Tamper-proof tech for your child's meals • Eva Musby

Does your child's eating disorder drive them to tamper with food?

It's pretty normal, with anorexia or any eating disorder driving your child to restrict, that they will try to reduce quantities if they get a a chance.

Some interfere with the milk in the fridge…

Some bin part of their packed lunch on their way to school…

No blame — it's just that "your child can't yet be truthful" (isn't that a wonderful say of saying it?!) It will come back when they're well again.

Meanwhile, regular and sufficient nourishment is a priority, so how can you set them up for success, rather than leave loopholes for failure?

I'll share tips that myself or other parents found worked. I'll go from high-tech to low-tech.

Fit a shrink-wrap seal onto bottles

This tip is what motivated me to write this page. It comes from a mother who found that her daughter couldn't resist interfering with the smoothie in her lunchbag.

The parents sealed the top of the smoothie bottle with 'Perforated Shrink Bands'. You'll have seen these tamper-evident seals on bottles of pills. They're also designed to stop leakage. If you get the right sizes it would presumably work on jars of yoghurt (and perhaps on Tupperware containers?)

Here's an image from one provider (links on images)

Tamper-proof Perforated Heat Shrink Wrap Bands

To fit these seals on, you need a heat gun, such as those used for craft work.

The mother who gave me this tip also bought bottles like these below, though I imagine that the shrink bands would work on bottles you already have:

Or some stick-on solutions?

For the above, you need a heat gun. I see other devices that would be less hassle for you… but then, they're also quite easy for your child to acquire…

Here are some foam pressure-sensitive bottle cap liner seals:

Tamper-proof pressure-sensitive foam cap seals

And here are some adhesive tamper-evident/tamper-resistant sticker labels:

And some non-tech solutions

For your child's school meals, as long as the staff are cooperative and vigilant, there are of course simpler — and therefore preferable — ways.

You can drop the lunch box off at the reception office. The staff who will be supervising your child will get it directly from there. That's what I did for a while, for my daughter.

Some parent photograph the food each morning, and send that off to the staff member. I guess that's pretty good, if you assess that your child isn't so driven to restrict that they won't tamper a little with quantities, or go and dilute the drinks.

I'm saying 'assess' because we adjust our support and supervision to the level our child requires at their stage of treatment. Nobody intends to micromanage forever.

Final thoughts

If you're new to eating disorders, this may all seem incredibly petty. We're putting so much focus into regular meals and sufficient amounts because without it, a person's eating disorder will drag on, along with all the suffering that comes with it.

So the sooner we can renourish our child reliably, the sooner the pain is over.

To learn more, check out my book, my Bitesize audio collection or start with my free helpsheets