To give my dd less food than my ds?

[jultomten]

My lovely dd is 5, she has always been chubby and has always been bmi overweight/ just on normal weight. I have always worried about her but her doctor has always told me not to worry that she will grow out of it. But she's not growing out of it. I have 2 ds as well 7&3 and they are skinny/ normal. Compared to my dss dd eats super fast and always finnishes her plate/ asked for more, they pick and rarely eat everything. I have also caught her helping herself to biscuits and other things in the fridge...
I have started serving her less food than ds1. And adding extra vegetables. She has noticed and Iv told her she gets less because she's younger. And I'm not letting her have seconds. But I'm feeling mean I'm feeling crap. I don't want to give her a future eating disorder.. but equally I don't want her to end up overweight. I don't know what to do. Am i doing the right thing or aibu?
She's 119cm and weighs 25kg if it makes any difference.

98th for weight and height may be in proportion but it doesn't necessarily mean healthy.

Overweight children will grow 'overtall' as well as too heavy so the percentiles can be misleading.

Also unless you are also on the 98th percentile for height, your DD is not going to carry on being 98th percentile for height - she is going to fall off it, probably abruptly on stopping growing and then be very much out of proportion.

Is it normal for children as young as five to help themselves to the biscuits?

Just curious really. I don't have children of my own yet but when I was primary school age we were allowed one biscuit after school and that was it. It would have been 'naughty' to help ourselves to more.

I understand why you're a bit concerned OP. I was the child who ate fast, always wanted seconds or thirds and was just a bit greedy really. I never felt full so without a parent to stop me I would have just carried on eating.

I wouldn't restrict her main serving of her dinner though as that will be good food. Keeping the sugary snacks down would perhaps be a better course of action.

The way is t to teach what is a reasonable portion. You will find that at times she will eat more and at others much less.
Usually my two eat a hell of LOT during a growth spur and then less so when it calms down.
So you need to have some flexibility in the amounts she eats iyswim.

What she needs to learn is to stop when she is full as well as what is a balanced diet.
If she knows that, she will not develop an unhealthy attitude to food and will eat healthily.

wolp I'm sorry but I really don't follow you there.

Dc1 has always been on the 90th centile in height and in weight at that age.
He is now a teenager also on the 90th centile for his age (but he is actually on a lower centile in weight).
He didn't 'stop growing' and he didn't become overweight . Even if he had slowed down growth wise, why on earth would that not have happened for his weight too?

Op you know your daughter. You are also the only one that can see her and if she looks overweight,and know whether her growth has been in proportion.
Also a kind d that eats quick and everything on her plate is very different from a kid that eats slowly and never finishes,even if the food is exactly the same.
Is she actually still hungry or does she asks for seconds because she really liked the food/o extend the time to match her brothers/just because it's there?

Healthy = eating when you are hungry, stopping when you are full.
Making choices based on situations, which includes social eating. Fruit, veg & protein to snack on, and small treats like biscuits once or twice a day.
If you teach her not to eat when she is hungry to control her size and appearance, that's the seeds of eating disordered behavior right there. She's five. When puberty kicks in everything will change anyway.

Give her more protein. That's more filling. Not more veg as she'll be more hungry!

Tread carefully here OP. I was put on my first diet age 7, Looking back on old photographs I was tall for my age, but slender. My sisters and I were always told we were overweight (we weren't).

Sadly my siblings both developed anorexia and bulimia. For some reason I didn't. However, when I told my mother I was on on ADs (Mirtazipine) and explained they can cause weight gain, she told me I should stop taking them.

All our lives she has given us the message that "looking good" is better than being OK. Her favourite photograph of me is when I was a drug addicted size 6, (I'm not far off 6' tall).

Like I said OP, tread carefully.

It's not the how much but the what, I'd recommend you read dr briffa ( or just watch him on YouTube, he talks a lot of sense about evolutionary diets and how some of us just haven't evolved to cope with some of the stuff that is quite standard in modern day diets. For some of us certain carbs create a leptin block and.....well you can read about it.....you might find she can gorge herself on buttery protein and all things supposedly high in fat but is completely unable to cope with sugar and starch

At 20 I am 98th centile for height, but if I was 98th for weight would be overweight. In fact I'm between 75th and 91st for weight. Of course this may well not convert into a 5yo but the top of the chart is skewed by children who are overweight.

But if the ds's just pick at dinner then why give them more...? That makes no sense to me.

I think that if you are going to reduce her portion sizes (not encouraging it), you also need to reduce your DS' portions, so she doesn't feel inferior for want of a better word. You said that they rarely eat everything anyway.

Give her veg for seconds, vegetables have very little calorie content. If you are concerned, eat more veg, and more walking. My kids love swede mash, great for good calorie content.

Cutting down her protein is just going to make her even hungrier.

What does she eat in a day?

I would suggest not giving her less of anything, but MORE of green vegs etc.

So all kids get the same portion of protein and carbs and just don't have any leftovers of those, HUGE pile of veg though.

My boys are both big eaters, they eat until they are full but they fill up on veg.

So a normal dinner plate will have say a small steak, a small scoop of mash and an absolute mountain of broccoli, carrots, peas, etc.

