Secret eating advice needed?

[miss mopple]

I have an almost 12 yr old daughter. A while ago I found some manky butter and sugar mix festering in her cupboard in her room. She swore blind she wasnt eating it but I think otherwise. We had a chat about it and I told her if she is hungry or craving sweet stuff she needs to talk to me. I suspected it was timed with my PMT as I know her hormones are synced with my cycle and I thought is was sugar cravings.

Anyway, she assured me that it wouldnt happen again and she would ask before going to the cupboards again.

This week she is away at scout camp. I have house viewers coming tomorrow so went to check her room was tidy. When I stripped the bed under the mattress I found a coke can and an empty packet of chocolate cooking drops that I know I only bought the week before. I looked under her cabin bed and found several crisp packets, ice lolly wrappers and sweet wrappers. She knows she is banned from having food in her room and I only tidied it thoroughly a few weeks ago so I know these are fresh.

I dont give my kids sweets willy nilly, but the fruit bowl is always available and if they dont fancy fruit they can have a sandwich if they are hungry.

I am tempted to just stop buying the treaty stuff but thats not fair on either of the kids and may make it worse.

I knoow all kids go through a sneaky phase, but I really dont like food snaffling.

Can anyone advise as to what to do for the best? Shes at such a hormonal stage of life that I dont want to make life difficult for her, but I cant have her raiding the goodies constantly.

[alwaysright]

sorry havent got advice about how to stop it but just to say both my teenagers did this, both boys. i used to find wrappers everywhere, one even took to taking up bowls of cereal and couldnt be bothered to take them down so would put them inside one of his drawers (as in chest of drawers) with clothes over and then fill and old school bag with wrappers that was inside a wardrobe......i said why???? i takes more effort than putting it in the blooming bin!! but obviously he couldnt do that cos then i would know he'd sneaked it!! i basically cut right down on stuff or i would also hide stuff that i didnt want them sneaking!!

[Zoomie]

I constantly find this type of stuff in my DS(12)'s pockets etc too. Every opportunity he has to munch something sweet he does.

We also have a rule of no eating upstairs, and I know that he doesn't do this, thank goodness.

I am not really sure what to advise .... we don't have much in the house in the way of 'treats', so he get them mostly from friends. When we do have treats, we all share them.

It's not actually a battle that I want to fight right now. I would prefer if he ate this type of thing after a meal but at least he isn't littering the street either.

(sorry, not really any help but at least you know there are others in the same boat)

[Rain or Shine]

As a teen I went through this, I was so hungry when I got home from school and mum would say no to snacks before tea. She eventually moved to letting me have 1 snack when i got in but i always snuck more. One thing i will say is that i stopped doing as much physical exercise and put on alot of weight after this so it is something that needs managing. Maybe have ceral bars or something in so its more filling but not as unhealthy as lots of crisps.

Its a habbit i have never been able to get out of and now i use it as comfort eating. I am now 26 by the way.

i hope they you guys can sort it out and she grows out of it x

[sarah707]

DS's room is full of sweet and crisp bags and biscuit wrappers and coke bottles and those dreadful energy drinks cans however much I try to stop him and ask him to eat healthily...

He is very lucky though he has good strong teeth (so far) and doesn't put on weight as he plays football a lot.

If your dd is weight conscious you could try talking to her from that angle - but there's another can of worms you might not want to open!!

Otherwise maybe buy healthier food so she can only snack on things you want her to have and lock away the rest.

Good luck xx

[mushpea]

as a kid I wasnt allowed many sweet things so when I went to high school and had my own money I was always buying sweets to munch, it was a novelty to start with then a habit,, I did put on weight but then when i started work it was a 7mile round bike trip and I quickly lost it!
I have a snack cupboard with goodies and healthy bits in plus the fruit bowl is there when they want it,,my daughter will come in from school and go for the sweet stuff (she is definatly hormonal) and my son will look at it all and rather have savory biscuits.
like others have said in your situation I wouldnt buy and sweet treats for the cupboards, maybe keep some savory biscuits or ceral bars then buy them treats when only when you want them to have them,, you could even explain to her they reason you are doing this and that everyone else is missing out because of her behaviour.
just a thought but could this be an emoitinal thing, ie is she being bullied at school and comfort eating?

[sillysausage]

My youngest seems to be going through this phase too but he's 16. I was really annoyed with him yesterday morning as I was putting together a picnic lunch for the mindees and I found that he'd eaten at least 12 packs of crisps and a similar number of chocolate biscuit bars (penguins and similar) since I went shopping on Saturday. As he stayed out at a friends on Saturday he'd eaten that lot in 3 days He was still in bed when we went out for the day yesterday and so I left him a note and some money and told him he needed to walk to the supermarket (only a mile away) and buy some replacements being as he had been inconsiderate enough to eat them all.
Think I'm going to have a box of things labelled for mindees to ensure I have enough to last the week

[miss mopple]

Thanks all. Its reassuring to know its not just happening here. It's clearly an age thing.

I do have a tin that is always full of cereal bars etc. Time for another chat when she gets back from camp I think.

[Dragonfly]

Sorry, but I think it is normal behaviour of a teenager.We cant always dictate what they eat and all teenagers sneak food as they know we are going to approve.There is alot of worst things they can be doing.ignore it.

