To think it’s really hard to keep a child with a large appetite an appropriate weight

Interested in the post above, as to how you got buy in from your GP etc. I have a child who is never sated and despite a LOT of exercise is an overweight. They have a sibling who eats endless junk (outside the home) and is skinny. The GP simply suggested they do more exercise. They are doing at least 2 hours of exercise most days. They can’t do any more. We keep snacks in the house healthy. The GP just isn’t interested. Why not?

She is always hungry and will eat until she is sick if allowed
DC1 is like this, and hasn't grown out of it so far. He has no off switch and never has. He will literally eat until he vomits and it doesn't matter what it is, healthy or unhealthy food. The doctors think it is linked to processing issues he has, basically it takes him to long to realise he's eaten. We had to stop blw because of this. He also has no memory of having eaten. He will eat a massive meal and if he sees someone eating something 10 mins later he will want it and would eat it if we let him.
He also finds sport difficult, and has since been diagnosed with dyspraxia. He has other issues at school, all linked to processing and working memory. If there is anything like that (although at this age it might not be obvious if she's intelligent and can cover) it might be worth getting a doctors opinion.

I don't know what the answer is, switching to high protein foods became unsustainable as he didn't eat less and they cost more. We have to really keep on top of what he drinks to make sure he has enough. Does she recognise being thirsty?
I bought snacks he didn't like and made sure I made a meal he didn't like every now and again. That way I could offer him a snack and he'd only accept if he was genuinely hungry.

My other DC is the complete opposite, stops eating when hungry, not a fan of bread/pasta will generally eat the veg and meat but leave the rest and does massive amounts of sport.

I dont know what you mean by chicken satay wraps, I was comparing the tesco ones I linked to above, 3 bites are 90 cals, that is a child's portion snack

And yes there is some evidence, (not proven) that some UPFs (and people misuse and misunderstand that term all the time) can affect satiety levels, that is more significant for the likes of processed carb type foods really, so a potato waffle rather than a baked potato, or processed bun/brioche type thing rather than straight forward granary bread. So 200 cals of potato waffle wont be as satiating as 200 cals of jacket potato (for some people) and so on and so on

Little bits of chicken, which have some small amount of stabilisers in them, arent really going to be significantly affecting her satiety levels compared to chunks of chicken and the peanut butter dipping dish. Because I can tell you that given the chicken breast chunks and free reign with the peanut butter dipping dish, she'll be consuming far more calories very easily.

It's been proven that the same amount of calories from UPF( the chicken satay, wraps and a lot of the school food) will not keep you as full as the same amount of calories from non UPF food. Upfs affect your "feeling full" hormones.

If you're trying to monitor calories from a child who has no satiety levels, providing a 'dipping dish' of peanut butter is not the way to go!!

To get the same level of flavour produced in those oh so awful processed chicken satays, you would have to provide quite a lot of peanut butter

A teaspoon of peanut butter, or thereabouts is about 7g (sadly I know this)

that contains around 41 cals, depending on the brand, thats the lowest estimate. So she would need to be sure of her child only eating 2 teaspoons worth to match the calories in the entire chicken satay bite x 3. Very difficult.

Ditto mayo

Would it be worth trying to do your own simple chicken satay? Cook a chicken breast, slice it up. Warm up some peanut butter & put into a dipping dish. At the weekend when you have a bit of time do a little salad train and add some dips - mayonaise, sour cream, peanut butter, greek yoghurt (most full fat don't have any added nasties). Also add cubed cheese & roll some ham

Do chicken wraps. Cook & slice chicken breast. Add to wrap with a bit of salad & grated cheese and then sour cream or mayonnaise. These are really filling.

Hi OP. Do they eat all their meals and snacks at the table when at home? We've found that helps with one of mine who is a big eater- sometimes they'd rather go watch telly than sit at the table for more food, even if they fancy extra.

Agree there's a lot of people offering sweets and junk to kids, and sometimes parties are almost every weekend. That said, we don't buy crisps, sweets, and cereal bars routinely, and tend towards fruit, nuts, rice cakes, bread sticks, houmous for snacks. So some processed stuff, but less moreish. Tricky for you with a very fussy eater too, though.

