People commenting on my 6 YO DD weight?

I think it’s great that you have posted this and were concerned enough to get advice here OP.
There are some really great suggestions and you’ve had a lot of supportive answers.

I was a chubby child and I think it’s because my mum thought food was love, she only got a wake up call when people started to comment on my weight.

There is a lot of sugar in your daughters diet (which you are aware of) it’s not just about weight but teeth as well, my friends daughter is probably underweight but eats a lot of sugar and drinks tons of fruit juice and has had to have fillings on her baby teeth, the dentist might be a useful ally in helping your daughter eat more healthily.

Instead of a weekly takeaway could you make “fake aways” together as a fun activity? I know you have a lot on your plate (sorry for the pun!) but it encourages learning about food and nutrition and some cooking experience, I imagine it’d save money too. There are a lot of great recipes online and quick and easy to make.

An idea I’ve seen mentioned on mumsnet a few times is to have a snack box. You put a weekly quota of snacks in the box and your daughter has complete control, if she eats them all at once she learns to pace herself. At the same time have healthy snacks available like raisins, rice cakes, low fat yogurt, cottage cheese, alpen bars etc… I know some people have unlimited fruit but it’s not great for teeth if you have too much.
The boxes just have the unhealthy things like chocolate, pancakes, crisps etc..

I noticed kids prefer roasted vegetables to boiled, if you use spray oil and roast in the oven you can roast peppers, onions, carrots - even broccoli!

Your daughter is used to eating a lot and her stomach will have stretched, if you restrict food or cut it down rapidly she’ll just be hungry and crave sugar and become obsessed with food. It’s better to replace what she’s eating with healthier options.

I noticed a pp asking if she could be thirsty? Being thirsty can often be confused with hunger. Also check the calories and sugar content of drinks - they can often be responsible for weight gain and tooth decay. Fruit juice can seem a healthy option but I wish more people were aware of the effect it has on teeth.

One last thing (sorry for bombarding you) can you do any fun exercise at home? Trampoline? Wii fit (if they still exist?) bike riding? Hula hooping? Skipping? etc…

You have loads of time to turn this around and you sound like a fab, but tired and busy mum.
I hope you find some of this useful and don’t see it as criticism, I just wanted to offer some advice and support because I wish my mum had done the same when I was an overweight child.

Children do go through cycles of carrying a bit more body fat, I know I did. I guess you just need to keep an eye on it and make some small adjustments if necessary. The good thing is that she has a lot of growing to do and children do naturally lean out during the process, so it isn’t a matter of putting them on a diet as such.

My 10 year old boy is about 4/4 and a half stone. He’s about 135 cm. So I’d say that’s pretty heavy for a 6 ur old.
If others are commenting then I’d listen as I think it’s harder for us as parents to be objective about our kids weight.

My daughter is 3.5st and about 123cm at 6 (and looks in proportion) so I would say yours is maybe a little over, and having seen the foods list you provided I think it’s just a case of getting in more fibre, protein, slow release carbs and fresh fruit and veg. I know how hard this can be (I had three under 4 and things went off the rails for a while there 🤣). I now cook big batches every Sunday afternoon. Giant bolognese with loads of veggies in, big butter chicken from scratch with chick peas, cheesy pasta with zucchini and broccoli and cauli, etc. Makes the mid-week scramble so much easier. And even if it has to be something quick on the fly I do homemade cheese and tomato toasties on whole meal with cut up carrots, cucumber and peppers etc with a dip (if she likes hummus) OR a quick jacket with tuna and sweet corn / cheese and low sugar beans, or a quick lean meat stirfry with a bag of stirfry mix and some egg noodles and sauce ( just honey, soy, sesame oil, garlic and ginger). Homemade nuggets are super quick to make and go down well here with wedges (thank you airfryer) and some garlicky green veg.

For snacks it’s only one processed item a day - so they can have a biscuit OR crisps OR a cereal bar (some actually are lower in sugar and higher in protein these days). Otherwise yoghurt is plain or with a drizzle of honey. Porridge in the mornings with cut fresh fruit in the side, or peanut butter (no salt/sugar) and sliced banana on whole meal toast etc. I make one batch of either flapjacks or banana bread (prep time 15 mins so very easy to fit in) a week for the lunch box treat generally to avoid all the over-processing of pre-bought baked goods. I do make homemade pancakes once a week (weekend brekkie) so it’s not like the kids get no treats but some foods just aren’t every day foods.

