DS is overweight - what can I do?

[AIOR]

Weighed DS last night and he's overweight, nearing the obese category. He's nearly 9. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong so wondered if anyone could help me please?

Today's food for example is as follows;
Breakfast - one Weetabix with semi skimmed milk and a low fat standard sized yoghurt
Morning snack - plum
Lunch - ham and cream cheese roll (2 slices of thin ham, white sliced roll and 50% reduced fat cream cheese), packet of onion ring crisps, cucumber and carrot sticks and small pack of iced gem biscuits.
Dinner - meatballs (4) in tomato sauce with pasta tubes (I'd guess at approx 30 tubes) and 12 grapes for dessert.

He drinks mainly water with the occasional squash drink. Very very rarely he'll have a fanta - maybe 4 times a year.

40 minutes walking a day plus an hour or 2 in the park about 3 times a week where he is on the go constantly. Was doing weekly swimming lessons pre covid.

His younger brother eats the same sized portions and is right in the middle of the healthy weight bracket. I'm not sure what to try to help reduce the weight back into a healthy zone.

He doesn't really ever ask for snacks so I can't really cut them out, I can't fit more exercise into our day very easily. He's with his dad every other weekend where I know he doesn't eat the same but could that every other weekend really be making so much difference to his weight?

Sorry it's so long. I'm just feeling a bit rubbish tonight that I haven't picked up on this before it got to this stage.😔

I would just say that there's too much low fat/carby stuff and not enough nutritious filling food.

Swap semi skimmed milk for full fat,
Use full fat greek yoghurt and add berries (you can buy packs of frozen berries v cheaply). Don't buy low fat yoghurs - full of sugar! Surely it's weetabix or a yoghurt. Better still give him eggs.
Swap white bread for Wholemeal roll or wrap
Don't give whole packets of crisp/biscuts, just give one of these and then only a few. Do you have time to make homemade? there are loads of great recipes for things like banana bread that you can make low sugar

Whereever you see 'low fat' it will generally mean high sugar, they have to replace that fat with something.

My son has put on weight too, he’s 10. The doc didn’t seem to conserved, she seems to think he’s ready for a growth spurt. We had a video appointment

@AIOR is it a case of you weighed him and it’s higher than what you’d like to see, or was it the fact the trousers were a bit snug?
To be fair though, I’ve had a lot of friends mention kids have put on a bit of weight during lockdown (as have I ), so it will probably be a case of not being as active as before. Hopefully with everything resuming, it should help with increased activity level.

Regardless of the macronutrients he shouldn't be gaining weight if that's all he's eating IMO - so either there's a portion issue or he's eating stuff you're not aware of .

If he's not and you calculate his intake accurately chat to your GP before taking any steps .

A typical weekend there involves at least 2 takeaways and adult sized portions. Would this really cause him to be so overweight when it's every other weekend?

It would certainly contribute. I couldn’t eat 4 takeaways a month and not put on weight!