Overweight children help needed

[stormmclean]

I weighed and measured my 7 and 10 year olds today and they are both overweight - the 7 year old by about 3kg and the 10 year old by about 5kg. Both 97th percentile for BMI.

Friends and family all tell me not to worry, they're just a sturdy/stocky build and the worst thing I can do is mention their weight or give them body issues but I do really want to tackle their weight.

We eat fairly healthily, I think it would be easier if we could just cut out biscuits, juice or puddings but they don't really have those things.
They do both have big appetites so I know that volume of food is the issue but I'm struggling with how to cut down without them feeling like I'm putting them on a diet.

Has anyone successfully managed to get their kids to a healthy weight?

You don’t get them to drop weight, you increase exercise/sort diet and let them grow into their weight.

Do you have any advice?

Do they get much exercise? What sorts of things do they have for breakfast/lunch/dinner?

Don't put kids on a diet, that will give them lifelong issues with food.

What do their activity levels look like? How much time do they spend on their devices?

What are they eating at the moment? How much exercise are they getting?

Are you or their father overweight?
I do think it's a mistake to ignore a child being overweight as an overweight child is likely to be an overweight adult.
There is one exception and that is that just before puberty many children fill out a little.
Slightly reduce portions and massively reduce sedentary activity. Age and growth will do the rest.

How tall are they? Tbh I wouldn’t touch their diet if it’s healthy and just add exercise / reduce snacks but remember that if they’re over 90th centile for height that they are probably going to be tall so you don’t want to go overboard even if weight is on a larger centipe.

You get rid of any freezer food. Fresh and healthy only from today onwards. No sugary drinks, smaller portions, increased exercise.
They are young enough that this is reversible. Ignore your family. Being overweight IS bad for you at any age and unacceptable in children (when it’s you providing the food). You are being a good mum by wanting to sort this out.

Give us an example of of an average weekday and weekend food schedule @stormmclean

what activities do they do?

Don't put them on a diet, you increase their excerise.

Such as go on long walks, swimming etc

Serve healthy meals with lots of extra veg rather than extra carbs to fill them up if they want bigger portions. Lots of exercise, active lifestyle rather than forcing exercise, and will do whole family a favour too. Make sure high calorie snacks etc are a treat not a habit but as others have said you let them grow into the weight they are rather than loosing any. The fact you have identified the issue means you can over time gradually get them on track but don't make a huge thing of it to them

Sounds like you need to lower the calories of the healthy meals you do eat.
A touch less fat to fry in, a little less cheese on top, an extra portion of vegetables on each plate - so less of the more calorific stuff, but not reducing the overall amounts, just the balance.

Discreetly reduce the amount of carbs they have, and fill the plate with veg, so they still feel like they’re getting a plateful of food.

Blow done balloons up. Patting them to and fro is good exercise, without exercising.

Some parks have orienteering courses. Makes a walk more interesting, or do things like crazy golf at the weekend.

Maybe fo a family challenge - couch to 5k, (or shorter distance if young), with incentives for each stage completed, or km run.

7 year old is pretty active, does 3 dance/gymnastics classes a week, rides her bike everywhere, plays out in the park a lot.
10 year old (autistic) is pretty sedentary, all his preferred activities are sedentary like reading, TV. Does ride his bike and go to the park occasionally but won't do any organised classes or sports.

Breakfast is typically greek yoghurt and berries or homemade bread with peanut butter (the very plain no sugar just peanuts type), or sometimes weetabix or shreddies with a banana, occasionally eggs.

Lunches tend to be a pitta with hummus or tuna sweetcorn or chicken/ham slices, fruit & cucumber/carrot/peppers, a babybel or chicken bites and a bag of crisps (this is the one treat thing I know I can cut).

Snacks are fruit, occasionally cheese & crackers or rice cakes, plain air popped popcorn. Once or twice a week I make pancakes which they have with honey.

Dinners are things like chicken curry, spaghetti bolognese, chilli & rice, sausages and veg. Once a week it's usually a freezer meal like oven chips and fish fingers with peas.

I have learned over the last years that volume eating is excellent for weight and good health so long as the types of food are not calorie dense so proteins and vegetables and fruit and less calorie dense carbs work best.

Portions recommended for kids are much smaller than lots of us would imagine (me included- I still can’t get my head around how small the recommendations on the nhs website are).

I’d start with looking at meals and reducing sugar, white carbs and fats (particularly trans/animal fats) and increasing fruit and veg. Reduce portions slowly (smaller plates, giving much more veg and less carbs/fatty meats, increasing whole grains and pulses etc).

Dont make any comments about their size or bodies at any stage.

If volume of food is the issue, cut down portion sizes of the main part of the meal and increase veg. If you’re making a pasta sauce for example, use less meat and grate carrot, celery, courgette etc into it to bulk it out. Measure healthy portions of carbs and have a load of salad on the side.

OP, that diet sounds really healthy!

I'm probably top end of healthy(size 10-12) , dad is probably in the overweight category to be honest, older child is a very healthy weight and has always been slim to skinny.

I've definitely noticed them both getting chunkier over the last 2-3 years so I don't think it is weight gain before a growth spurt.

My sons used to be the same, get a bit of a belly then shoot up 3 or 4 inches. Then back to skinny.

Difficult to say without knowing what they eat, but reduce potatoes, pasta, rice and bread and increase veg so that the plates still look like good portions. No mention of diet, they shouldn't really notice. Encourage sports and walking places where possible. Do they have a lot of sugary drinks? If so reduce any added sugar and try to buy reduced sugar equivalents.

Can you increase family activity at weekends? Walking/cycling?

I'm surprised they have got that much overweight eating the diet you describe, which sounds perfectly normal and healthy, particularly the one who does dance classes. Are you being honest with yourself about what they actually eat or do they have crisps, sweets, cakes, pizzas etc much more than you've described here?

They already have issues with food. OP needs to put her kids on a diet, that is the only way.

I know it is definitely the amount they are eating. They both LOVE food and eating.

Things I have done so far to try to tackle their weight:
Only serve food on side plates for them
Cut out as much ultra processed food as possible - no kids yoghurts, no packaged snacks, make my own bread or shop bought pittas
No fizzy drinks at home and rarely have squash - they can have sugar free fizzy if we are out for a meal or at parties
Sweets only on alternate Fridays
Rarely have cakes, biscuits or puddings and only home made
Takeaways or McDonalds are very occasional maybe once every couple of months

The younger one is quite fussy about vegetables and sometimes refuses dinner - she has a bowl of weetabix or bread and butter instead.