Question from South Webster, Ohio, USA:

My 11-year-old has food issues. We had problems with her sneaking food since long before the diabetes came up and, back then, it was not a big deal except for teaching her she shouldn’t take without asking. Now she is diabetic and still doing it and ending up with blood sugars over 300 mg/dl [16.7 mmol/L] in the mornings sometimes and it scares us what she may end up doing to herself. We don’t keep food from her. She gets to eat all that type of stuff, in moderation, when she asks, but it’s not enough for her. If left unchecked, she will eat until she throws up and then eat some more. In the middle of a large supper, she will already be asking for seconds and thirds before her plate is even empty. We have tried putting everything we can up in cabinets and putting alarms on them etc. but she still finds stuff to get. The other day, while I was putting food away that we got at the store, she grabbed a jar of marshmallow cream when I wasn’t looking, hid it in her room and ate it all that night. When we find the stuff in her room, she denies having eaten it but her sugars tell the truth of it. How do we get through to her and stop this before she hurts herself? We have asked her doctors and they seem to ignore the question or say it’s normal child behavior. We have her seeing a counselor for attitude and anger issues and the eating thing, but they are more focused on saying she has some form of ADD than helping the eating problem.

My daughter is big for her age, more than just overweight. She is head and shoulders taller than most kids her age. Now 11, she is closing in on 5 feet, 6 inches and I can only estimate her weight as her mother is very touchy about weighing her this early in life. I would estimate she weighs 130 to 140 pounds. She has never had her thyroid tested. Her last A1c was 6. Before that, it was 7. It was 9 when she was diagnosed diabetic.