My 10 year old step-daughter is obsessed with food. She can't seem to get it off of her mind. She rides the bus home daily to our home (we share custody with her dad week with him then week with us) and she won't even take her jacket off and she's in the cabinets and refrigerator looking to eat. If I do not say no to eating junk and monitoring what she eats, she will literally maker herself a meal just maybe an hour before she's to eat dinner.
When she's finished with her meal normally less than an hour later she's looking in the cabinet or begging to eat again.
It's also quite embarrassing she has a plate/meal of her own (at home OR while we are out to dinner at a restaurant) and she will begin eating off her mother's plate without even asking. It's a bit embarrassing.
When she's told "no" to eating...she sometimes will throw fits, yell and scream, and stomp off to her room like someone is killing her.
She rarely plays outside and is on the chubby side. Her grandmother was anorexic and her my step-daughter's mother is very sensitive about food issues and controlling her eating.
We have offered to go out and do things together, and many times it has been my step-daughters idea - and we won't be out 10 minutes and she's already complaining she wants something to eat.
She's obviously taking in more calories than she is burning as I have noticed her starting to gain weight. She wants nothing to do with exercise as we've recently tried to get her involved in an activity called "Girls on the Run" and others however, she just isn't willing and doesn't want to participate. Neither her bio-dad or bio-mom push rarely her to do anything.
When I have discussed this with her bio-mom she gets a bit defensive and says she plays outside more in the summer and will burn off the calories. She doesn't want to admit her daughter is clearly heavier than the rest of the children her age and clearly has an eating/foot obsession that is getting more and more out of control each year.
Bio-dad clearly coddles her when she throws her fits and even though her bio-mom does not coddle as much, she does reward her with goodies/sweets/candies just perpetuating the problem. I think she's just not sure how to handle it or know what to do TO handle it.
I might add, my step-daughter will gorge herself and throws up on a regular basis at night when she has. Both bio-parents are immune to it and just think that's her and she'll learn to not over-eat on her own when she gets tired of throwing up at night. They make excuses for her saying she's overly-sensitive sometimes and causes her to throw up - when she's clearly over-eaten and gorged herself.
I'm stuck in the middle and feel like when I offer her healthy snacks and have to say "no" to her eating junk, I become set up for being resented because her bio-parents do not. It feels like a very bad dynamic and I worry about my 10 year old step-daughter because she's approaching middle school and has the ability to live a more healthy lifestyle and include more activities. She knows her parents aren't going to make her, so she doesn't even try.
It makes me very sad.