Mental Health and Food Part 1 - My Families Struggle with Food Hoarding

 

One problem that we have been encountering since my children were very little is food hoarding. By this I mean that a child takes excessive amounts of food, that is typically processed and full of sugar, and not only eats several times the recommended serving, but also hides either any remaining food or the packaging. They also then lie about the location of the food or packaging even if solid evidence is found that they consumed it. For example if a chocolate bar went missing and they had the wrapper under their bed and chocolate all around their face.

My most vivid memory was when S was about five years old. A bag of Lays went missing. For over a week she denied the existence of taking it, to the point where I just thought I was going crazy. Then I found the bag in the hall closet under a stack of towels. I remember this incident more because it was the most creative hiding place up to that point.

As I see it there are several main issues with hoarding. One, it is typically food that is high is sugar, and is more of an addiction or form of self medication. Two, it promotes lying. Three, they always take it out of the kitchen making the rest of the house full of food. Four, their body does not benefit from massive amounts of food.

My kids are not overweight. In fact J is extremely skinny despite the fact that he eats, normally, six times as much as other children his age. That is not counting what goes missing at night.

Over the years we have changed the system of how we handle this issue. Currently our stand alone freezer (which we have to place in a bedroom because of the size of our apartment) has a lock on it. We also have two foot lockers which we put non perishable snack items in. In addition we have food accessible at all times in our fridge and small freezer. Typically this is fruits and vegetables, or muffins I have made that contain fruits and vegetables. In the freezer we also keep frozen ice cubes which also contain fruits and/or vegetables. In the cupboard we have coconut milk, shredded coconut, and things of that nature. J will often use shredded coconut as a snack.

My one stipulation is that food does not get taken out of the kitchen. It does not get followed. Last weekend I cleaned the food remains and garbage out of both rooms. Everyday since they have had to clean their rooms because there was food in them.

I have been very curious as to why food hoarding is such an issue in my children. I plan on continuing this series with more in depth look at the link of food with various mental health issues.