My daughter has always been ever so slightly rounded. When she was born she was at 75th centile for weight and 50th for height. She has pretty much maintained that ever since.

She is at the upper end of "normal" for her weight, but has a round face.

She thinks she is fat as there are girls in her class who are thinner.

I have always encourage her to eat healthily but she does have a sweet tooth. When she was three I restricted sweets to Saturdays - that was always "sweeties day" when I was growing up, and it meant she could still have her sweeties, but not all the time.

I give her a pound a week pocket money to buy her sweets, but my friend also gives her money and her dad gives her money so she always has money in her purse.

Yesterday my two year old opened my nine year old's little bag and started pulling stuff out of it. In there were lots of used chocolate wrappers, which I hadn't seen her eat. She had been to the supermarket yesterday to buy a present and card for her friend's birthday - when I looked through the bag I found a receipt dated yesterday for a Snickers bar. So she had gone over to buy the present, bought a Snickers bar and eaten it before she came home - before tea.

So, I went upstairs and presented her with the receipt. Her face dropped, I asked her very gently "How often have you done this?"

She swore that it was hardly ever, so then I said "So why were there lots of chocolate wrappers in your bag?" She just dropped to her knees and bawled.

I didn't shout at her at all. I gave her a big hug and we had a talk about WHY she only gets sweets on Saturdays and that it isn't just me being mean, it's about me wanting her to be healthy and wanting the best for her. I also told her that when I was a bit older than her I used to hide food too - and look what happened to me.

I am terrified that she has an eating disorder in her future - hiding food is one of the first signs isn't it?

How can I help her?

This is her, BTW.

I think with pre-teens their hormones are kicking in and they do seem to have an increased appetite. I would just reiterate why she only has sweets once a week and if she does feel like sneaking sweets to rather tell you and you can both come up with a plan as to what to do about midweek sweets.

Your daughter is absolutely beautiful! Love that top she has on, too.

I have a little girl who's just the same age, and I so worry about her. 10-12 is the age that the girls in my family all seem to "plump up", and I feel bad all the time that I didn't get my eating habits ironed out properly until just a few months ago. I really wish when she were a baby I had started her on better nutrition. It sounds like you did a better job with that as she was growing up than I did, but luckily my daughter doesn't have a weight problem yet and I'm hoping I caught it in time. She doesn't have a sweet tooth, but the girl can devour a bag of Lay's Sour Cream and Onion chips. She complained at first that we don't eat fast food or pizza for dinner anymore, but now she has gotten used to the healthier meals, but still wants those chips. I do still buy them for her each time I go to the store, but she knows when they are gone, there's no more for awhile. I definitely don't want her to feel like she can't have any treats, because I don't want her to run out and scarf them, hide them, and feel shamed because of food. I'm glad you discovered she was doing this, so that you can clear the air and she can come out of 'hiding'.

The good thing about their age is that we can actually talk to them about it, explain WHY we are trying to restrict them and that it's not to be mean or to punish them. Hopefully now she will be able to come to you when she is really wanting that candy, and you can work together to figure out a plan for when she gets that chocolate craving! Maybe keep a bag of Hershey's kisses or something small like that for her, and let her have one with her tea. I think she needs to know that candy is not evil, and it can be enjoyed by a healthy, active girl -- just in small amounts and with a balanced diet -- and not in secret.

to you, because I know exactly how hard it is to try to do right by our kids and spare them what we have been through with our weight, all while trying to preserve their self-esteem.

^^ Those are some great points shannon - I think you hit the nail on the head with the "candy isn't evil" remark.
Btw, O-H-I-O! (I used to live in Cincinnati ;-))

First of all, I think you did a wonderful job confronting her "gently" about this issue instead of making her feel more guilty .
Second, your daughter is beautiful and doesn't look at ALL even to be on the "chunky" side. It's so sad she would think of herself as fat .

