Dear Abby: My daughter lost weight after being diagnosed with an eating disorder, how do I tell my family?

DEAR ABBY: After several months of weight loss, our pre-teen daughter was hospitalized after a trip to the ER. She was diagnosed with ARFID. It’s an eating disorder we’ve never heard of, but in which the patient is NOT intentionally losing weight or trying to change their body.

We canceled a vacation and took time off work to circle the wagons and take care of him. This has prompted questions from our friends, acquaintances, co-workers and family, which we have noted.

As a former sufferer of an eating disorder, my wife is reluctant to let anyone outside of our inner circle know what is going on and risk our daughter starting high school with the stigma of an eating disorder. But we need to say something to the people in our lives who know something is wrong and ask what’s going on and where we’ve been.

What should we tell people to preserve our daughter’s privacy while acknowledging that not everything is okay? I thought something like, “My daughter has stomach problems (true) and lost a bunch of weight (true), and the doctors are trying to figure out what’s going on,” but my wife is worried that even mentioning weight will to be stigmatizing.

She is advocating telling people that our daughter is malnourished (also true), but to me, that will lead people to jump to conclusions that are both too close to home and incorrect. Please advise. – SAILING THIS IN THE MIDWEST

DEAR NAVIGATOR: I wish your daughter a full recovery. Her weight loss will be noticeable to anyone who sees it. If I were to explain, I would shorten the message, eliminating “losing a weight group” to something like “Our daughter has stomach problems. She is under the care of a doctor and her team is finding out what is going on. ” Period.

Dear ABBY: I have a neighbor who gossips about our other neighbors. She tells me if a man comes to visit our neighbor across the street and if he spends the night. She always asks me where they are going and what they are doing. I told him I don’t know because I didn’t pay attention to what other people were doing.

This neighbor has now started calling me if I go out and will know where I went. If I go to the doctor, she asks me why. If I have work done at my house, she asks me how much I paid for it. If I’m out for more than a few hours, she asks me where I’ve been for so long.

I am a private person and I will tell someone if I want to know. She even comes out and starts pulling weeds if I have company. I don’t know how to deal with him. — PRIVATE IN WEST VIRGINIA

DEAR PRIVATE: Deal with this noisy woman by telling her that if it’s her job, she would already know the answer to her incessant and intrusive questions. Avoid it as much as possible. If your neighbor across the street doesn’t already know, warn her that this person is invading her privacy and repeating every detail she notices to anyone who will listen.

Dear Abby was written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at http://www.DearAbby.com or PO Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.