[miss mopple]

Mushpea- I dont think its an emotional thing, but its definitely something to be aware of. She has had issues in the past with school friends (the girls are a nightmare, bickering one minute, best buddies the next ) but things have settled down lately and she's been enjoying school. She starts seniors school next month so I am on the watch for worries about that but she seems excited by it so hopefully it wont cause her many problems

[FussyElmo]

My dd was doing this but when she started seniors and you could buy "tuck" I have started giving her a set amount of money each week and she can buy what she wants out of it. I know sometimres she goes the shop, ice cream van etc. It stopped the food cupboard raiding and it gave her control over it. The holidays are the worse as if I give one money for the shop they all want so I have started to take her and letting her choose the treats still a bit of control.

[onceinabluemoon]

My older sons were the same, one was so bad that he even stole his baby brothers Halloween stash! I locked the kitchen in the end as we were on a fixed (low) income and I couldn't keep up with what he was stealing as it left us with no food at the end of the week.

However this taught me a bit of a lesson and with my youngest two I have a couple of tubs that have sweet stuff in (choccie biscuits etc) and they can have one thing of their choice after each meal or if they get really peckish. They have never stolen food as they have control already. They eat like horses!

I cant tell you what to do with your dd but I have made every mistake in the book with my bigger ones and have used that not to make the same mistakes with my younger ones. I am less controlling and let them have far more say in their lives. Mine are a bit older as you know but I've always done it and with them it worked. Would it be worth a try maybe?

(Think about when you were a teenager and drinking alcohol was so exciting before you were 18 but once it became legal it lots some of the pizazz - not that I drank under age of course! )

[kindredspirits]

I used to sneak snack food when I was about 10-11ish, I went to a childminder after school as my mum worked but I would leave the living room window open just a teeny bit so I could climb in and take food etc after school (my childminder let us play out, this was prob 15 years ago so i think things were less strict then, she had about 10 kids after school in).

When I went to boarding school at 11 we were allowed to spend £6 on 'tuck' at the beginning of term and every exeat, which was probably once every 6 weeks or so - so I learnt very quickly to start to budget what I ate to make it last. Perhaps you could do something similar, allow your DD to choose say £5 of sweet stuff once a month or so which is hers to keep in her room, but explain that this will be her sweet stuff for the month and you don't expect things from the kitchen to go missing if she eats it all within the first week.
With any luck she will feel so pleased with the priviledge of being allowed her own stash that she won't jepordise it by raiding your kitchen cupboards when she runs out!

[nic t]

Thanks all. Its reassuring to know its not just happening here. It's clearly an age thing.

I do have a tin that is always full of cereal bars etc. Time for another chat when she gets back from camp I think.

Unfortunately cereal bars aren't the same as that lovely bar of chocolate, I wish they were!!!

I used to do this when I was old enough to buy stuff from the shop as we didn't really have it indoors so I couldn't sneak it away, but did if it was ever there!!! I think if it is abit of a forbidden thing (sweets, choc, crisps etc) then it becomes a big issue and you just want it. None of my other friends who had free access to this stuff indoors were like it and unfortunately I am still the same at times now!

I wonder how she would be if she did have free access? In that she had a box in the cupboard with just stuff for her? (including some chocolate and crisps) Maybe it would become less of a temptation if the stuff was there and she might just have the odd thing everynow and again? Obviously if she at the lot within a day you'd have to rethink but might be worth a go.

[The Juggler]

hon, i've read this post a few times now as new replies appear. Just a thought - I know teenagers do tend to have secret stashes of junk and I've not heard of a teen that doesn't at some stage, but is she eating properly the rest of o the time - mealtimes etc? just keep an eye in case the stashes are for binges which might be linked to bulimia. sure it's not but worth keeping an eye out for the signs of running to bathroom after meals etc. just to rule it out.

[miss mopple]

Hi Juggler, yes she does eat normally usually. She has a very healthy appetite and has well balanced meals. She doesn't pinch it in quantities where I am worried about eating disorders, I think its more just boundary pushing, but it definitely something to be aware of so thankyou. She does get up in the middle of a meal sometimes for the loo but she has a very weak bladder (suffers from UTI's) so Im sure its not suspicious.

I was heartened to hear from DH that at camp she is actually leaving the biscuits in favour of fruit this week

[The Juggler]

Hi Juggler, yes she does eat normally usually. She has a very healthy appetite and has well balanced meals. She doesn't pinch it in quantities where I am worried about eating disorders, I think its more just boundary pushing, but it definitely something to be aware of so thankyou. She does get up in the middle of a meal sometimes for the loo but she has a very weak bladder (suffers from UTI's) so Im sure its not suspicious.

I was heartened to hear from DH that at camp she is actually leaving the biscuits in favour of fruit this week

that's good news

[Sindie]

Hi I used to do a similar thing sneaking chocolate and sweets to my room. Until I was about 16 I was a gymnast and was not allowed sweets more than once a week. I wanted them because i was not allowed them. In the endure mum started to make cakes that I could have if I wanted a sweet snack as she knew what was in them it was not so bad and because I was allowed some thing I stopped sneaking around.

I hope you sort it out good luck

[Rubybubbles]

sounds very normal to me

My family still rib me as I used to hide packets of smash!(I know gross, couldn't touch the stuff now lol) and pop it in my mouth dry! Mum brings it up everytime we have a big family get together (I'm 31 now )

Hope it's just a phase x