Obviously, it's difficult to judge from the distance and not knowing you or her, but I don't think what's going on is 'eating disorder' scale. She's just a 9-year old who knows what the rules are (only candy on Saturdays) but wants to get away with having it more often. You didn't say what her explanation for doing it was, did she talk about that?
It seems you have a very good connection to her, so as long as she feels that she can talk to you about her feelings, you may be able to find out if she eats candy b/c she just wants something sweet or b/c there is another reason (e.g. is she feeling bad about herself? Does it happen after someone in school is mean to her? etc.). It's important to let her know she can talk to you about these things.
Another thing that just popped into my mind (and this may be totally over-analysing it):
How do you talk about your own weight to her? Obviously you are working on losing some of it, but do you talk bad about yourself in front of her? Could she get the idea from you that being big is not okay and that's why she knows eating candy is "bad"? Little girls get so much of their self-image from their mothers, so by living a healthy example you're already doing a lot of great things for her! But I read somewhere that when the mother is too obsessed with body image issues, constantly talks about it and makes a huge deal of it, it can have negative impacts as well.
Just an example: I used to nanny for a family in the US. The oldest daughter was 12 and thin, but due to severe ADHD very prone to binge-eating - and she LOVED candy. The mother was very health-conscious and the whole family ate VERY healthy (South Beach style). So much of the day was about working out, eating healthy, talking about the over-weight Grandma, etc. One the one hand, the kids had a great example of someone who takes good care of themselves and makes smart choices. On the other hand, I think it got to the point where the oldest girl felt if she wasn't doing the same things, she wasn't "worth" as much. At a birthday party she sat next to her mom and got very upset b/c she realized that her thighs were bigger than her mom's. And again - she wasn't overweight, just bigger built and taller. At that moment, the mom realized that this was not healthy behavior either, and they pretty much changed the way they talk about weight. The mom stopped obsessing about it and they are now just a very active family who eats healthy.

Oh dear, that is a long post . So sorry, I just felt I needed to give the example to maybe better explain my point.
Like I said, it may be an attempt to over-analyze. I think you're doing a lot of things right and if you feed your daughter healthy food, motivate her to play sports and tell her she's beautiful the way she is, she has a great chance of growing up without an eating disorder.

This may be a far stretch, but I'll throw it out there. You might want to take her to the doctor to check if there's an underlying cause for her sugar cravings. I started the stealing/hoarding sweets thing at about the same age and it was because of undiagnosed blood sugar problems. I was self-medicating, though I doubt that I could have articulated that. Good luck...she is beautiful!

Aww! She's gorgeous! I don't think she looks even chunky!

The others have brought up great points! I tend to agree with the fact that it just might be a typical kid sneaking sweets. My kids are 5 and 2 1/2. My son never really had a sweet tooth, but he still LOVES candy. I have caught him sneaking and hiding candy, as well as snack cakes (when we had them in the house) and it was because he wanted some, knew I would tell him no, so he was sneaking them and hiding the wrappers behind his bed.

My friend in high school also hid his sweet-eating. His parents forbade him to eat anything sugary or junky except on rare occasions. My husband was also friends with him (before we were married, we went to school, K-12 together) and said our friend would spend the night and on the way to his house, he'd buy one of those 12 packs of little debbie cakes and eat them ALL that night, on top of the pizza and pop at hubby's house. Our friend was rail-thin too. Still is, and he still lives primarily on junk food now that he's out of the house.

It was the opposite with me. My family was poor. I mean POOR. My mom could only afford cheap, processed food, and was generally too preoccupied with her own issues to cook. We ate takeout and those cheap frozen dinners aimed at kids a lot. As a kid, I thought only rich people ate salad and fresh fruit/veggies on a regular basis. It was considered a "fancy meal" if we had salad, which I think happened twice in my childhood, neither time at my house. I remember being 16, and eating dinner at my boyfriend's house for the first time and they had a salad. I was almost anxious, thinking, "OMG these people are refined and stuff, and here I am..." Seems silly now. My grandparents always had fresh fruit, especially apples, at their house, and I'd eat 3 or 4 in one sitting. My grandparents were alarmed, but because I never had it, it was a luxury, like candy to a "normal" kid, and I couldn't get enough. When I moved in with them (I was 14) they couldn't keep fresh fruit in the house for long, I'd eat it! In fact, I only use junk food and fast food to punish myself, even now.

We allow my son a small treat every night as long as he ate his healthy foods that day. More often than not, my kids won't finish their sweets because they're full, even if it's just a small piece of cake. They don't feel pressure to HAVE to finish it, since they know they'll always have the option of having it as long as they eat their healthy food.

end soapbox, LOL.

