Hi!

First off, I applaud you for thinking about this. All I can say is that you should approach your daughter's diet, her need to lose weight (if she does have a need to lose weight) and her eating patterns with NO SHAME.

I know that my parents cared about me a great deal and their desire for me to lose weight as a child was really only out of love, but they approached the topic with so much shame that I quickly came to believe that my being pudgy made me "bad." I was humiliated by it and learned how to hide my eating and my weight problems rather than deal with the shame. Being thin people themsleves, they had no way of knowing how to help me, but I wish that they had just approached it like any other problem. The emotional weight that they attached to it was more than I could handle. I wish they would have made it clear that they wanted me to lose weight for my health...not for reasons of vanity--which was the impression I would get.
Also, if I ever came home crying because someone called me fat at school, they would certainly comfort me, but they would immediately ask "well, why don't you try and lose weight?"

In hindsight I ask myself, "why the heck didn't they say that is was wrong for those kids to pick on me? Why didn't they tell me that I was beautfiul and LATER maybe bring up the weight in another way? Why did they just accept that it was ok for people to mock me because I didnt look just like them?" I mean the health situation is another issue--and it is certainly valid.

It's certainly a sticky issue, but remember this....the kids will read the shame in your eyes and they will know if this is an "emotional" issue rather than a health one. ...

I hope that helps. Good luck.