My husband also had to become more involved as I’m working full time so I can’t be solely responsible for all cooking and nutrition. Once you get into a routine it’s really just as easy as the quick crap I was doing before, just need to get in the rhythm. And stop buying the processed stuff - if it’s not there then it can’t be eaten.

"Perhaps maybe I should be making her eat healthier but I mean she eats ham sandwiches and chicken nuggets and mash and the takeout with the whole family om a sat McDonald's etc. Big deal?"
Yes, big deal. McDonalds every week, and you're surprised that people are making adverse comments?

I would try to ascertain her height. DD eats LOADS she’s probably about 120cm and 3 and a half stone but she also does something like 9 hours of organised sporty things a week and is often starving. I do have to watch her sugar intake but if she’s eating meat/veg/cheese/ milk we don’t restrict. DH is a lot more lax about food than me tbh so she does eat more junk than I would like.

I would absolutely not make a huge deal out of this, just make sure she’s eating home cooked meals and healthier snacks. She’s still growing so she still needs to eat nutritionally dense food. I tend to look at food in terms of nutrition rather than calories, are there vitmins/minerals/protein in the food etc. Thats how we talk about it as well, food that will help you become big and strong, we don’t talk about calories, fat etc.

She’s more likely to be able to regulate her eating if she is eating more unprocessed food. One of the best bits of advice I’ve seen is you decide what she eats and she decides how much of it she will eat.

I’m not judging you, DD can eat her own bodyweight in rubbish quite easily.

Just out of interest- you need to be able to see a child's ribs ? Otherwise they're overweight ? I thought seeing ribs was a sign they're a bit thin ?

In a healthy mammal the ribs should be visible. Mine aren't, but when I was a teenager (yes, a long time ago) everyone's were except for the fat ones.

BMI is at a low point at this age between the toddler years and the onset of puberty. Seeing ribs is normal and healthy.

Yea, you should be able to see their ribs and collar bones. Tbh I think we are more used to seeing overweight children now it’s skewed what we think is normal.

My daughter is 7.5 and weighs 4.1 stone ish (25.5kg). She is 131cm tall (she is tall for her age). She gets through stages of being an average weight then you can see her put on weight and then she will shoot up 2 or 3 cms in a month! She is in age 9-10 clothes for the length but I have to get adjustable waists as they are too big on her.

I have just done her bmi and she is 28th centile, I haven't done one before.

Are you sure she isn't in a growth spurt phase? She may shoot up in height soon.

.

For those suggestion "low-sugar yoghurts" - no no no. Artificial sweeteners are not going to get us anywhere. Just plain yogurt. Greek yoghurt is also fine because it will fill her up and is full of protein. It's good to get kids used to unsweetened things that are delicious without sugar (e.g. greek yoghurt).

My eldest was only ever 3st 6 at 6 and he was 95th percentile for height.

4st sounds a lot.

If people are commenting on her weight at her age then I think you’ve got an issue. Most 6 year olds weights are so unremarkable that they never get commented on, perhaps a visit to the GP is in order.

Height and weight aren’t linear. My dd was an average sized baby. Between the ages of 2 and 3 she grew exponentially and became an above average child. She wasn’t overweight. Then at about 5/6 she put on weight and at one time was on the 99th centile for weight.

At this point, I didn’t talk to her about weight. However I reduced her carb intake and increased her protein. She was chocolate obsessed and breakfasts were things like a bowl of Greek yoghurt and a tiny bit of grated dark chocolate to make ‘sprinkles’ and a reduced carb high protein ‘muffin’. NB I batch cooked low sugar muffins made with 5 large eggs to get the liquid consistency correct (rather than 2 plus liquid to increase the protein). I used gluten free flour for me and substituted between 10 and 20% with a seed flour.

She wouldn’t eat school lunch and wasn’t into sandwiches so the rule was one carb in her packed lunch so either crisps or sometimes a sandwich wrap. The packed lunch wasn’t as healthy as it could be as she loved pepperami sausages or those little packs of chicken but she’d have one of these with some cheese, some sort of crisps, carrot / cucumber sticks and some sort of fruit. Fruit is also full of carbs but eating a decent amount of protein with a meal reduces the sugar spike.

