Overweight child. Help me set boundaries.

[Feckinlego]

Struggling in general with setting boundaries for dd. She's 11 and getting quite heavy. Given a chance she would sit and eat carbs all evening and has a very sweet tooth. Generally fussy around food, doesn't like vegetables or spicy food. To my shame she has more or less been allowed to dictate what she eats. I went down a rabbit hole reading about intuitive eating and got so scared of eating disorders etc that I didn't want to shame her about her appetite or hunger. But she's getting bigger and I need to do something. So what rules/boundaries are in your house around food? Particularly interested to hear if anyone has been successful in my situation.
Please be kind.

Don't buy snacks such as biscuits.
Make sure she's getting plenty of fresh air and exercise, perhaps introduce her to a sport or pay for classes.
Limit meals to three a day plus snacks like fruit or rice cakes.
Don't let her have sugar heavy fizzy drinks
Fill her up on protein
Hide vegetables in sauces and meals
Check out BBC food website for meal planning and recipes

Zero snacks and crap food at home. Proper portions. Ignore any whinging. No nonsense approach to exercise.
No need to mention being fat. Keep it about being strong and healthy.

She can only eat what you buy, so gradually change what you have in the house.

I have 3 girls.

I have struggled with weight alot of my life and knew i didnt want them to be like that so early on i got them into competitive sports which is a large amount of training a week so that helps.
Being active, walks, park stuff like that.

But fundamentally our household diet is strict in the sense they cant just go in and pick sweets/chocolate/cakes etc. Yes of course they are allowed to eat that stuff but not throughout the day, once max.

If they are hungry we encourage food not snacks and balanced meals.

I have to say, when i see overweight children i think they must eat a shit ton as i know my children arent on a clean eating diet yet they carry zero weight.

Swap out foods for healthier options rice cakes instead of chocolate, baked crisps instead of fried. Or give her stuck boxwth her weekly allocation - if she eats it all at once that's on her.

I would regulate what she can help herself too - seed and nuts and home made trail mix fine high in heathy fat and filling. The packed lunch cupboard no.

More importantly fill her time so shes not snacking but being physically active.

My DD doesn't really like the heat of the day so dinner picnics and activities out became our norm and meant we moved alot more than had we had dinner indoors.

Also to add, my firstborn is fussy and has went through stages where her diet has been what i would class as beige and awful.

When that happened i would cut out all sugery snacks and treats and she was only offered homemade dinners or healthy snacks - it wasnt about her weight it was about er health.

This. Just stop buying unhealthy food.

What is your diet like OP, or others in the household?

Growing up me and my sister just followed the same diet as our parents really, so we’d have 3 good meals a day, snacks if/when hungry, just the same snacks as parents would have so sometimes it was an apple, sometimes it was a biscuit, sometimes it was crisps. So we were taught from day 1 really what a balanced and healthy day of eating looked like. If we were still hungry there was always something else we could have, but again it would be like slice of toast/some nuts/apple/crisps etc, having no fuss around food stopped there from ever being any guilt or emotion around eating, it’s to satisfy hunger and taught us to listen to our bodies, if we were hungry then eat. I’ll be doing the same with my daughter

As your daughter is 11 years old, I’d recommend including her in the meal planning. She can start helping with meal prepping as well. I think if she’s included more in what goes in her food, she will feel more involved in making healthier choices. She can still have her snacks etc, but the emphasis needs to be on a balanced diet that is healthy and nutritious and is not at all restrictive. Doing simple things like taking the stairs, running around in the park, playing sports that she enjoys would be a lot more helpful instead of cutting down she likes eat or snack on.

Thank you all for your very helpful suggestions. I do some of that stuff already, eg bolognese packed with veg, but she'll only eat the pasta. If she's hungry in the evening I'll give her fruit and toast for example, she will eat this, but then still be hungry and want more toast. Most of what I cook is healthy, bar the odd beige dinner here and there. I cook everything from scratch. I definitely have too many treats in the house, and she does have to ask, but the asking is so frequent I forget what she's had. I need to make a concerted effort to limit her intake while managing her hunger, which I'm assuming is emotional or bored eating. Food for thought.

I think the holidays are really difficult in this respect. So much snacking is boredom rather than actual hunger - adults do it too! Are you at home with her during the holidays, in which case I'd try to get her out of the house and exercising as much as possible? And camp for a few days, if she'd do one and there are any nearby suitable for her age group. Just having a structure in place where there is an activity, then you have a snack, then another activity, then lunch, and so on would probably help.

