To ask if you think 6 fish fingers is too many for a 3 year old boy to have for dinner?

[BasinHaircut]

along with half a 400g run of baked beans and chips.

Need to settle an arguement.

Cheers

Did he eat it happily is surely the only thing that matters?

I'd say so. 2 would be more normal. Depends if the child is currently too thin or too fat.

I thought you were going to say for an adult!

six is an awful lot for a three year old. Unless he is eating them and them alone.

It seems to me very unwise to assume that all children will only eat what they need nutritionally. If that were so then there would be no overweight children, where in fact the number of overweight children are increasing all the time, with consequent health issues like rising levels of diabetes.

People's idea about how much children should eat and how they should look have changed. Food is cheaper so previous cost restrictions means that more food is offered and portion size is a big issue for many. Children being generally fatter has shifted perception, so that children who would have been considered normal twenty or thirty years ago are now thought too thin.

We lived in the States for a bit and so had annual pediatrician checks. My ds was on the 6th centile for most of his childhood, the pediatrician was really excited to see a thin child. She certainly didn't say he was too thin, or that we should feed him up (he's always been a good eater, he was just a bit hyperactive back then).

Just because the OP's son ate six fishfingers once doesn't mean that he needs to be offered a shedload of food at every meal. She is right, it was too much to offer a toddler. If granny had offered him two and said there were no more I expect he would have gone off to play without complaint.

I think there's a danger that feeding that much will start a habit of overeating which could cause problems later on. Better 2 fish fingers and maybe peas and carrots or an extra vegetable.

Yes, sorry, sounds way too much to me. My 6 foot teenage boys have 4 with peas and either proper bread and butter or mashed potato. We gave up on oven chips years ago, they seemed to take forever to cook and always a bit of a disappointment. I just ditched them and nobody noticed. Making their own FF sandwiches on the plate seemed more fun (easily pleased!). If it is a grandma doing these portion sizes, maybe she is finding it hard to adjust down to toddler meal sizes. Does your HV have those leaflets about child portion size (google toddler eatwell). Could you stick one on your fridge so she sees it when she comes round?

I think that 6 fish fingers would be too much for me and I'm supposedly a grown up.

That is significantly underweight and you should be very concerned.

I am not very concerned as she weighs significantly more than I did at the same age and I am perfectly healthy, just naturally skinny (am 5'5" and weigh 8 stone at 47 years old with no dieting involved). She is also perfectly healthy and naturally skinny.

Greenfer-'your dd is nearly a stone and a half lighter than the average 9 year old..........

And bang on average for height.......

Every appetite is different and we all require different things. It may be better to give him less and if he's hungry later then offer another small meal, I find this works for all of the kids I've cared for in past. It's also a nice way to introduce more variety to their daily diet. I'm looking forward to blw.

If he has a healthy appetite why not give him healthy food? Then you wouldn't have to worry about how much of it he eats.

You could switch 3 fishfingers for a wholemeal roll. If that's still not enough try reducing the baked beans and add a side salad - cherry tomatoes/cucumber/peppers. More variety and smaller portions will make it seem like a bigger lunch.

It's depends what else he is eating and when - but if he eats all 6 fish fingers (and unless there is a concern about his weight) I don't understand the problem? My slim 9 year old son eats a whole can of baked beans by himself for a snack and then will also eat his dinner. But I think it's because he doesn't eat a big lunch at school because he wants to go out to play with his friends. He has a big breakfast of porridge every day too.

JackLottiesMum Six fish fingers with beans and chips for a 3 year old is surely too much. It wasn't just the fish fingers.

Depends on the child, both my boys would have made a pretty good attempt at six fish fingers on some days at this age. If he particularly likes fish fingers why bother with the chips, just fish and beans is fine. I'd be much more bothered by him eating loads of chips and leaving the fish.

salt! sugar! did i mention salt?

I suppose being on a diet or 'lifestyle change' for years robs you of your sense of satiety so that you have to rely on rules 'no more than 2 fish fingers' or whatever and can't risk overeating at one meal because you can't rely on it balancing out.

