My nine year old niece has, for the past few months, been complaining of a sore throat. She has been taken to two doctors that cannot find anything wrong with her. In the meantime, she has lost fifteen plus pounds, and barely eats anything because she swears that her throat hurts. Her parents are getting divorced, and she is watched most of the time by her older brother who says he cannot get her to eat only a bite or two at a time. Just yesterday, I had her over at my house for a sleepover with my son. For two days, she ate only the dark green part of her broccoli and a bite of a turkey sandwich. I made her pancakes for breakfast, went to the shower, and when I came out asked her if she ate her breakfast, she said yes. I found it all in the trash (I know it was hers because my son was still eating when I got out of the shower). Then for lunch, I made her a turkey sandwich. She took a bite, said she didn't like the bread but ate the inside of the sandwich and threw it in the trash. I checked again, all of the sandwich had been thrown away. She also tears little tiny bits of her food off with her fingers to eat them...much smalller than your average bite and eats really slow. She seems really aware of every bite she eats. I'm really concerned that she might have an eating disorder. I told her parents but they don't seem concerned. Am I overreacting? I guess I wouldn't have thought too much of it if she hadn't lied to me about eating her food. What do you think? I would really appreciate your opinions. Thank you so much in advance.

Man thats a hard one! The turth is those are all signs of an eating dissorder, but you did say her parents are going through a devorice. This probally means she's dealing with alot of anger, hurt, and frustation. These kind of feelings can defiantly be triggers that start an eating dissorder. I know when I am udner alot of stress or really upset about something my balimia gets ALOT worse. The tearing off little of pieces of food and lieing about what she eats deffiantly makes me think she is very consious of what she is eating, another sign of an ED. I would say that she could difantly be in the early stage of an eating dissorder. The thing is she is really young and if she continues down this path it is going to get alot worse. The thing that is hard is if she isn't ready to get help, getting her help is going to be very diffcult. Is she going to thearpy for her parents divorce? I think thats probally the first step, this will help her deal with alot of issues she probally has built up. She may even beable to talk to the thearapist about why she isn't eating and may help put an end to a very distructive habit if it continues. I deifantly would suggest thearpy to her parents or even group thearpy if they are willing to go with her. At her age losing that much weight that fast is not normal. I hope my advice helps alittle, and I hope you can get her the help she needs!
Best of Luck!
leash

hey it does i cant offer much help cause i am fighting a disorder to so it does sound like one cause that is how i started except i couldent make myself eat anything cause i thought i was fat

It does sound suspisiously like an eating disorder, and you have every right to sound suspicious. If your niece had simply a sore throat, and wasnt concerned about weight, she would be willing to eat applesauce, soups, mashed potatoes, lots of drinks, even bread. Not only that, but most kids would jump at the chance for pancakes for breakfast, sore throat or not. When normal kids are hungry, they try to eat whether or not it hurts- if it does hurt, they accomodate that. Not only that, but a sore throat isn't something that you can hide or something that has invisible symptoms. Basically, if her throat was problematic, the doctors wouldve seen soemthing. You have every right to be concerned. You should talk to her parents and back it up with information about eating disorders from the library or the internet. You should also talk to your niece- theres lots of info available to help you know what to say and what to talk about with her on the internet. Try to be gentle but firm, not demanding or controlling. Talk to your niece about her concerns (if your relationship is close enoguh) and make sure you talk to her parents. If her parents still aren't concerned, even after you are very clear that you are and you have info to prove it, consider talking to a specialist in the ED area. Doctors are often very bad at diagnosing or treating EDs, so I wouldn't recommend a family doctor unless they had some sort of experience with it. If you live in Canada, NEDIC is a good organization to look at for doctors, therapists, etc.

It's great that you are watching out for your niece and have taken steps to help her, even by posting here. Before this gets any further and worse, go further and voice your concerns and even try to take your niece to a doctor with experience in the area. Her parents should be dually concerned, but sadly that is not always the case- if so, go about helping her on your own, if you can..you're absolutely doing the right thing!

girly girl great advise! I agree with her, it does sound suspicious. Her parents are probably not too worried because they are not welly informed on eating disorders and how destructive they can be even at that young of an age. The best way to deal with this issue is to inform yourself the best you can on the subject(which is probably why you came here, good job!) and then see what approach from there to talk to her about it. I can understand your frustration in this situation but dont give up on her because it seems right now you are her only hope in overcomming this before it gets to be controlling her life. Good luck and write whenever you need more help!
liza

Thank you very much for your replies. I had a feeling that I was not overreacting. You have given me some great advice which I plan on taking. I have talked to her parents more about this and they are luckily taking her to see a doctor again. The first thing they want to rule out is that there is definitely not a problem with her throat (although they are convinced there is when two doctors have told them there wasn't). I am going to try and find out where there is a ED specialist in the area and go from there. I know that her parents divorce is bothering her terribly and all of this started with that. Again, thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate it and will be back to give you updates!

Thanks!

I want to thank you all very much for your advice. You have given me some great information and I plan on looking into this further. I didn't think that I was overreacting, and after reading your posts, I know that I didn't. There is definitely a problem with my niece, and right now, because her parents are getting divorced, I think that they are avoiding it. Her parents don't see it, but the rest of my family does and we are going to do everything that we can to help her.

Again, thank you very much. I will keep you posted.

Im really glad that she has someone to watch out for her while her parents are divorcing - kids are often forgotten in the chaos and terrible things can happen...good luck