Overweight 9 year old

[Juiceey]

Hi MNers. Please don't flame me, I'm looking for help and advice not criticism.

DS (almost 10) is overweight. He is not an active child at all and hates being outside, always wanting to be indoors on electronics or drawing etc. We have to drag him out for walks or bike rides and he usually complains the whole time.

He was playing with friends having a water fight this afternoon (from within his bubble at school, in a park) and they all had their tops off and I felt just awful seeing him compared to them. I knew it was getting bad as he wears 12-13 clothes but seeing him topless with his rolls and huge boobs made me so sad.

I too am overweight but on Slimming World so we all eat SW friendly meals. He has one 'treat' a day and we argue about this incessantly as he always wants more.

I don't know what to do. I am so sad for him. I don't want him to be 'the fat one' or get bullied at secondary.

Op I think reducing iPad and other technology time would be really helpful. Sounds like he's having a lot of screen time? This isn't good for his physical or emotional mental health.

Can you use the iPad as an incentive to get moving? Every x amount walked = 15 mins ipad time etc?

Also you say he likes simple foods, that's quite normal but could you encourage him to eat a more varied diet by keep including the food on his plate? They need to actually try the food so many times before they actually know if they like it or not.

Plain food isn’t a problem

Few crackers, some cubes of cheese and rolled up piece of ham or a bit of cold cooked chicken, some apple wedges. Delicious.

@SunbathingDragon

Even if your meals are SW friendly ones, are the portion sizes suitable for him? Obesity is largely about the amount of food eaten than exercise taken.

I know SW works for some people, so I don't want to seem over critical of them but I tend to fidn their recipes can be very carb heavy. Many people do better with weight loss by increasing their lean protein, fat and veg and just having minimal "brown" carbs eg quinoa, brown rice etc

I agree with the carbs on SW. They don’t seem to limit pasta, potatoes etc. I’m doing SW and find I have most success if I only have one lot of carbs. Ie. If I have sandwiches for lunch, I won’t eat potatoes in the evening.

Yes SW can be carb heavy but we limit his portions of pasta etc. He loves carbs. Rice and pasta are his favourites and he is always asking for more.

Have you tried cauliflower rice? If you having a chilli type dish, and mix it in with the chilli, it’s a good substitute for rice.

Some examples of what we are eating these days that seems to be helping and that seem to be easier to provide more balanced portions:

Grilled/roasted/baked chicken/steak/lamb/fish with new potatoes and big salad/steamed veg.

Roasted cauliflower with pilaf (this is one of Ds' favourites).

Spaghetti with roasted veg, avocado and cheese - spaghetti portion carefully controlled with large portion of the veggies.

Soup with 1 piece of bread. We are currently doing corn chowder a lot which we all find very filling. But we like butternut soup too. DS likes spinach and pea soup but doesn't seem to fill him up as much.

Occasionally we'll do a jacket potato with tuna and cream cheese but we've learnt that the way to prevent DS wanting MORE is to serve with a salad or a big pile of greens. He then has one small potato with the sides and that works as a more balanced option.

Vegetable curry - DS prefers a butternut/spinach/mangetout one made with Thai red curry paste and coconut milk but sometimes we do chickpea and pepper curry using curry powder and tinned tomatoes.

Remove the Innocent Smoothies. They are chock full of sugar, as much or more than a candy bar. His blood sugar is probably spiking and crashing from that alone. Plus the calories in there are significant. If he wants one, those can be a weekly treat and even then I’d split them in half.

I’d also start diluting his squash heavily so that it’s very lightly flavoured water. If you can maybe start infusing water with fruit, that would be a better option than sugar free squash.

Scrub the cheeeios too.

One small bowl of Cheerios is 80% of your carb intake for an ADULT, and most of that is sugars.

Cereal is pretty horrendous and what I would call empty calories.

I agree with SW promoting endless carbs as ok. I know I need to restrict a bit in carbs and increase veg to lose. Also it encourages giant plates of food - and I'll eat it all!
Cereal at breakfast is crap. I am starving an hour after. Porridge and banana is better but eggs for me are the best. Protein snacks might help him like chicken/ boiled eggs?

DH and I have argued about SW and the carbs thing so many times. The closest I can get him to understand is that SW ALSO says that carbs should be no more than 1/3 of a plate. So just eating pasta/rice/potatoes is NOT an option.

It also frustrates me that healthy fats like avocado are banned. I get that if you're on a weight loss program, limiting fat is good. But treating an avocado with the same disdain as a tablespoon as butter is just batshit.

So when DH wanted to use a vaguely SW style eating plan for DS I refused. Yes in terms of sweets/treats but I absolutely am not going to limit my 9 year old's intake of things like avocado, seriously limit cheese or attempt to cook all his meals fat free.

@BlingLoving I eat avocado a lot and don't syn it, because I know its good for me. DS won't touch it.

@JingsMahBucket

Remove the Innocent Smoothies. They are chock full of sugar, as much or more than a candy bar. His blood sugar is probably spiking and crashing from that alone. Plus the calories in there are significant. If he wants one, those can be a weekly treat and even then I’d split them in half.

I’d also start diluting his squash heavily so that it’s very lightly flavoured water. If you can maybe start infusing water with fruit, that would be a better option than sugar free squash.

OK, I will. I had no idea they were so bad for him! When our current box is gone I won't buy any more.

Why is sugar free squash bad?

Please can I have breakfast tips?

He will have: cheerios, weetos, weetabix or a bagel with Nutella. None very good options.