Good luck. I think if you can find a food routine that works she would outgrow the extra weight quickly at that age.

@roobyred "You could blend all the sauce ingredients to disguise the sneaky ones including the kidney beans, that will save you a lot of picking out time" I'd pick there was ground up beans in it and wouldn't eat. I hate the powdery-ness of beans and blending doesn't take that texture away.

Cooked breakfast is always an option, it just means someone has to get up 15 minutes earlier to cook it.

I feel your pain OP - like a lot of others on this thread I have DS1 who is slim and naturally stops eating when full, and DS2 who eats the same but has no off switch and first question when he sees me at pickup is "what's for dinner" and then when he gets his dinner is "are there seconds". He is off the charts for both weight and height and has been since he was born.

We are trying hard to serve a healthy balanced plate for dinner at the hob so there isn't a common dish in the middle of the table to dip into for seconds (except for salad/veg), and no snacks...but he gets snacks at school and activities and can easily eat 3x as much as other kids before he's stopped. He's also been found to sneak food when there are treats in the house which I can control at home but not when staying with family.

I do fear that he will end up like me and wind up on mounjaro to quell the "food noise". He is obviously always thinking about food, like I was until I started mounjaro. Maybe it's genetic as my mum is the same as me.

@icouldholditwithacobweb I appreciate all your advice and I didn't think about a bite timer - he certainly "hoovers" his food and will have cleaned his plate before DS1 is even half finished, then on to seconds as his feeling of fullness hasn't caught up yet as he's eaten so fast. Doesn't help that at school he has learned to trough his food as fast as he can, so he can go out and play. There seem to be quite a few bite timers on the app store so I will try that out!

Does she walk to and from school? Makes a huge difference ime

There are a few things you can try (speaking as someone who was a compulsive eater from childhood and had many of the same behaviours your DD is showing):

Focus on getting her to understand what feeling satisfied is like (not full, but satisfied). It's different for everyone, but she might notice things like her food starts getting less tasty, or her body will give a sign when she's at 'enough' rather than full.

Eat more slowly; you can use a bite timer app to slow her eating that way, make a game of counting how often you chew each mouthful with a set target number of chews, putting any cutlery down between bites, that kind of thing. Being more mindful around eating can help bring awareness to the the mindless eat-until-sick patterns.

Work on understanding patterns in when, what and why she wants to eat, eg does she reach for sugar when stressed or bored? Then figure out distraction techniques, eg when she really wants to eat, go do something else for ten minutes that she enjoys, then see if she still wants to eat.

Work on figuring out what hunger really feels like; one of the tricks I use on myself is if I think about eating hummus and carrot sticks (which I love, but isn't quite so appealing when I am not physically hungry), how much do I want to eat it? If it sounds mouth-watering, I know it's hunger, but if it doesn't sound good and I want chocolate, I know it's a craving and not real hunger so I can drink a glass of water instead, wait ten mins and see if that helps.

Finally, make sure she always has access to healthier foods when she does want to snack. Red grapes are a firm favourite of mine, they're sweet but have a ton more nutrition than chocolate or cake or whatever, and don't give the increased sugar consumption urges.

Hope some of this is helpful, it's all stuff I wish I had learned when younger in case it had helped me! I do think it's important to gamify it and make it fun and not a punitive thing though; if she loves stickers, maybe you could make a daily chart for her with her healthy eating habits and she can earn a star for each one she sticks to, eg a star for stopping at satisfied/paying attention to satisfied, a star for eating more slowly, etc.

Does she eat really quickly? Can you give her foods that slow her down a bit?

Sounds like there’s a metabolic/endocrine issue if her body’s telling her she’s starving until she’s literally being sick from food

I have read that research into the causes of obesity is finding that many people who are severely overweight have differences in their brain and gut which affect hunger and satiety signals. It may be that your children fall into this group.
However this doesn’t change the fact that they will have to eat fewer calories to maintain a healthy weight but it could explain why it is so much harder for them.

