My little girl is sick, something is wrong

[emilyg123]

my daughter is 6, weighs 78 pounds, and has been heavy for most of her life. It is becoming more obvious that is is something serious. When she was 12 months old , she would go around the table and finish off everyones food when they were done. Take food away from the dog, and at 2 yrs I found bowls of potato salad and chicken legs hidden in her room.  Itook her to the dr and had her tested for all kinds of things, they said just to put her on a diet and also gave her a laxitive to take everyday because she had a bowel impaction. It is getting worse, and its not ONLY the wanting to eat everything in the house... She will be watching TV and rewind a commercial that has food on it , so she can see it again, she loves to watch cooking shows , but it is more than an interest, it is an obsession. FOOD is an obsession. We were having dinner last night , grilled chicken salad , and she was staring me up and down , I asked her what is the matter, and she said that she loves the crunchy sound that croutons make when you chew them. I have no idea what to do . I am wondering if it is emotional or is there a medical condition that could cause this. She was born with an atrial septal defect and a 3.5 millimeter tear in her heart, ( it repaired itself)  she also has allergies and has to be on immunotherapy. How could a child as young as 12 months old have an emotional eating disorder? That is when this started, from then on it has been this way.

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

Although I know a lot about emotional eating, this stumps me. You need to start working with a child psychiatrist or psychologist, who can sit down with you and your daughter and figure this out.

[emilyg123]

I forgot to add another strange thing that really shows the severity of what im talking about : On the way to an Easter egg hunt last year , we were in the car , she was in the back seat with her eggs in her basket. When we arrived , I turned to get her out of the car, she had peeled and eaten all 6 eggs in her basket.

[Jaquta]

I just had a bunch of random thoughts.  I don't know if any of them are useful.
Your daughter has been through a lot in her short life.  Is it possible she's learned this behavior from somewhere else?  Is it possible that your concerns are driving her to over-eat?  Or that they're preventing you from putting limits on the behavior?  Is it possible that part of it is due to normal developmental stages where children are naturally curious?
A final thought was, could it be prader-willi syndrome where people eat anything and everything?

They're just thoughts.  It would definitely be worth following it up with a health professional (psychiatrist, psychologist, pediatrician, etc).

J

[crashgirlkaboom]

Maybe have her LEPTIN levels checked. It's a hormone or something. I saw it on a tv show about big people with eating disorders. Having too little of it makes them eat uncontrolled and unrestrained, especially going after greasy deep-fried foods. I believe HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP is one of the major culprits that screws around with the levels of LEPTIN. There was a study on it in a science magazine. Just some odd things that I remember.