Dh always was above average weight as a child despite eating healthily and being very sporty and active. He lost the weight at puberty. Once dd hit puberty, she also started losing the weight naturally. I was the same albeit I wasn’t overweight as a child but definitely not on the lower end weight wise. It isn’t surprising therefore that my dd followed the same trajectory as both of us.

Dd is now almost 16 and has developed an eating disorder. It’s trauma based so nothing to do with trying to lose weight. Dd was taught very healthy eating habits as a child. Apart from following both dh and my weight trajectory, her higher weight was possibly due to me being very ill when she was younger and struggling to even make food so she helped herself more than I would have liked. I got her to a childminder 2 times a week and used the extra rest to cooking a little more. Looking back now, I wish I hadn’t spent all that time worrying about dd because now I genuinely am just trying to keep her alive. I’m only mentioning this because of some of the comments on the thread.

@Ladyzfactor

As a mother with a child with a trauma based eating disorder, low body weight is extremely dangerous. My dd was a fit, active and very sporty 15 year old 6 months ago. People with eating disorders don’t just die of being extremely thin and malnourished and eventually due to their organs shutting down. They also die of heart failure. My dd is very thin now having lost 18 kilos in the last 14 months and most of it in the last 6 as before that it was natural weight loss. If she were to continue to lose weight at the current rate, she will not be here in another 4 months time, maybe less. Low body weight is far far more dangerous far far faster than overeating. A lot more children die of low rather than high body weight.

I am sorry to have highjacked your thread op and I really am not looking for any posts saying sorry that dd is poorly. I have support in threads on ED. It is just that I feel what I have to say is important for you to read so as not to feel too rubbish about your dd’s weight.

you need to be able to see a child's ribs ? Otherwise they're overweight ? I thought seeing ribs was a sign they're a bit thin ?

No you should be able to see them front and back. At this age kids don't really have masses of muscle and should not have much fat at all, especially not abdominal. They should look very lean.

My DD is 6 and reading this I think I need to do a reset on her diet, she doesn’t eat badly but I have definitely got in a rut with her food as she has become so picky! When she was a toddler it was so easy to give her a mixed diet, now I find she only likes a few different meals -how on earth do you get kids to eat curries etc? Mine seems to live on pasta but does snack pretty healthily.

Agree. And I often hear them being described as ‘solid’

Carbs should be reduced if she is eating pancakes, croissants , waffles and mashed potato daily. It just converts to sugar. Complex carbs are good but yes, refunded carbs should be cut back

Refined not refunded

I think at this age it's more about making sure they are really active, are growing well and that their teeth are ok.

It's certainly not telling them you are concerned about their weight, and they need to.lose weight and putting them on a diet or weighing them constantly, but quietly adjusting their diet and activity levels so that they grow upwards and not outwards for a time so that their height catches up with their weight.

Agree with everyone but also it sounds like she eats a lot of junk. Chicken nuggets aren’t food. Takeaways aren’t nutrition for a 6 yr old. I’d stop both of those.

Yes, she’s overweight, but looking positively, it’s obvious there’s a lot of simple things you can do to help her and improve her diet. Children easily get into the habit of over-eating, especially of carbs, fat and sugar (yes, I know that’s a carb too). They don’t have the thought processes we do to override the primitive feast and famine response. Also, they’re creatures of habit.

I’d cut out the Macdonalds for a start. Then look at ways you can reduce the sugar in her diet gradually. As an example, change any biscuits to lower sugar ones. Nairns do a nice Choc chip one that’s lower in carbs and sugar. Use things like that as an intermediate step, working towards non-sweet snacks. Get rid of the supper - she doesn’t need pancakes for supper! She shouldn’t really need anything at her age and it sounds like she has a big evening meal anyway.

For her meals, look at the amount of veg you’re giving her. Quite often people’s plates are balanced all wrong, with carbs taking up far too much of the plate and veg a kind of tiny garnish if present at all. Give her plenty of veg. Not only is it healthy, it’s filling without adding carbs. Look at adding lower glycaemic index foods so that she has a steady release of energy rather than a spike and then subsequent hunger.

Dont be upset by your friends’ comments. See them as concern not judgement. You can turn this round and set all the family up for a healthier future x