What to do when your child is stealing and hording food.

Anyone who has spent any time with kids knows that they have a sweet tooth and crave those sweet and salty snacks. But what if your child is stealing from others to fill that craving or you keep finding stashes of food in weird places?

Food hoarding/stealing can be a complex behavior with various underlying causes. However, if you child/foster child is hording and stealing food, here are some of the most common ones:  

• Anxiety Disorders: Anxiety, particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), can contribute to food hoarding. Individuals may experience intense anxiety about running out of food or not having enough, leading them to excessively stockpile. [1, 6]  
• Trauma: Past experiences of food insecurity, deprivation, or trauma (such as abuse or neglect) can create a deep-seated fear of scarcity, leading to hoarding behaviors. [1, 2, 3]  
• Depression and Low Self-Esteem: Feelings of depression, hopelessness, or low self-worth can contribute to hoarding behaviors as individuals may find comfort or a sense of control in accumulating food. [3]  
• Attachment Issues: Difficulties with attachment and early childhood experiences of neglect or inconsistent parenting can lead to insecurities and a need to control resources, including food. [3, 4]  
• Food Insecurity: Experiences of poverty, limited access to food, or inconsistent food supply can lead to hoarding behaviors as a survival mechanism. [2, 4]  

But even if the causes can be easy to pinpoint in a child who has not had food consistency, what can be done to combat the problem.

One technique is called a personal food box. This consists of an individual box that the child/young adult is able to fill with all the comfort food that they desire. Usually they are able to fill their box with food on a shopping trip to the store.

I will say, the first time I was introduced to this idea I baulked. It seemed like I was rewarding someone who stole food from others by giving them a treat box, they I just knew would become a bug haven of wrappers and bugs. And in part there was some adjustment to this technique.

1 – I had ever child in our house get a food box (there were 7 kids, so this was a big financial commitment.

2- There were rules about throwing away the trash, and each kid got a mini lidded trashcan.

3 – We restocked and checked the boxes a couple times a week as part of the routine of the house.

This was a struggle for me, especially because one of our kidos had a serious weight problem and would binge eat from their box. Another never got those wrappers to the trash and we had to throw the entire contents away after ants got in a few times.

However, as time went on, and the kids became secure in the fact that there was food available they became less and less dependent on the food boxes, until no one was using them, and they went away completely.

We were then able to transition onto better eating habit, etc.

For more tips on dealing with kid related issues visit our Communities – Supporting Parents and Advocating Resilience in Kids (SPARK)

Citations:

[1] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

[2] Peace & Nutrition™. (n.d.). Hoarding food and secret eating. Retrieved from https://peaceandnutrition.com/hoarding-food-in-eating-disorders/

[3] Clutter Trucker. (n.d.). Understanding food hoarding | Causes, signs and treatment. Retrieved from https://cluttertrucker.com/food-hoarding/

[4] Continuum Consulting. (n.d.). Food hoarding. Retrieved from https://continuumconsulting.net.au/resources/food-hoarding

[5] Assisting Hands Home Care. (n.d.). Food hoarding among the elderly | Signs, causes and more. Retrieved from https://www.assistinghands-il-wi.com/blog/food-hoarding-among-the-elderly/

[6] Psychology Today. (2024, January 1). Human food hoarding: Scarcity in abundance. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mind-of-a-collector/202401/human-food-hoarding-scarcity-in-abundance   Sources and related content