Pre-teen always sneaking junk food

Question

My daughter is nine, and over the last few months has been frequently stealing sweets from the kitchen (fridge, pantry, or deep freezer) to eat them in her room at night. There are a variety of reasons this is problematic, not least of which is that she has a milk allergy: she tends to be very attentive to what she should or shouldn't eat, but if junk food is available, she's much less sensible.

We have so far tried:

• asking, ordering, yelling, etc. at her to stop (no obvious effect)
• pointing out that these are terrible food choices (for example, "the reason you have a stomachache is because you can't digest lactose well, and those cookies had milk in them," or "you're in a really bad mood and it's probably because all that sugar is wearing off")
• making her pay her brother for what she stole (she ate all of the candy he brought home from a Valentine's party at school)
• increasing her protein and other-healthy-food intake so she feels more full (this hasn't made a noticeable difference, so I suspect the motivation is more emotional or mental than simply physical hunger)
• A similar question about controlling junk food intake suggests eliminating opportunity and simply not having it in the house. We've rapidly reached that point as she ate her way through the kitchen, and our foods tend to be on the healthy side anyway. But...

I'd like to come up with a solution that involves helping her self-control, because I still want to be able to have treats (a box of cookies, or a bag of chocolate chips to bake cookies from scratch, or candied fruit for a fruitcake) that everybody can enjoy occasionally -- instead, it ends up vanishing from the pantry and we find the empty container later when cleaning.

Answer 1

In a study for the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (Story, et al), researchers looked at the causes of unhealthy adolescent eating behaviors, and they are many! This is some of what you are up against:

• rapid growth means high caloric and nutritional needs
• skipping breakfast becomes a common practice
• many adolescents become less physically active
• kids eat away from home more
• there's a need for peer acceptance
• the family has busy schedules
• junk food is convenient
• junk food tastes good
• junk food is heavily advertised to adolescents
• adolescents associate junk food with pleasure, being with friends, weight gain, independence, guilt, affordability and convenience - it is seen as normal
• adolescents associate healthful eating with family meals and eating at home, and liking healthy food is seen as an oddity
• family dinners decrease in many families to only a few times a week

Your attempts to address the behavior mirror the results of other studies (Scaglioni, et al). Researchers found that restricting what children can eat works in the short term, but in the long term it increases the intake of food, increases eating in the absence of hunger, hampers the ability to self-regulate, causes negative self-evaluation, and contributes to weight gain in 5 to 11-year-olds. Pressuring children to eat was likewise unproductive. Studies where children were rewarded with positive attention for eating healthy foods also resulted in long-term negative effects on the quality of the children's diets and their preference for those foods.

Suggestions that came out of the studies are as you would expect:

• role model healthy eating
• eat together
• don't make kids finish a meal when they say they are full
• choose food well for the family and make rules about where foods can be eaten - make them rules for the house not rules for the child
• choose a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods - choice is important - it gives the child control
• limit TV/ video game time to 2 hours/day
• make healthy foods convenient - carrot sticks instead of whole carrots, bowl of chopped fruits instead of whole fruits - and let them eat as much as they like
• remember that they do need to eat a lot, and that will mean a balance of fats, carbs and protein, not just carrot sticks. As you noted, she needs to feel full.

There are other studies that look at the emotional causes of poor eating amongst adolescents. In one study (Snoek, et al), researchers found that "higher levels of emotional eating by parents were related to higher levels of adolescents' emotional eating." High levels of psychological and behavioral control over adolescents were also associated with higher levels of emotional eating. This suggests that it may not be about the food at all, but about the stress the child perceives and possibly about the way stress-handling is modeled in the family. A follow-up to this study (van Strien, et al) looked at emotional eating and depression in adolescents that might be genetic.

So if a smorgasboard of healthy, convenient, unrestricted foods doesn't help, you might want to look at addressing or alleviating the other stresses in your child's life that might be contributing to emotional eating.

Each of these cited studies is set in the context of many other similar studies which are internally cited. They may be available through your local library or through interlibrary loan from a nearby university library.

Citations:

Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., & French, S. (2002). Individual and environmental influences on adolescent eating behaviors. American Dietetic Association.Journal of the American Dietetic Association, S40-51.

Silvia Scaglioni, Michela Salvioni and Cinzia Galimberti (2008). Influence of parental attitudes in the development of children eating behaviour. British Journal of Nutrition, 99, pp S22-S25.

Harriëtte M. Snoek, Rutger C.M.E. Engels, Jan M.A.M. Janssens, Tatjana van Strien, Parental behaviour and adolescents’ emotional eating, Appetite, Volume 49, Issue 1, July 2007, Pages 223-230, ISSN 0195-6663, 10.1016/j.appet.2007.02.004.

