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

[KennethParcell]

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!

well i always buy wholegrain brown bread, brown pasta and brown rice. i wasn't encouraging her to eat the crackers or the brioche. they were supposed to be a saturday morning treat.

Then that's exactly what they should have been.

I think the problem lies not just with how much she's eating or whether she's bored/greedy/dehydrated etc... but more with teaching her to ask before taking.

Some kids just do need to eat a lot. My son definitely does and while I shovel fruit and carrot/cucumber sticks at him like they're going out of style, they don't really fill him up - not properly. He still always needs some kind of bread product as well for his snack. And he eats all of his meals, including all of his vegetables, and is skinny as anything. I've come to the conclusion that he's just a hungry kid. Sounds like your daughter is the same. If she's a healthy weight then just don't worry about it would be my advice.

Could you try & get a 'drink before snack' routine going? As i think the lack of water is the worst habit to get into! Also then you not denying her food (which I'd feel worried about)... But you are getting liquids into her.

My mother had a terrible attitude towards food & it was very damaging however she did do one thing right (!) about after school snacking. She gave me a stick blender (green shield stamps!), & I made my own banana smoothie & brown bread sandwich when I got in. I know smoothies are the bad guys at the moment but they are filling & satisfy the sugar high, & are surely fine when combined with other foods like peanut butter & brown bread?

I remember finding the act of actually making my own snack & blending the fruit was really fun & turned into my own little ritual ... Also stops the mindless snacking via preparing it first. I used to cut my sandwich into pretty shapes too :)

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.

Wallison, it's not a fad, but I'm very much swimming against the current on this one, I know!

I am quite used to the glazed stares and incredulous comments when people ask how I have lost a LOT of weight and no longer have constant gut pain, arthritic hands and some other joints and very frequent headache and migraine...blah, blah, etc- have you glazed over yet? .

Yes, people are sceptical about the claim that something that forms a huge part of our diet can be so damaging... the idea that fat is bad and grains/wholegrains are good is constantly rammed down our throats, but have a wee read of this, it's quite informative, written by an American Cardiologist.

www.wheatbellyblog.com/

Molly my GGM was 93 when she died I was 11/12 so we had chatted about it.

SCOTCHandWRY just because you have an allergy, and from your symptoms possible Coeliacs, doesn't mean everyone does.

Most people don't have: gut pain, arthritic hands and joints, frequent headaches etc. etc. Sorry life is unfair, but that is not normal.

I think they are right about the amount of wheat consumed. I don't feed myself or children wheat all day. If they have toast at breakfast they wouldn't have say pasta for dinner.

Snacks are filling, but they only have one a day ( around 3/4 pm), as they are fed three meals a day and often aren't Even hungry for that snack. Protein and fats are important for growing people

Yesterday was something like:

8.30am- porridge with blueberries and cranberries. orange juice

12.00- roast veg couscous ( make enough for few lunches, is just any leftover veg floating around fridge) with homemade guacamole ( an avocado between two of them) and tazaki ( full fat Greek yogurt)

3.30- peanut butter on oatcracker, some banana and cherry tomatoes (random i know)

6pm- chicken and mushroom risotto, yogurt

Milk before bed

They don't need wheat all day to be filled up

Btw I know couscous is wheat...

We have been eating wheat and oats for a teeny, tiny part of our history. A micro amount of time, and they're not good for us. They were cultured through a need to produce low quality, cheap and mass produced food stuffs. The kinds of "carbs" people seem to think cutting out is faddism teach the body to sugar burn - they turn into sugars very, very quickly, make us think we are hungry quicker, cause inflammatory symptoms that aren't just because someone is allergic to gluten, and gives us quick highs and lows spikes.

But for some reason, it makes people angry when you talk about cutting out processed carbs like oats, porridge - which by the way is one of the worst for being sugary - pasta, bread, brown rice - which is actually worse than white rice because the body has to work harder to process the shell around brown rice.

The paleo approach to food and diet is much better at sustaining the body through longer periods - it teaches your body to be a fat burner rather than a sugar burner, reducing those spikes. A diet consisting of carbs from vegetables, protein and high quality fats is much better for you - but again, this seems to make people irritable - probably because it suggests taking away those precious processed and refined carbs we're all so addicted to.

OP - there is nothing wrong with suggesting that you might reduce the processed, crappy, sugar spike carbs and replacing with a lot more vegetables and protein. Your daughter might find that sweet potatoes, yams, butternut squash, broccoli, avocados etc rather than pasta with meat fills her for longer. It's an alternative you could try.

It really is so weird how annoyed people get when you suggest it though. Writing it off as faddism is a very bad idea. It's an alternative suggestion - as valid as any other suggestion on this thread.

Oat based porridge has no wheat in. It actually says gluten and wheat free on the box

Porridge doesn't have to be sugary - and isn't in this house.

Also forevergreek how old are your children? Because teenagers do tend to go through growth stages where they can eat everything in sight (which includes whole bags of carrots).

