Another vote for you as a great dad. It's so nice to see you concerned NOW -- I'm in my forties, and my family got concerned this past year about my anorexia. Which started in 1979...

Here goes:

Hie that child to a doctor, whom you have already tipped off that she's looking pretty eating disordered -- and don't be surprised if inpatient treatment is recommended, and don't be put off by your daughter balking at that. It really is the best thing for her, before this becomes a major problem for the rest of her life.

Does that sound melodramatic t you? Too bad. Your daughter is eating disordered, and getting adequate treatment now is the best thing you can do for her, long term, even if she can't see it now. In-patient to get the worst portions treated where she can't get away with things, and then out-patient follow-up to ease her back to normal living.

Although you're concerned with possible bulimia, you've mentioned signs that worry me more: eating at 2AM, for example, is NOT healthy for her, either physically or psychologically. As well as the familiar Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa, there are other eating disorders like Orthorexia -- being obsessed by eating only healthy things, reading food labels, etc -- and Binge Eating Disorder, and Exercise Anorexia, etc. ALL eating disorders are destructive, and ALL need to be taken seriously. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

Your daughter sounds as though she is suffering from an eating disorder, whether she's purging or not, and I do think that -- no matter how hard it is -- it's time to get her into treatment, whether she admits to anything or agrees to treatment or not. She is 14, so she can have an opinion, but she still has to live by your decisions. It's much harder to get her into treatment once she's older -- even 16 is a lot harder to force treatment on -- so do it now, while you can.

Good luck. And the Something Fishy site is a great resource, as is the NEDA.org site. Let us know what happens, OK?