Don't restrict what types of food she has or that will lead to overeating 'unhealthy' food when she has her own money later in life (everything in moderation etc). Don't mention her weight to her. Remember that having an overweight child is not the worst thing that could happen, even if you want to keep her healthy and fit, having a child with eating/mental health disorders would be worse. Remember that everyone has different builds and not all your children will have the same build. Not all exercise is sport. Does she like going to the playground? If so, go every day. Does she like splashing in the children's pool, does she have swimming lessons? Rainbows. Trampoline, kicking a ball around the garden/park for fun, frisbee, riding a bike even on a balance bike or with stabilisers, wii fit/just dance type indoor games.

Children are not puppies!

Even puppies are only 'pudgy' for a very short time.

Fat cells laid down in childhood/teens affect one in adulthood.

www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fat-cell-numbers-teen-years-linger-lifetime#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20found%20that%20the,you%20gain%20or%20lose%20weight.

She often tells me she’s hungry, but she can’t be right?

She might be. I was like your DD and my mum constantly monitored my food intake. If I asked for a snack, she would say "you can't possibly be hungry" or "no, you're just bored".

I was quite overweight as a child and it just got worse from there. After 20+ years of fighting a losing battle against my weight, my GP recommended that I try weight loss injections (privately, paid out of pocket), which I have been using for almost a year. Now that my appetite is suppressed for the first time, I realise that I have felt hungry every waking hour of every day of my life. No matter how much I ate, or how much I focused on protein or fibre or volume eating or drinking more water or whatever else promised to make me feel fuller. Without this medication, my appetite is out of control. (And yes, I have had blood tests, seen a nutritionist, spoken with personal trainers, and had three different types of therapy over the years for binge eating disorder. It turns out it was genuine hunger all along and not a vitamin deficiency/moral failure/all in my head).

This is not a post to promote or start debate about weight loss injections. The injections are a red herring; my point is simply that your DD might actually be that hungry all the time and, yes, she might be facing an uphill battle with her weight.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/309194573?sc_cmp=ppcGHS+-+Grocery+-+NewMPX_PMAX_All_OT_All+Products_Online+Budget_1011017**309194573*&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwpbi4BhByEiwAMC8JncTpORrePoySTwnG8KgoSimWpBZC96cPysi8uC_A6iBC_dxlobBU7RoCidIQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

3 bites for 90 cals. Not too bad. Would she feel she could stop at 3 though

People are obsessive about 'UPFs'.

Just on the finishing your plate thing, I was a fat child who wolfed down food, my mum did massive plates of food but never never made me finish it (she didnt need to!!), she said leave what you dont want (I wanted it all)

At school they were the opposite, making you finish your meals. She went storming in there one day after an unfortunate butter bean incident and gave the dinner ladies a right earful about not making me finish food I didnt want or didnt like

Obviously you'll handle it a bit better OP!

@Thedownstream with all due respect you need to cut the sweets and crisps out of the weekend. You also need to insist on them trying a range of new vegetables (trying not eating them all), switch to brown rice and bread (we used 50:50 as a half way to this) and you need to make clear that exercise is important and they can’t opt out. I know this is a long game but if you stop the excessive weight gain and keep her weight stable she will outgrow being overweight.

If possible discuss with the school your concerns and ask that she not be given dinner, just a snack at after school club and then you feed her dinner instead. I feel your pain as after school club my ds and dss are given loads of junk (white pitta full of cheese and crisps or noodles - possibly pot noodles - with no veg). My DSS was very overweight and not with us 50% of the time so it’s been several years of healthy eating at ours plus swimming and a general increase in walks etc. Despite eating constant junk food at his mom’s and rubbish school food that has made a difference. This was the first year he was able to wear school trousers that aren’t plus size, so the years of improving his eating and exercise have paid off.

Chicken satay sticks are really processed and probably more calorific than you think

@Thedownstream this sounds like a nightmare and you have my sympathies.

Just a thought on your elaborate chilli production. You could blend all the sauce ingredients to disguise the sneaky ones including the kidney beans, that will save you a lot of picking out time. And I'd tell them in a years time what the actual ingredients are so they realise they do eat that kind of food.

Joe Wicks on instagram has turned his attention to children's health and there's lots of good ideas on there. He does a lot of quick recipes.

I understand you are anxious about well meaning adults and the party aspect is not in your control, but the other times are within your control so completely eliminate the sweets and crisps and other treats so she doesn't associate spectating sport with eating. Take a large bottle of water for watching sport.