For goodness sake... 4foot 3 and 3 stone is skinny, but that is all it is. Some girls are very skinny, they change. My 6 year old is quite thin, but not skinny, she is 4 foot 1 and three and a half stone. ( so tall). Tonight she ate a portion of salmon plus potatoes and veg and pudding. Is that too much?
Also some people hold weight differently....My 11 year old is 5 foot 4 and 8 stone (so nearly the same as Greenifer) and she is slim and not skinny... Of course you can't really compare an adult to a child.

This has been an informative thread... Three days ago I had no idea of my children's weight and only a vague idea of their height. It never seemed that important as they are fit and healthy.

Surely it's about portion size and how often a child eats convience foods?
My dd is 8 and gets a half portion of what I eat for dinner. Ds is 5 and eats a half portion of what dd eats.
I know my ds eats out of boredom sometimes so I'm trying to sort that out, he is offered water when he says he's hungry but has just eaten dinner and then a banana or apple if he's still insisting he's hungry.

We've definitely become confused about what weight a child should be.. Skinny and tall doesn't always mean healthy

Most 3yo will only eat what they are hungry for.

It is far better if you can rely on appetite rather than arbitrary rules as to what you eat.

What you do every day is what matters. Not 6 ff at Granny's house.

BMIs (such as 1.4 and 15.6) that are so far into the underweight end of the scale should be cause for concern, just as much as a BMI that veers into overweight territory should.

Greenfer:
I am not very concerned as she weighs significantly more than I did at the same age and I am perfectly healthy, just naturally skinny (am 5'5" and weigh 8 stone at 47 years old with no dieting involved). She is also perfectly healthy and naturally skinny.
BertrandRussell Fri 07-Oct-16 09:18:53
Greenfer- your dd is nearly a stone and a half lighter than the average 9 year old..........
BertrandRussell Fri 07-Oct-16 09:20:43
And bang on average for height.......

My children weighed significantly more than I did from age 2 onwards. All of them were in the region of about 19 for BMI as teens, and about 50th percentile for weight as children. My other thought my weight as a child and teen was great, and she used to chuckle at teachers' comments that I was looking a bit thin. It turned out she had bulimia.

I weighed 7 stone at 23. It was the heaviest I had been while living at home. I am 5'6". This was a BMI of 15.8 = underweight. I was 'naturally skinny' according to my mother.

I kept a few 80s clothes (from my late teens and early 20s) that I thought my DDs might be interested in using as dress up items for Hallowe'en or costume parties. None of them could squeeze into them after they turned 10, and none of them had any flab. ExH had a slim build, average height, no 'big boned' ancestors and for all her faults, exMIL was a great cook and took great pride in producing delicious and healthy meals daily.

I really think it is possible to err very seriously in thinking that thin = healthy. Just because your children weigh more than you did at their age doesn't mean they are doing better than you. If they are underweight they are still unhealthy.

There is a significant fear of obesity expressed on this thread, and while obesity is a serious problem, I think people have lost their way a little in failing to recognise that there is a very healthy middle ground between, for instance, a stone and a half below average weight for height on one end of the scale and obesity on the other.

I think people have also lost sight of the meaning of the word 'habit'. To be considered obese, a child would need to be at or above the 98th percentile in weight for age. Waist circumference would need to be way up in the high 90s too. To get to that point a child would have to eat and drink a diet consisting almost entirely of junk - fatty or sugary foods and beverages daily with virtually no exercise. If your child is not near the 80th percentile for weight, and you know the components of their normal diet could not be classified as high sugar/high fat, you really don't have to worry about obesity.

If your child is underweight, it's not something you should be congratulating yourself about. You should consider offering more on the plate. If the food offered is healthy then it is fine to offer more of it. Your children might surprise you.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/system/files/protected/page/NEW%20Girls%202-18yrs(4TH%20JAN%202012).pdf Growth charts for girls pdf. One is to age 8 and one is from age 8.

4'3" is 129.5 cm.
3 st is 19 kg.

My other = my mother.
Greenfer = Greenifer (sorry).

It's not just about volume of food and the risks of obesity. Of course portion control is important but fish fingers are very high in salt and 6 plus beans (also usually high in salt) is far too much.

We should be eating for health not constantly worrying about 'being fat'. If we focused more on health everything else would fall into place.