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Does your daughter empty the refrigerator, swallow food without tasting it, at any time of the day or night? Perhaps these are symptoms of bulimia, and they need to be taken seriously: 1 to 2% of teenage girls are sick with it today. Let’s look at a few typical situations and talk about how to respond to them.
“Bulimia is a pathology that can be caused by a lack of a sense of security that a girl experienced as early as infancy,” explains psychoanalyst Virginie Meggle. “Perhaps it was the overly anxious mother, whose anxiety was transferred to the baby, or the fact that the father of the child did not help the woman at all. This disease can also be caused by stress due to preparation for final or entrance exams.
Constant pressure does not give young people the opportunity to listen to themselves and their feelings, and as a result, teenagers drink, eat a lot and randomly, and provoke vomiting after eating. Here’s how it can happen.
What should be paid attention to in the behavior of a teenage girl and how to understand that it is time to sound the alarm? Consider the most typical complaints of parents.
“The daughter sweeps food in huge quantities. What to do?»
Pay attention to what exactly the girl prefers: sweets or everything in a row, indiscriminately. The inability to resist and not eat another cake or chocolate bar to drown out the anxiety during the session is one thing, but absorbing huge volumes of completely different foods without controlling yourself is another.
Keep track of what and how much the girl drinks. If several liters of water or tea per day, you should be wary
Bulimia goes hand in hand with the desire to control weight, which manifests itself in following a strict diet or fasting, exercising excessively in order to burn extra calories. Keep track of what and how much the girl drinks. If we are talking about several liters of water, tea or herbal decoction per day, you should be wary. And if the daughter drinks several liters of soda a day — too: perhaps she knows that such drinks have a laxative effect.
Be that as it may, talk to the girl, try to understand what is happening. That way you can decide if it’s time to see a doctor.
“She hides food in her room. Should I stop it?»
Again, if you find a few candy wrappers, a pack of cookies, or a bag of chips, that’s one thing. But if a huge number of packages from a wide variety of food were found in the daughter’s room, there is cause for concern.
Sometimes this behavior is provoked by a conflict in the family: parents constantly quarrel, a brother or sister teases — and joint lunches or dinners become a real test. Unable to cope with her overwhelming emotions, the girl cannot sit down at a common table and closes herself in her room to eat there.
If the daughter has become aggressive or withdrawn and does not want to communicate with other family members, this is an occasion to contact a specialist.
Tell your daughter that you are concerned about her behavior, find out if she needs help.
Drug use can also lead to eating disorders and unhealthy carbohydrate cravings, so if your daughter has become aggressive or withdrawn and does not want to communicate with other family members, this is an occasion to see a specialist.
“She snacks between lunch and dinner, and does not eat anything at the table”
Gnawing something instead of a full meal is a way to kill your appetite, skip a normal lunch or dinner and … lose weight. This is one of the symptoms of anorexia. Often teenage girls eat only sweets and drink a lot of liquids, while they have no desire to share a regular meal with you.
Do not buy a lot of sweets, watch how your daughter looks, especially if she wears voluminous clothes that do not allow you to see a sharp weight loss.
“I saw my daughter make herself vomit”
Vomiting, which can happen both after a bulimic attack and after a normal meal, is a sure sign of anorexia. If you are sure that the daughter herself caused the attack, you need to urgently take her to the doctor. Frequent bouts of vomiting lead to potassium loss and possible heart problems.
“As soon as she leaves the table, she eats again … Why?”
Perhaps we are talking about a bulimic attack that occurs immediately after eating. The teenager’s «brakes fail», and he eats non-stop, especially sweets: cakes, cookies, chocolate. Try not to keep a lot of these products at home. It happens that such behavior is due to the inability to control emotions, hypersensitivity, impulsivity.
There is another explanation. Your daughter is experiencing anxiety, a lack of love and is trying in this way to fill the inner emptiness. You need to deal with the cause — a state of anxiety. Then the consequence — uncontrolled overeating — will come to naught.
Source: Sante.