M.M.
Hey L.,
The pp is right - the best way to deal with this is to ONLY have healthy, whole food in the house.
This will be hardest for the adults!! Your dd might throw a few tantrums when she wants junk food and can't find any, but she'll adjust within a week if you're consistent. It takes us adults much longer since our habits are based on DECADES of behavior rather than just a few months or years.
Does your father live with you? If not, and if you don't visit him too often, you can let her have a few treats when you go visit.
If he lives with you or you visit him a lot (once a week or more), you'll need to get his support.
Ask him if he'll be willing to NEVER eat the forbidden foods in front of his granddaughter.
If he lives with you and he wants to keep a stash (which I could understand), find a place that will be impossible for your daughter to get into. Get a lock to his room, if need be.
Then get rid of every piece of junk food, cookies, ice cream, crackers, sugar-added jam, maple syrup, white bread, etc.
Put fresh fruit and veggies on the kitchen table or in the fridge at a shelf she can reach. Tell her she can have as much fruit and veggies as she wants.
Make sure everything else in your fridge and pantry is healthy - beans, rice, carrots and broccoli, almond butter, whole wheat pasta and so on.
If she's not hungry at meal time, don't make a big deal of it, tell her it's OK and let her go play. But don't serve her a meal between meals - if she gets hungry 30 minutes after lunch, tell her she can always have fruit or veggies. Ignore her tantrums and protests.
This is easy to do and hard to do - logistically, it's extremely easy to do. The hard part is that we, the adults, have our food addictions and habits and in order for this to work, we need to wean ourselves along with our children!!!
It also means rethinking outings - for example, I used to buy a donut hole for my dd everytime we went to the library. When I decided to cut out sugar from her diet (due to allergies and eczema), I had to tell her no more donut holes. She was NOT happy. I now make healthy, no sugar muffins at home (sweetened with fruit only) and I take these everywhere (along with fresh fruit and cut up veggies). This requires more time and effort on my part, but the pay-off in her health has been huge.
If you do this and get her outside running and playing for at least one hour every day, you won't have to worry about her weight. You can rest assured that whatever weight she is, is the right one for her.
Believe me, I KNOW it's not easy!! I wish you the best of luck! You sound like a great mom.