As parents, we all want to do what’s best for our kids and to make sure they’re getting the best of everything. We want them to have many experiences, we want good health for our kids, and for them to eat in a way that gives their body what it needs. As our kids grow into teenagers, they have more control over what they’re eating and make decisions they feel is best for them, even if it doesn’t align completely with what mom or dad thinks. Teaching them to care for their bodies is important so they can grow and be their healthiest self when they’re older and make these decisions for themselves.
One mom took to Reddit to share a secret that she’d been hiding from her teen daughter when it comes to food and health, but people didn’t agree with what she had done.
The mom posted a story to Reddit’s popular subreddit, AITA, to ask if she was in the wrong for what she did to her teen daughter.
The woman shared that she’s the mom to identical twin daughters who are 15 years old. She used fake names in the post to help protect their identities and went with the names Amber and Kylie. She wrote: “It started a few months ago when I noticed Kylie would eat less at diner, I began to get worried when she was completely skipping diner, always making excuses like ‘I feel sick’ or ‘I don’t like it,’ eventually I would sit her down so she wasn’t allowed to leave until she finished everything on her plate.”
She added, “Surprisingly she obliged easily and this was the routine for a couple weeks. I thought her phase was over as she would eat everything without a hassle.”
But then her other daughter came to her with a concern she had about her sister.
“One day Amber told me that Kylie hasn’t been eating at school and throwing up after diner,” mom wrote. “I was VERY worried of course and immediately got a therapist and a doctors appointment to check her health.”
“The doctor said that she had lost a bit of weight but it wasn’t threatening at the moment but she would need it managed and check regularly. She had a therapist appointment 2-3 times a week. Not much came of it and after about a month she was thinner and weaker. It was horrible, I just wanted to help her.”
And then things changed for mom when she said her daughter “fainted at cheer practice and hurt her hip.” She said, “This was my breaking point, I had to do something.”
She noticed Kylie would make herself a smoothie for breakfast each morning. She used things like vegetables and berries “in an attempted to be ‘healthy.’” Mom decided to “to order 5 kg of weight gain formula that’s used for muscle growth. Every morning I would make her these ‘healthy smoothies’, and she never questioned it.”
At the next checkup with the doctor, mom says the doctor “was pleased” about the weight her teen had gained and according to mom, she told the doctor she was secretly using weight gain formula in her daughter’s breakfast.
“I had told him about the formula he said it was fine as it was helping and keeping her from a risk BMI. Everything was going great. Thankfully she was making process with the therapist and each day she was improving more, during this time she was rarely able to do cheer which motivated her get healthy.”
But then, one morning, Kylie discovered mom’s secret.
“One morning I was careless and left the bag on the bench before rushing to work, I thought it would be fine as Kylie rarely ever goes in the kitchen and she had to leave to go to school so anyways. I was wrong and she found the bag,” mom explained. “She refused to talk to me for two days, and I was scared she would get sick again.”
Mom said her teen’s therapist didn’t agree with what she had done. “She practically told me I was a [expletive] not in those words obviously. That I had betrayed her trust and set back months of progress because of my actions.”
But mom still says she doesn’t feel bad for what she did.
“I don’t feel bad though, I did what I needed to help her and she’s in a better place now than she would be without it,” mom wrote in the Reddit post. “She’s doing better now and showing much better improvement this past month but she doesn’t speak to me much and I miss talking to her. I think what I did was necessary but AITA?”
And people didn’t shy away from telling mom that she was very wrong in this situation.
“YTA,” one person said. “I understand you're worried as a mother, but all you can do is refer her to treatment (which you did) and show her love, try to understand her behaviour and help her along the way.” The comment continued with some personal experience, “I suffered from an [eating disorder] throughout my teenage years and my mother reacted similarly. It took ages to rebuild our relationship because I completely lost trust in her. You wouldn't want this to happen.”
Another said, “Your intentions were good but the way you handled it makes YTA. You should have discussed this with her therapists before you did this.” The commenter added, “You've now jeopardised all of her progress. Hope she gets better soon.”
People seemed to agree that mom’s intentions were in the right place, but what she did was all sorts of wrong. “YTA unfortunately. I get why you did this and it cannot be easy raising a child with an eating disorder. But you really went about this the entirely wrong way,” a commenter explained. “Your daughter has an eating disorder. Going behind her back and making her gain weight is in no way going to help her in the long run.” The Redditor added, “You did a good thing by getting her therapy, and that’s the route you need to continue going down. Perhaps she needs more intensive treatment specifically geared to her eating disorder.”
So the moral of this story seems to be that being concerned is a good thing, but going behind your teen’s back is never OK.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