Tatjana van Strien, Carmen S. van der Zwaluw, Rutger C.M.E. Engels, Emotional eating in adolescents: A gene (SLC6A4/5-HTT) – Depressive feelings interaction analysis, Journal of Psychiatric Research, Volume 44, Issue 15, November 2010, Pages 1035-1042, ISSN 0022-3956, 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.03.012.

Answer 2

You have some pretty good answers already, but as someone who struggles with similar cravings, I wanted to answer from the perspective that it might not be strictly a matter of self-control and discipline.

There are several other cravings bodies have that can be mistaken for food cravings. Having low energy can cause a craving for energy-dense foods. You can get low energy from thyroid conditions, clinical depression, asthma, not eating enough calories during the day, sleeping disorders, and a ton of other medical conditions. It happening mostly at night is what made me think about sleeping disorders. If she is craving sleep and not able to get it, that can feel a lot like a sugar craving. It would be worthwhile to discuss your concerns with her pediatrician. A doctor might ask you about other symptoms you haven't even realized are a concern.

It could also be emotional eating. Adults seek comfort food and children do too. It helps you feel better. You might think about emotions she's dealing with and try to address those, especially if she had a large change in her life a few months ago.

On the other hand, it could just be a kid behaving badly. I just didn't want you to neglect possible deeper concerns.

Answer 3

Rather than not making sweets available and offering only healthful foods instead, my gut instinct tells me that it would make more sense to create some structure in sweets consumption. Your daughter is big enough that she will soon be able to buy junk food on her own, and presumably she can already binge eat at a friend's place if the opportunity comes along. Sugar is not unhealthy in itself, especially in children who burn off a lot of energy, but it can be consumed in unhealthy amounts, so it's the amount you need to control. I would actually introduce a sweet snack during the day, such as a couple of cookies with milk. Always have a given small amount of sweets (and if you make them yourself, they can be more healthful), always have it at the same time of day, and make no exceptions. That way, she knows that she will get the sweets that she craves, while it will not be in amounts that are unreasonable. And I would keep the cabinet with sweets locked until she gets into this rhythm. If it works. Maybe I'm completely wrong, it's really a gut level response and I don't know your daughter.

Answer 4

She's old enough that she may begin to understand the health implications of sugary food.

While great as a treat, when eating too much of it can cause

• weight gain
• diabetes
• poor nutrition (because sugar is eaten instead of foods with vitamins and minerals)

You should educate yourself first on why specifically junk food needs to be limited. Then start preaching, honey.

In case she is overweight:

Be careful of the weight issue. If she already is a little bit overweight, she is likely already sensitive to the problem. The other kids may have already made fun of her. If she is not aware that she is overweight, be very careful with this. What I'm saying is don't call her fat.

Answer 5

How about everyone gets to buy one snack item a week? There is also a dollar amount, so the snack could last for a week, depending on what it is and how much is eaten at any time. Every person has their name on their snack.

No one will put up with having their item stolen including the problem snacker, so that may solve the problem and teach budgeting.

Answer 6

It might be too late for this, but we tried a different approach to candies and treats from birth.

We just leave them out in plain sight. Have them if you want, but let us know and never take food outside the kitchen cause nasty insects and things will hunt them down and eat them unless they're on a counter top or something.

Brushing teeth is important after because your teeth want the sugar as well and will decay if they have them and don't brush the crumbs away. They've seen horrid images of nasty teeth and even got a few cavities themselves and had to have them drilled - though that's probably more on our end for not having the strongest and most efficient brushing routines.

In the end our girls kind of just ignore candies and treats and will ask if they can have them. Usually we say - yeah but eat dinner first or something and they go with it. We have only seen stray wrappers and crumbs after insane holidays where there's just candy all over like easter or halloween. But they stayed controlled most of the time and don't see it like this wondrous forbidden thing because it's always been sort of normal in the house.

I guess the application to your situation might be to not lose it over eating candy, but see if you can talk to them about letting you know or not hiding it so you can make sure their teeth aren't going to break down. Maybe if it is just a normal thing and not taboo they will lessen their desire to have it.

Answer 7

Have you heard of the low-carb diet? It really knocks out the cravings. But for it to work, you must drastically reduce the carbs. Not just the sweets -- also the complex carbohydrates. Especially the refined ones. It's not sufficient to up the protein. You have to up the protein AND drastically reduce the carbs at the same time.

Low carb works best when the whole family goes low-carb together.

If your daughter were allergic to peanuts, to the point that you had to take her to the emergency room if she ingested some by accident, you would read labels when shopping and ensure that there were no peanut products in the house.

I would simply stop buying food containing dairy. It's only hard in the beginning.

When we started the low-carb diet, my son's cravings decreased dramatically in less than a week. (And they were approximately as out of control as your daughter's!)