Do you buy brown bread for toast? Would at least be better than white. And she can have peanut butter / butter rather than honey or jam which are just sugar.

I think if you are making a meal that she doesn’t eat eg only eating the pasta when you make spaghetti bol then you say fine but no snacks later .

i agree that the safest way to stop eating junk is just not to buy it. So you buy rice cakes, snacks jacks , baked crisps or reduced salt and fat crisps but no biscuits sweets or chocolate . Sugar free squash and no juice / fizzy drinks

I don’t think you should have that many snacks in the house. Eliminating the notion that they’re treats would be beneficial in the long run because it might lead to unhealthy food choices if certain foods are just seen as treats. Having seasonal fruits to snack on, vegetable that she enjoys to eat might encourage to make more healthier choices.

Interested in this too. I have a sweet tooth, and had awful teeth as a kid, so we focus more on sugar /tooth decay - so no sugar in the week (all of us) as a rule. Then maybe a pudding /treat or two at the weekend (sugar eaten as a meal much less bad for teeth). I find talking about teeth, and exercise to be strong and healthy, helpful and avoids the weight issue. Also watch portion size. My partner doles out as much pasta as he has for an 8 yr old, had to have a quiet word.

I think getting her to start exploring some veg would be massively helpful here. Most veg is relatively low calorie to volume so useful for bulking meals and snacks without adding lots of calories and of course it has all the other benefits vitamins, minerals, anti oxidants etc. At 11 (excluding those with additional needs) she is old enough to understand that vegetables are part of a healthy, balanced diet and even if she doesn't love them, she ought to find some veg that she can tolerate. Get her to think what textures, flavours, types of food she like and get her to help you cook experimenting with veg. Eg. Could she try making vegetable nuggets, or bean burgers, soups, sauces, dips, think about different cooking methods and combining with things she does like. Eg if she likes macaroni cheese get her to try adding cauliflower to it. If she eats cottage pie can you try topping with a 50:50 mix of sweet potato and white potato.
What does she have for school lunch?
Portion sizes?
Drinks?

My advice is a hard stop on buying any processed snacks because in a few weeks I assume she’ll start secondary school and therefore be able to buy her own snacks.

My older teen DS has a sweet tooth and often stops at the corner shop to buy a muffin / cookie / chocolate and I have little control as he has a Saturday job and his own money to pay for it.

Luckily he’s fit and eats well at home but I’d still recommend you come down hard and act quickly get DD to kick her junk food / snack cravings and have better eating habits while you have some control, and a shrinking window of time.

Once breakfast and lunch are right it's much easier to eat a balanced dinner. Once you get close to the TDEE across three healthy meals, and choose healthier snacks weight gain isn't really an issue.

Also, eating dessert after a meal is preferable than a standalone sweet snack as blood glucose is already raised. And fibre before eating carbs, or dressing your carbs in healthy fats, helps reduce blood sugar spikes.

Introduce starters:

Lentil and veg soup
Crudites and hummus
Salads

Then serve the main course

She'll eat lots less

I tell my girls they’re allowed one ‘some
times food’ a day because eating lots of them isn’t healthy.

My DDs are younger but when they would only eat carbs I would only put half a portion of carbs on their plate (1/6 of the plate) and said they would only have morw after they ate some of the rest of their food.

Do youbtalk to her about healthy foods and what makes a healthy diet?

What country you in? In Scotland there will be a child healthy weight programme that's based on healthy lifestyles available thru nhs. There's likely similar in the other uk countries.Kids do really well here and learn loads and it's on them then to take the onus upon themselves to get fit and healthy.

Look up Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibilty. Simply put, you choose what she eats - obviously within the range of stuff she likes - and she chooses how much.

But please don’t shame her or put her on a diet (not saying you would) as that can contribute to the things that cause EDs. Intuitive eating is how we’re supposed to eat but obviously there are things you can help with. Don’t worry too much about the weight, especially at this point, either. Both my younger 2 went through a period of puppy fat at that age and one is now as slim as a rake and the other is a slim pear shaped woman at 18.

No UPF snacks and sugary/fizzy drinks in the house (including diet soda as these also increase cravings for sweet stuff).

The idea of having starters and/or fruit for dessert is a good one, as the idea of o ly letting the second half of carbs after she has eaten her protein and vegetables.

What about exercising with her? Lots of online trainers on YouTube, e.g. Growingannanas, Heather Robertson, Rebecca Louise.

What is her daily food i take like?

Can you tell us an average day?

What kind of snacks?

What time are her meals ?

She should not be having toast after dinner , thats crazy

How much walking does she do?
Any classes like Dance etc?