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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to stop my 10 yo daughter eating, even though she's not fat (yet)?

149 replies

KennethParcell · 19/10/2012 18:44

From the moment she got in from school she has been eating. Crackers, strawberries, biscuits (she ate more than her share but her brother and I weren't quick enough) also a yoghurt, and a chocolate spread sandwich with two slices of bread! I took the chocolate spread off her and couldn't believe how much of it was gone, i only bought it an hour ago.

I told her spagbol in an hour, so no more eating. the whinging and the whining - you would have thought I had locked her in the chokey for a week with gruel and water. so, i managed to prevent her eating anymore bread/cheese while I cooked, although a few times I had to say 'i said NO!' and shut the cupboard door as she was opening it.......... made the spagbol and dished up and she had seconds, which is FINE, totally fine. Then she was hungry, so i said have some snap peas. her brother and i had the snap peas and I said have a pear then. no, still 'hungry' but not hungry enough for snap peas or a pear but she has devoured two brioches. i'm so cross, all the food i carted back from the supermarket earlier, which was for the whole weekend, she on her own has already depleted a weekend's supply of carbs!!! she will be up before me tomorrow eating whatever she can lay her hands on as well.

aibu to put it to her that she should think about whether or not she is really hungry or not. and that if she is genuinely hungry she wouldn't turn her nose up at snap peas and a pear.... i'm forever telling her that she can't have six slices of bread a day, even brown bread, because of the salt content. i'm worn out with her.

she's ten by the way and although she is not plump she has a sticky out tummy, it's not wobbly, it's kind of like a drum sticking out, four months pregnant!

OP posts:
Choufleur · 20/10/2012 16:42

the child in the easy living article was obese. The OPs DD is not fat.

Sometimes we get hungry - I do as an adult. Why is it inconceivable that that teh OPs daughter was hungry. She could make better choices to satisfy her hunger but didn't.

pointyfangs · 20/10/2012 17:45

Well, I was 5'8" when I started my periods at age 15 - no idea how much I weighed, but it wasn't a lot. Dsis was even later, similar height though.

No sign of anything in DD1 yet, she's 5'2" and pretty much at the magic weight, but I'm inclined to think genetics are going to take precedence.

Original poster
KennethParcell · 20/10/2012 17:47

I feel bad now. She's eaten normally today and has had her chicken korma and is not nagging for more food. We walked into town and back earlier, 4k easily. and tomorrow we're going on a longer walk. She was a pig yesterday though.

OP posts:
Hopandaskip · 20/10/2012 17:49

My boys could have easily have eaten that much at that age. We make it very clear what food is available for snacks and it is generally boring and nutritious.

Original poster
KennethParcell · 20/10/2012 17:49

millytint, yesterday, she came home with most of her school lunch still uneaten. today because i made her lunch, ham and cheese ontoast with a yoghurt, i know she ate it. i think she was like a lion on a carcass yesterday, and today she was up later, ate a breakfast when hunger kicked in, then had lunch when she asked for it and then ate her dinner.

i sure as hell aint gonna home school her though!!! Wink

OP posts:
Original poster
KennethParcell · 20/10/2012 17:54

Might have a flick through easy living, if it's not sealed inside a plastic bag this month. I do feel for anybody who has to put their child on a diet because it's tough.

now that it's saturday i think that she is up too early for school, can't face breakfast, picks at her school lunch and then gets home like a LION. today (saturday of course) has been fine.

OP posts:
MadBusLadyHauntsTheMetro · 20/10/2012 18:08

What's in her school lunches? Maybe she prefers what you give her at home if there is a difference. Or maybe she prefers hot food (not sure how to get round that, but I'm the same, I find sandwiches really unappealing in the winter.)

bbface · 20/10/2012 18:10

Relax. If she really doesn't have a weight issue, I see no problem.,. My bro, sis and I were like that. My mum was so relaxed, her rule was.... As long as you finished dinner, then you could have pretty much however big snack you wished when you got home from school. I guess from her pov, she had three children, skinny as rakes, very sporty, good skin and teeth, who 95% of the time finished their dinners. So she would have been saying no, simply for the sake of saying no. However you need to look at the situation more widely than simply weight. How is her skin and teeth? Is she active?

Original poster
KennethParcell · 20/10/2012 18:13

she has good teeth, hair, skin............. she has been asking me for a hot pasta flask funnily enough (more jobs for me :-/ :))

maybe the answer was right in front of me.

OP posts:
Original poster
KennethParcell · 20/10/2012 18:14

for school lunches i mean. it's all "alex has hot pasta in a pot flask.... you can get them in tesco you know'.

OP posts:
SilverCharm · 20/10/2012 18:14

We have to tell our normally sized 8 year old to stop...she'd eat everything. She's no way near overweight but we do feel that she needs to let the food hit her stomach before she begins on another snack.

Like your DD she will eat and eat and try to grab things whilst I cook. I find the only way to stop this is to pre prep her dinner so it is literally there on the table when she gets home.

earlyriser · 20/10/2012 18:59

If my children come home ravenous but haven't eaten their packed lunch, they get that to eat before anything else Grin

RobynRidingHood · 20/10/2012 19:22

Children are active, or should be, they need the fuel to run about on.

If I told you what my 12yo ate daily, you'd all faint - and he's built like a butchers pencil with the meat scraped off.