I can understand that a child of that age can be hungry. DSS can eat twice as much as DH without pausing for breath!

However - we do not allow the DC to help themselves to food. I need to know that there is sufficient of xx to last the week, or enough bread for tomorrow's packed lunches etc. Even DH runs it by me first before taking a pack of crisps ;)

There is always fruit available - and as much water, squash, cups of tea as they like.

One point - is she bored or tired when she gets in from school? If I am a bit aimless I tend to wander into the kitchen and grab something to nibble on. Not because I am hungry, just bored.

Maybe when she gets in from schoool - get her to assist/make her own small snack - with a big glass of water - and the go and do homework/music practice/read a book away from the kitchen. That should occupy her until time for dinner.

ps, and I buy the flahavans unsweetened porridge and I eat all bran or porridge with unsweetened soya milk myself! i don't mean to get defensive but i'm not uneducated about food.

They are still pre school, but my youngest sister who is 13 also lives with us, and eats the same. Of course they can eat a bag of carrots. Carrots are nuritious but also What someone on a diet would eat. If they have carrot/ veggie sticks it would prob be accompanied by some houmous or something similar to dip to provide some filling protein also .

I have a boy like this (except he's 5!!) When he comes in from school, i do him a wholemeal sandwich of some sort, yoghurt and malt loaf buttered maybe or fruit. Then that is it!! until meal time, which is probably about 2 hrs later, he can have drinks in between though. Make sure she cannot be hungry all in one go, then you don't have the 'well, what if she is genuinely hungry' gnawing at the back of your mind.

"OP - there is nothing wrong with suggesting that you might reduce the processed, crappy, sugar spike carbs and replacing with a lot more vegetables and protein. Your daughter might find that sweet potatoes, yams, butternut squash, broccoli, avocados etc rather than pasta with meat fills her for longer. It's an alternative you could try."

well, she doesn't like sweet potato, i eat it myself because it's lower gi than a normal potato but she hates them. She does eat broccoli and carrots though. I boguht an avocado recently and she tried a bit and didn't like it.

I 'mix up' my grains and cereals. Bran, Oats and I try to avoid wheat although I don't imagine that we are avoiding it as it's everywhere. HOWEVER i'm not going to go to 'paleo' route with a ten year old. At least not overnight.

re the glass of water before food yes thank you, handed her a glass of warmed water this morning and literally blocked the fridge/cupboards 'til she'd drunk it.

Op I don't think you are uneducated, you sound like you have your head screwed on fine :) just some comments sometimes ( not nessesarily from this thread) indicate that the wrong message on what is 'healthy' is given

I am astonished to read on packed school lunch threads that many are banning anything 'fatty', like cheese and full at yogurts. But are happy for low fat full of sweetner yogurts and jam in sandwiches everyday as less 'fatty'.

People of all ages obv need a balanced diet and excluding them all from school age is wrong. Excluding 'crap' I can understand but in many ases it's going too far.

I have to ask does she eat at school (mine often skip food if they can), and when does she eat? A lot of kids I know eat their lunch at morning break.

If I am organised, then I have something nutritious for them to eat when they get in, soup is ideal as it provides water as well.

*cases

You're missing the point about oats. They turn into sugars. Not that you don't have to make them sugary with syrup or whatever. Yes you can get gluten free varieties and I get that we've all been sold on this idea that porridge oats are this wonder thing that will keep us going all day. The truth is they send your blood sugar sky high and give you a sugar crash within a couple of hours. If you think oats are good for you, get glucose meter to see if you're one of the few people who can tolerate that kind of spike.

Oats were the hardest thing for me to give up - mentally. I was so completely into the idea that they were good for me, that they charged me up for the day and they do contain some good things. But the sugar spike from the oats alone worries me so I reduced them to maybe a once or twice a month treat.

I'm not going to spend my time trying to convince you though :) It's just the difference between eating semi OK and eating really well and of course, that choice is entirely up to you. Winter mornings now, I have a mash up of sweet potato (flourless) pancakes or butternut squash blended with coconut milk served hot with a pinch of cinnamon.

These threads always make me feel completely inadequate as a mother , all the meal planning that goes on . My children have school lunches , I am lucky that there lunches are very high quality and there is a lot of choice but there is i way I could say " you are only allowed wheat once a day" they are teenagers and choose their own food during the day .

I fall in the door with ds2 and 3 after school at about 5.30pm having left the house for school and work at 8am, I am just not organised enough to be doing roast veg and couscous the night before for a snack whilst supervising homework and raiding the fridge and cupboard for something healthy and nutritious for supper

It's quite normal for teenagers to eat you out of house and home. They are growing fast. Just provide healthy food - which does not mean huge quantities of fruit and nothing else. (Fruit is good for you in reasonable amounts but too much and nothing to balance it with is too sugary.) Have a root around NHS Choices for sensible advice on healthy eating for teenagers.

So carbs from veg, but ordinary potatoes are bad? Just trying to get this straight in my head.