I think your daughter is a beautiful and healthy looking young lady. I really don't like to give advice on child rearing- it is all so personal... but I will tell you that in my experience when I see children deprived of things...it becomes more of a want.

A good friend of mine has the same concerns and her child is only allowed the "family" desert after dinner. She doesn't even allow snacking between meals. Well, her child goes CRAZY for food when it is a round, eats her meals like she is starving and steals cookies and candy from multiple places. I feel like she is feeling deprived b/c she has no control and over does it everytime she has a chance.

I wish you the best and do keep your child active and in sports or something. That seems to be key for the young ones.

Stacy

Like it was said before, parenting issues are extremely personal. Also, there is NO right answer when it comes to how we deal with children. However, I tend to be of the school of thought that if you are too strict, you will cause rebellion. If your daughter seems to want more sweets than just on that one day, maybe y'all can come up with a less strict deal in regards to those kinds of foods. Teaching her that it is healthy to have sweets in moderation might be a very good thing. Allowing her to indulge in only 1 day of sweets could also lead to bingeing on sweets on that day. I liked the comment from an earlier poster about giving her a couple of hershey's kisses with tea. That isn't going to wreck her diet and wont add many calories. It will let her have the taste of sweets without being irresponsible with them. Or, if she is really craving sweets, tell her to come to you and if she hasn't had anything bad the rest of the day, maybe you can let her go to the store for a candy bar or something. Of course, it is up to you how you handle it... just my 2 cents

P.S. your daughter is beautiful!

My thoughts on this subject are probably going to be met with harsh criticism, but here goes. It's your fault. When I was her age, I was a beautiful slightly round perfectly normal pre-teen. My mother had issues with her weight and she in turn worried that I was getting overweight so she had me join a weight loss group with her. I truly feel that if my mother had not made me do that, or even implied that there was anything wrong with my weight at all, that I would not have all the problems I have today. I was always told "If you just grow up in size and stay the same weight you'll be fine". What a load of hookey. Your daughter is way too young to be worried about her weight. If it's peer pressure, that's one thing, but to come home and be told that you're only allowed to eat sweets once a week because you don't want her to gain weight is planting the seed for future weight issues.

The once a week idea is good for adults, but kids won't understand even if you try to explain and they say they understand. Her brain is still growing and even though she may seem to understand it's like completely restricting the food group from her life. For us adults, when we try to restrict ourselves we just want it more and end up bingeing. How about asking her for her ideas about when she should get to eat sweets, having her come up with the plan completely that way she will feel more in control of her cravings for sweets.

Your daughter is beautiful and I see nothing wrong with her weight. I think we as adults tend to worry too much about our children because of our own problems and that leads to them having issues no matter how good the intentions or how sweetly we talk to them. Let her be a kid, let her not worry about what she eats as long as you provide good healthy choices for her to make for herself at home.

As a mother to a 13 year old obese child, I will accept HALF the fault. I wish I had placed MORE restrictions on her growing up than I did. I wish I had kept the junk out of my house and almost inaccessible to her. I wish I had taken the choice away from her completely.

It backfired on me.

There is no indication that OP's dd gets criticised at home about her weight. There's a strong indication that she has a healthy lifestyle modeled for her. And if you have ever suffered from cravings, as an adult, you know how hard it is to "control" them so how can a 9 year old child do it?

OP I wish I had some wisdom for you, but I don't. Communication, communication, communication and hopefully you can resolve the root issue.

As a little girl I did the same thing, and it spiraled out of control.

What would have helped was an understanding parent that did not punish, but was gentle, understanding, supportive, etc.

You did a great job handling this situation!! It almost brought me to tears to hear you didnt scold or yell and gently counseled her, while explaining why.

There are a couple additional things you can do:
- let your daughter know that she can always come to you without fear of retribution or punishment on this issue. fear wont work to make her adhere to the saturday rule, just make her hide it. so let her know if she has trouble adhering to it, she can talk to you about it and you will help.
- read the book: The End of Overeating. It really helps you understand the brain's relationship with sugar, fat and salt. It will help you change other parts of your child diet to set her up for reducing the sweet tooth.
- even before reading the book, do some obvious stuff. cut out any high glycemic foods. make sure your household isnt too carb rich (we all need carbs, but choose really good ones and not things that metabolize so quick they mind as well be a snickers bar). id even reduce the fruit, not cut it out, but reduce.
- if you have ever had this struggle, tell her! tell her she isnt alone, and that its normal. she must feel so isolated and different. poor thing.
- try to help her find some friends of all sizes/colors/ethinicities/religions/etc, outside of school.
- if she isnt involved in sports, get her involved. make sure she understands it isnt because she needs to lose any weight. it is because girls in sports have higher self confidence by being more connected with her body, knowing its not just there to look good but to move her around efficiently. let her pick something, and switch if she doesnt like it to another sport. - remind her all the time of how pretty she is.