Children do have periods of excessive eating and chubbiness because they growth spurt. This whole obsession, especially with girls and being "fat" or "stickey out tummy" is quite sickening. Put the trash mags away and realise not everyone will be size zero, some people are differnet shapes and provided what is being eaten is healthy then no damage will be done.

Don't have the crap in the house like biscuits, cakes, crisps and there won't be a problem with it.

MadBusLadyHauntsTheMetro · 20/10/2012 19:25

She does sound like me! I can't face breakfast before about 10 either. Combine that with not being keen on cold lunches and I would hit the sugar around 4pm too (I don't because I tend to have either a late breakfast or a nice hot lunch, depending on working pattern. Even if it's just soup and a roll).

Could you make more dinner and heat the leftovers in the morning to put in a flask? Not so much extra work that way.

bigTillyMint · 20/10/2012 20:52

Well, it may feel like more work, but maybe you should go for the hot pasta option? Or at least soup and a roll? DS used to like that in his packed lunch, but I'm not sure if it's "cool" enough for secondary school!

Mooskit · 20/10/2012 21:30

I have 3 daughters.. All adults, all normal sizes, married with kids. 1 as a child ate hardly enough to keep a mouse alive. 1 ate for Britain, and one had a 'normal' appetite. Stop worrying, all children have different development rates. As an old family doctor of mine once said... As long as they are getting on your nerves - they are all right! Start to worry when they go quite. Never a truer word spoken :)

Mooskit · 20/10/2012 21:32

Quiet.... Not quite!!!!

digerd · 20/10/2012 21:37

I was the same, had a very large appetite, especially sweet things when young but I stayed slim all my life. I was told I was greedy.

chelseananny · 20/10/2012 22:20

I do love that you say it has nothing to do with weight but you make sure to tell us at the end that she has a 'sticky out tummy like she's four months pregnant' Imagine what that would do to her if she ever read it?

I have had A LOT of teenage charges I find they eat you out of house and home when they hit about 9.5/10 until about 14 (boys seem to go longer) honestly one boy I looked after had just had two large portions of dinner (I went to pick sister from ballet) and they entire packet of organic chicken sausages (cooked for school lunches next day) had disappeared! I was livid.

Please don't make a big deal out of it. As you have said she isn't eating like that every day and she is probably just making up for not eating at school or the walking etc.

As you said she's eating other peoples fruit rations etc, either buy a touch more for a bit (if you can money wise) or just say there needs to be this amount left for other people eat what you want, say it for everyone so you aren't singling her out.

SCOTCHandWRY · 20/10/2012 23:08

Crackers - wheat?
Biscuits - wheat again?
A yogurt - does it contain sugar?
A chocolate spread sandwich with 2 slices of bread - wheat and sugar?
2 portions of spaghetti bolognese - wheat again.
2 brioches - wheat and sugar.
Banana and pear - more sugar.

I think she needs to eat something else other then wheat and sugar possibly.

Blueskysinking... EXACTLY this.

I don't think there is anything unusual about what the op DD is eating - many, maybe most people are eating a very carb/sugar loaded diet and getting very little protein and fats... but this is not what a growing child is needing (or any of us).

I'm getting on my soap box now.

All Wheat is appalling stuff (particularly the modern dwarf variety which IMO is not fit for human consumption)... it's addictive, not very nutritious and damages the gut and immune system (not spurious comments, plenty of science to back up all of those claims).

The trouble with all that wheat and other processed carbs - it screws up the blood sugar and puts you in a constant hunger cycle by spiking and crashing blood sugar levels. More weight on the belly is a sign of that metabolic chaos.

Growing kids (and all of us) need more protein and fat (yes, fat!), and a lot less carbohydrate. Grains are NOT healthy, or nutritious, no matter how many times you get told otherwise!

Do a little googling- wheatbelly, ThedietDoctor, Paleo/ancestral diets, and see what you think.

I loved bread too, my god how I loved it! And sugar... But it was killing me

StuntGirl · 20/10/2012 23:21

Same here earlyriser!

Hopandaskip · 20/10/2012 23:38

If my children come home ravenous but haven't eaten their packed lunch, they get that to eat before anything else

Ditto.

BTW, the nutritious but boring snacks are peanut butter (1 tsp) and peapods or carrots, vegetarian chilli (we buy a canned one with everything pronounceable), oatmeal (not sweetened or instant, good old fashioned steel cut) with frozen fruit (usually blueberries or strawberries), frozen peas (my weird children like them still frozen).

These are relatively cheap to provide, fairly filling and reasonably nutritious. Because it is always the same old, same old they got bored of them pretty quickly and tend not to eat them like they would if the list you gave was available. My younger one still fusses sometimes, I tell him to get a 'free(ly available) snack'.

BTW, my 11, nearly 12 yr old boy has a bit of a pudge to his belly, but he is stick thin elsewhere and does sprint kayaking for two hours three times a week. Most of the boys his age have the same thing going on, they are gearing up for puberty.

Freshbloodletticia · 20/10/2012 23:41

Have you wormed her recently? Seriously though.

Wallison · 20/10/2012 23:42

I don't see what's wrong with carbs. Kids need carbs - it fills them up. All of this anti-wheat stuff is just faddism at its worst.

bruffin · 20/10/2012 23:46

Agree Wallowing, I said above kids grow out before they grow upwards.

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