He won't have: eggs in any form, yogurt, porridge, marmite, cream cheese, avocado.

@Juiceey

Please can I have breakfast tips?

He will have: cheerios, weetos, weetabix or a bagel with Nutella. None very good options.

He won't have: eggs in any form, yogurt, porridge, marmite, cream cheese, avocado.

How about wholemeal toast? You could add cooked mushrooms/beans to make it more appealing.
Staying away from white bread and refined/processed stuff is key - cereals are not good as they are so processed.

My DD sometimes has home-made smoothies to which we add nuts, avocado, baby spinach leaves etc - to get all the good nutritional fats in there. Usually it's based with banana, with some berries, a spoonful of yoghurt and some dairy-free milk such as oat or coconut. It's really tasty and filling, unlike the carton smoothies which are just sugar sugar and more sugar.

2 wheetabix and half a banana
Half a bagel with peanut butter and a banana
Half a bagel with marmite and an apple
2 wheetBix and an apple

Home made smoothies made with sugar free almond milk?
Small cup of milk
Handful of frozen berries some ice
Half a banana

Green smoothie
Apples
Celery
Ginger
Spanich
Frozen mango chunks
Bit of honey

DS has bran flakes with banana or wholemeal toast with peanut butter and banana. I am not wild about the toast simply because he has a sandwich in his lunch box but that might be slightly irrational.

I also sometimes do smoothies although he'll still have a small slice of toast with peanut butter if I do. We do ours with banana, berries (usually frozen), oats that have been soaked in apple juice overnight and plain yoghurt. Sometimes top up with a little water if it's too thick.

Oh and occasionally I do banana pancakes, heavy on the banana! :)

For the whole family I'll do something like, 6 table spoons of flour, two eggs and enough milk to whisk it all smooth (but v thick), then two mashed up bananas. sort of drop scone consistency. Served with peanut butter usually.

A friend uses coconut flour instead of regular flour, but I don't like the flavour. I've considered using almond meal but Dh thinks he's allergic to almonds (he's not).

[I should clarify - I don't think that's actually tablespoons. I take a few heaped dessert spoons so probably a bit more than a tablespoon? I've been experimenting with reducing the flour and increasing the banana too).

Thanks everyone. He hates banana, smoothies except the innocent ones which are more like juice, mushrooms, beans.

So I really need more ideas.

What does he think about a move towards healthier food?
Could you look together at the ingredients in what he is currently eating and work together on creating a meal plan that he likes, but is also healthy?
He's going to notice that things are changing, like the sugary smoothies aren't being replaced, so would it be possible to have an open conversation and involve him in the decision making?

I'd say any American style pancake, eg blueberry, would work - just make sure you're not piling on syrup/cream/bacon etc. A bit of flour is not the problem as long as he's not eating 10.

DS also had phase of eating weetabix in the morning to which I added 1-2 tablespoons of cocoapops/cheerios to sweeten it. He quite liked that. If he doesn't like bananas, other fruit sweetener options are blueberries, strawberries etc?

Bagel with peanut butter instead of nutella? Ideally swap to a wholemeal bagel if you can, but I'm not sure I'd be too fussed on this.

What about making muffins? We do carrot muffins that DS loves and that freeze really well so make in big batches. A good homemade muffin recipe will generally be a LOT lower in sugar than any store-bought equivalent. We have a super light chocolate muffin recipe (PM me if you want it) that works out to a max of 155 calories per muffin and that the kids think are chocolate cupcakes! DD even ices them sometimes! . I spotted a savoury recipe for courgette muffins in a Jamie Oliver book which I thought I might try this week.

Does he have school lunches? We have swapped to pack lunches at DS request as school lunches always include puddings and he just didn't have the will power not to eat them! :) He also was not impressed with being given a slice of pizza or whatever. Our school lunches aren't exciting - sandwich or occasionally a wrap with chicken/ham/cheese, fruit, yoghurt tube. To be honest, I'm lucky in that he's a good eater so if I've got the energy I'll make him a salad and just send in one slice of bread but frankly a quick cheese sandwich is easier! In winter I'll occasionally send him in with leftover pasta in an insulated tub. He likes soup but isn't comfortable with soup in a flask so I don't see that being a school lunch until he's older. I DO plan to start introducing soup as snacks for this winter post school/pre sports groups etc. It's something we always had growing up - huge bowl of homemade vegetable soup in the fridge which we could help ourselves to during the week. Low calorie, healthy etc.

He has packed lunches. Usually a ham wrap, or pasta in a flask.

He wouldn't eat a muffin. Or blueberries etc.

This is so hard.

@Juiceey - have you ever considered whether he might have some sensory processing issues? It is not unusual for children with SPD to struggle with their weight (both over and under I believe) and for many, eating is a real challenge with tastes and textures significantly impacting their ability/willingness to eat things? I am no expert and am still working to get to grips with DS' SPD and a few other challenges, but things like lack of core strength/mobility are also common (or a side issue often seen with SPD?), lack of co-ordination etc.

eg does he sit "properly" on a chair when eating/writing etc? How does he cope with knives and forks? And other fine /gross motor skill tasks? Is he clumsy? Can he follow instructions, particularly multi-part instructions? There are all kinds of elements to take into account - I'm just highlighting ones I'm very aware of because of DS.

[oh, and on muffins - does he like cupcakes? Because if so, the chocolate muffins will probably work for him! They look and taste like cupcakes without icing! but are much healthier].

Healthy swaps?

Peanut Butter for Nutella
Cooked chicken for ham
Whole wheat wrap

Home made chicken strips or fish fingers