Sunny has taken to complaining that we have too much food in the house. It’s making me think about childhood food insecurity and how much it messes with people.
Sunny grew up food insecure for her first 8 years. Her pantry was always absolutely bare except for bulk bags of rice. Everything else was purchased as needed and cooked and eaten right away. She did get some nutritious ethnic Burmese meals, but also, like most folks living in poverty, had a lot of nutrient-poor food because it was what was cheap and available at the corner stores near her Mama’s constantly changing apartments.
When she came to us, she instantly started hoarding food. I found food stuffed in pillow cases in her room, between her bed and the wall, and under her mattress. Sometimes when kids hoard food I’ve had to put baskets of wrapped snacks in their rooms so it’s less sticky and inviting to ants. But with Sunny I never had to do that. I just had to explain to her that the pantry was open to her and there was a kid-height shelf of snacks she could eat any time, and that the fruit on the counter or in the fridge was always always fair game. That was enough reassurance to stop her food hoarding. She still occasionally hoards candy in play backpacks, but I think that’s mostly just ordinary kid behavior – she’s trying to stash candy so she can sneak some when I’m not looking. Meh, not a big deal to me.
We are struggling mightily with her eating still. She eats and eats and eats. She’ll eat a snack and instantly want dinner right afterward, then want another snack again right after that. With her hip dysplasia and congenital knee deformations, her weight matters a great deal when it comes to her mobility and pain levels.
I’m fighting a terrible battle. I want her to lose weight for her joints and pain levels as recommended by her dwarfism-specialist orthopedic surgeon, but I don’t want to give her a complex about her weight. We live in a weight-conscious nightmare of a society when it comes to girls especially, and the last thing this kid needs is self-consciousness about her weight. She’s already terribly self conscious about her height. I want her to be able to eat when she’s hungry because a) that’s healthy, and b) we are still fighting the after-effects of food insecurity and hunger is a trauma trigger for her. But I don’t want her to overeat, which is absolutely her inclination.
I relate to her so hard. I am on weight loss medication because I overeat too. I overeat when I’m anxious or bored, and I see the exact same pattern in her.
All I can do is encourage healthier options for snacks, and limit sugary drinks and candy. I can cook healthy meals rather than letting her eat junk food, but the amount of cooking I can do at any time varies depending on my own health. If I’m unwell, I resort to quick easy air fryer options like chicken nuggets and French fries. Sigh. Less than ideal but it’s sometimes all fatigue levels will let me manage.
Back to complaining about too much food in the house, is she feeling too tempted to eat when there’s a lot of food? Is she feeling bad for folks who don’t have food and wishing we’d donate more of what we have? I really don’t know. I do donate a bunch to our local food pantry and some to our church’s outreach program that distributes food to those in need. I also donate to individuals who are in need of food pretty often, through a local Facebook site that helps those in need. Maybe I need to make Sunny aware of how much we give. Or maybe I need to make some foods inaccessible to her so she isn’t tempted. I don’t know. It’s a conundrum, and I think perhaps her therapist needs to get involved in her food dependence generally.
Note to self: text Sunny’s therapist.
Sunny isn’t the only food insecure kid we’ve had. Not by a long shot.
Food insecurity is also what landed Sprout with us. The poor kid was less than 2 years old and was still being breast fed, but Mom wasn’t producing enough or supplementing it enough with other foods. She came to us with failure to thrive so severe she was anorexic, which can happen in babies who aren’t getting the nutrients and calories they need. She just had stopped eating, stopped wanting to live. My husband and I were astute enough and stubborn enough to get her eating tiny sips of pediasure by injecting it into her mouth with a medicine syringe every 20-30 minutes around the clock, and thus managed to avoid a feeding tube and hospitalization. But those first few days with a listless baby who didn’t want to eat or drink or interact were heartbreaking and terrifying. She turned the corner and never looked back, and now eats a healthy amount and variety of foods for her size, but man were the early days hard and scary.
The 2-year-old twins we had were food insecure too. They gained about 2 lbs each in the first week they were with us. They ate us out of house and home. Their eating and weight stabilized just fine, but they went from super skinny, to properly chunky toddlers in just a couple of weeks. It was incredible to watch and heartbreaking to think of the family’s food struggles.
Food insecurity alone can lead to removal of kids from families. If CPS gets a call about hungry kids and the pantries and fridge are bare and the parents can’t get food in fast enough, kids – especially children of color – can get removed from their parents very quickly. It’s why we give to our Food Bank. It’s why my Facebook birthday fundraiser was for its benefit. It’s why we give to the outreach program at our church and support it in a variety of energy-consuming ways. It’s why I always participate in the post office food pantry drive, and the kids’ schools’ food pantry drives. It’s why I sometimes provide food for folks in need through the Facebook site set up for that purpose. Hunger sucks. It should not happen to people. And worse, the consequences of food insecurity can be life long, through child removal and eating disorders.
If you have a few bucks to spare, you can help with hunger and food insecurity in the area where my former foster kids and future foster kids live here. ❤️
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 