Seems to work, for my two the main thing is that there is a lot of it and that it is right in front of them, they aren't actually too concerned with what it is made up of.

My 6 year old just had breakfast, he had one slice of really seedy/nutty toast with plenty of real butter and vegemite, half a punnet of cherry tomatoes, some blueberries, a piece of cheese (about matchbox size), a banana and a glass of unsweetened almond milk.

It is a lot easier for everyone this way, they need to eat a lot, I need to feed them a lot (I grew up very poor and was often hungry so have my own demons there) and they need to eat well and maintain a healthy weight. They probably chomp through 10+ servings of fruit and veg a day.

DH is cooking dinner tonight as I am out, the plan is pasta in garlic butter (but a small bowl) accompanied again by a big bowl of salad so they can get the volume and nutrients without excess calories.

And I'm not pro kids on diets but I also don't think telling kids they can eat whatever because they are too young to worry about it is a good idea either. If you teach kids to eat what they like it will be far harder for them to adapt as adults, I know first hand

is it normal for kids as young as 5 to help themselves to biscuits?

It bloody shouldn't be. I don't have a biscuit tin so certainly not in this house. If we have some cake/biscuits left over from something (we do have them), I would never expect the kids to help themselves.

My sister is a tissue viability nurse and most of the wounds she deals with are diabetics. Too much sugar kills people.

I'm sure someone will come and confirm i'm a controlling food nazi soon enough.

OP, we don't really do seconds in our house. We eat a standard meal, never skip one, that's it. We don't really have snacks such as crisps and cakes in the house and don't really 'snack' that much. Maybe an apple or piece of fruit after school.

According to nhs calculator she's 90th centile, healthy food & exercise for all of your kids is great but as a pp said don't single her out.

You keep biscuits in the fridge?

I think you sound possibly like you are in danger of micromanaging and projection. Agree with PP, the idea of 'catching' her taking biscuits is a bit of an overinterpretation of what most five year olds I know might do - have a biscuit without asking first.The thing of giving her different meals to everyone else is going to make her self-conscious very quickly

Take the pressure off a bit and put bowls of food in the middle of the table and let them help themselves. I bet if you did this over the space of two or three weeks you'd see her getting a good balance over time.

Also with the biscuits, just be a bit careful about how you are framing them. If you are being really tense about how many they are eating, and saying that they are bad, and generally treating them like tiny, crumbly little sugar bombs then people are going to get a bit confused. If they are okay to have, you need to be okay about them having them. If you are clearly not okay about them having them, they are going to grab as many as they can when they can because the way you act around them, they might not get another chance. If you don't think you can give them biscuits without getting in a knot about how many etc. then why not just ditch the biscuits and let them have them when they are out and about, at parties, at grannies, etc. They'll likely be getting plenty biscuits in their lives but without the side serving of anxiety.

I was first taken to weight watchers at 6. I'm not kidding. We was a big kid but if I lost a 1lb I got a toy, 1/2 a stone a bigger toy etc. This and my Mother subtly checking my weight and not so subtly commenting on it has lead to a life of moderate bulima (I have never had a diagnosis but I never told anyone until DH) and yoyo dieting. You know what I wish. I wish my mother had cooked from fresh more with me and made exercise for me a part of my day. Its such a tricky thing. I'm glad I have sons as I have no wish to pass it on! Good luck!

the top of the chart is skewed by children who are overweight

Is it? Aren't the WHO growth charts based on healthy weigh (based on world wide figures) so 95th percentile for each is fine, it's if a child is a much lower percentile for height than weight that there's a problem.

Yes that's true I should just add loads of veg and give her the size food she wants and maybe cut out some carbs from all the plates. We usually have 3 meals and 2 snacks a day and that's it.

Today she and her brothers had:
Cereal and milk ( about 1/2 cup) and advent calendar chocolate..

1 mandarin and 1 biscuits

Fish fingers (4) pasta 1/2 cup and pees

1 kiwi, 1 mandarin 1 biscuit

Risotto and broccoli

And to clarify i give her less food than her older brother her younger brother eats less food then her.

*...and my mother would make a big thing of giving me salad for dinner, but then produce a triple layer cream cake, and when my 7 year old self declined, I'd get the sadface, and "I spent all day making this".

And when I was getting ready for bed, she'd say "I've got something nice for you!" and give me a Mars bar or similar.

Sorry if I'm projecting a bit here OP, but you can ensure your little girl eats healthily without making a Big Thing about it.

I think what I'm trying to say, is please don't make her feel singled out, and don't tell DD she's receiving smaller portions because she needs to lose weight.

For the information of weight and height you have given this is what it out putted:
www.mendcentral.org/BMIcalculator
The BMI for your child indicates that they are a healthy weight for their age and height. Your child doesn't need to go on a MEND Programme, but you may like to read our Top Tips for Parents for ideas on how to make your family fitter, healthier and happier.

I hope this helps to put your mind at rest she is a healthy girl.

That is a lot of carbs. And quite a lot of sugar too. What cereal are you giving them?

Sugar I think is the issue : Cereal (unsure, could potentially be a lot, Mandarin (x2) (22g) and biscuits (x2) (a lot) kiwi (9g). Plus carbs and very little protein.

How much exercise is she getting?