teen with bad eating habits

[FlightlessDuck]

If she is eating because she is stressed. you need to find out where her stress is coming and help her find ways of dealing with it or eliminate the stress all together. If the stress is from school work being too hard, get her help with her school work. If she is doing too many things, think about cutting out an extra-curricular activity. Maybe talk with the school guidance office or even seek out counseling.

While it is important that she learns healthy eating habits, fighting the symptom (eating) without fighting the cause (stress) isn't going to help. She will continue to eat and hide it, causing her to remain unhealthy AND have her feel guilty about it. Or worse, she will steer toward other stress relievers, like alcohol, drugs, or sex.

 

[Cooky]

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[portocall]

For me, the more my mother brought it up, the more I ate. Truthfully, I was to skinny until I hit 13. Then I gained 20 pounds in a year, along with curves and inches in height. But all my mother saw was the numbers. I thought I was the fattest kid on the planet though. When I see pictures of me at 14, I was perfect. Not overweight at all, but since I thought I was I was stressed out about it and ate more. Now I am overweight, but losing so heading in the right direction 20 years later.

I think that if the focus is not on her you might have better luck. One thing that I don't know that I would allow is for her to refuse what is for dinner and replace it with what she is replacing it with. I don't buy quick frozen foods and snacks. Those are too tempting and too easy to make.