home cooked and is pretty much 'free' on slimming world anyway. You'd not even be able to tell to be honest. However, instead of the full fat yogurts she is going to have to have the fat free ones instead - things like this really.

And I'll use the word stealing again because the sweets she was taking were not mine, they belonged to the school and I had them here as we was doing something with them for the school round my house. She knew that they were for the school/church and she still took them - so yes, this is what I would call stealing.

Ravenlady_2

I cant find naff all jeans and trousers in the shops to fit my DD either who is also 9, they all seem to be tailored towards skinny minnies.
My DD is not fat at all, she is kind of thick waisted and has some padding on her thighs and bum but not fat.

Going by clothes sizes is giving a very wrong signal about how young girls should look and weight.

hostertlady

when i was ten i was put on a diet at boarding school...

i have been dieting ever since!!!! on and off on and off for over 40 years......:(.

i wish they had left me alone and i am sure it would have come off by itself but NO......... i was made to eat different food from others and so i felt singled out....... it was awful..........................

you musn't get OTT about it.... make small changes that she wont even notice...... and also encorporate exercise into daily life,,,,, she wont even notice you are 'helping her' xx

good luck...

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If there aren't biscuits, sweets, cakes or crisps in the house, then nobody can steal them/help themselves to them without permission/stuff them down their throat in secret and hide the wrappers.

Even my super skinny DD will pig out at times if the stuff is there, just because it's there. She's a kid. They're designed to seek out sweet stuff and treat vegetables as potentially poisonous, unless otherwise trained. And if there were a punnet of strawberries in the fridge, well she would eat the entire thing by choice above chocolate. But if there's no fruit, only junk, then that is what she will go for.

School caterers don't feed children enough for them to get fat on it. I wouldn't worry about them. She'll get something sweet with every school meal, so she won't need additional cakes or crap when she gets home.

Just alter the general cooking a little, more like yours, and not having the junk in the cupboard means it's going to be a gentle change.

If anyone queries the absence of junk, just say I had the choice of biscuits or strawberries and I thought strawberries were more special. (And tell OH if biscuits are that important to him, to buy them and keep them at work). I would never say the stuff had been banned.


Keep lots of nice fruit, not just soft apples or squishy bananas in a bowl going mouldy.



DD has just chucked three packets of crappy Christmas chocolate in the bin because she's sick of the stuff. And when we went shopping at the weekend, put fruit in the trolley without asking, not more junk. So it's not as if she actually wants it anyway. Although she did ask if she could buy a milkshake - but at least that contains milk, so has some goodness in it.



If you decide to occasionally, by all means get ice cream or chocolate - but don't buy it in advance, just get it on that specific occasion and not make a huge fuss about it. Just enough for that one snack, not tons to be sitting there tempting her for the next week.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

poet123 wrote: »

"Shes only 5 and used to talk about being 'fat' so Im sure by 9 a child would be well aware of their body shape. Im not saying thats a good thing but its life!"

No child of that age would talk about being fat unless she had been exposed to such comments from the significant adults in her life, or been allowed to watch unsuitable programs. To reinforce her view by the actions you detail is storing up real trouble for the future.

Actually, she would have learned that from school 'healthy eating'. As per my underweight child who refused to eat fish afterwards because the teacher said fish was unhealthy, not realising that the children would interpret all fish as being bad for them, not that a diet of nothing but deep fried fish wasn't suitable. Plus the playground.

There's not much worse than being the fat kid in school. Especially if everyone else sees it, but the person who could help you not be fat refuses to see it.

The OP deserves credit for stopping this in its tracks now and not when the child has dinner money and three shops to walk past on the way to high school (as the crap quotient increases exponentially then - but for most, does decrease after the first couple of weeks).

blue_monkey_2

poet123 wrote: »

"Shes only 5 and used to talk about being 'fat' so Im sure by 9 a child would be well aware of their body shape. Im not saying thats a good thing but its life!"

No child of that age would talk about being fat unless she had been exposed to such comments from the significant adults in her life, or been allowed to watch unsuitable programs. To reinforce her view by the actions you detail is storing up real trouble for the future.

I have to disagree I am afraid. My friends DD was, if anything, slightly underweight and started coming home from school saying she was fat and stopped eating lots of things. Turned out another girl at school was picking on her for being 'fat' but the girls mother was actually anorexic and hardly ate a thing, turned out the daughter thought this normal too and taunted the girls who were fatter than her. Which was most of them. She was 5 as well.

It is what their peers pick up as well, and unfortunately, you cannot stop them talking to everyone at school and this is where a lot of the comments come from.