Again, you did an amazing job handling a very hard situation. You sound like a great mom

First of all your daughter is just BEAUTIFUL and not fat at all- most young girls have a round face and when they get older it slims out. It's part of their charm

I don't think it's entirely the OP's fault but maybe you could introduce your daughter to other things that are sweet but good for you!

She loves chocolate- but what about fruit? How about every night after dinner she gets a snack of fruit? Grapes, strawberries, an orange? My husband used to snack on candy bars and chips, I changed over to fruits and now he LOVES fruit- he craves those instead of the candy- it did not happen overnight but it did happen gradually. I was so proud when the past few weeks he STOPPED buying chips and then told me I didn't buy enough fruit the week before! Talk about being scolded for a good thing for a change!

Second thing- how about instead of 1 sweet a week you do like a mini candy each night AS LONG AS she eats all her food from dinner and does her chores and hw? Then buy those mini candies like the halloween sized fun treats and she can have ONE mini snicker or something per night.

Or how about a sugar free fudgsicle now and then?

It's great you can talk to her about it but something has to nip it in the bud before it spreads!

And I'd also explain to her that people come in different shapes and sizes and that even though she has friends that are slimmer than her she is by no means fat.

Girls are entering puberty at VERY YOUNG AGES these days. Maybe she's entering puberty. I craved sugar like crazy when I began puberty as well as my sister who was of a normal weight until adulthood.

My parents also only allowed us sweets one day a week...Sunday. I still snuck them, my brother & sister did not. I was an overweight kid/teen/adult. My Bro & Sis had no weight issues until adulthood...when they started indulging in whenever they wanted.

I think it's BS that people think you should feed the sugar monster. I think you are doing a great job at trying to modify her sugar intake the best you can. As a parent it is your responsibility and your right to teach your child moderation or abstinence when it comes to any addictive substance wether it's food/drugs/alcohol. Just keep helping her understand. It will either click or it won't, but until she lives independently, she should follow the rules of the house.

She will thank you someday, unlike many of the Chickie's I read about here that blame their parents for never teaching them about nutrition or moderation.

Your daughter is a beauty BTW!

You know what? 9 year olds tend to put on weight in preparation for puberty. I know people who've asked their doctors about it and the doctors told them not to press the weight issue. You know what else 9 year olds do? Sneak candy. I don't think this is anything to worry about in terms of an eating disorder and unless her doc comments about her weight, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Obese kids are truly obese and not " a little chunky". If there were mounds of excess body fat accumulating I would worry about it but getting a little chunky at this age is surely in preparation for how much energy her body will need to grow in the next few years.

My advice, reassure her on her weight and why her body needs a little weight at this age and re-instill why you focus on healthy eating, health reasons not vanity reasons. Let her slide this time on the candy and let her know it's ok to have a craving and ask for a piece of candy, NOT ok to sneak candy. Encouraging her to ask for candy will allow you a chance to teach her to reach for something healthy and sweet, like a piece of fruit.

Im not going to offer any advice - I just don't have any.

I do have a question though to the parents of kids that age . . . . why are you talking to your kids about weight as it is? I don't mean if they are actually obese, that's different. I mean for a child such as OP daughter, she looks perfectly fine to me . . . . so why make weight an issue at all? I woulndt have understood the connection between weight and healthy at that age, I would have just thought ok being bigger than other girls is bad and it's not normal.

I guess I'm wondering why, with a child so young and not in the obese or what seems to be overweight category, bring up weight at all? Eating healthy so they can grow strong, be able to run and play sure, but why add in the pressure - intentional or not of having to be in a certain number range too?

Im not trying to sound judgemental at all, though I'm sure it comes off like that, I'm just honestly curious about it.