To ask if I'm over-feeding my daughter?

[RogerThatOver]

DD is 10 and her best friend is super skinny. Apparently some other 'friends' have been comparing them and referring to DD as her 'fat friend' I spoke to her best friends mum about this in passing and she said something about perhaps it's because they see how much lunch DD has compared to them. When pressed, she said DDs lunch was 3x the side of everyone else's (she works as a dinner lady at their school.)

Today, DD had:

A wholemeal ham sandwich with two slices of bread
3 slices of cucumber
Carrot sticks
A Frube
Some chicken breast
Strawberries and grapes
4 x tuc crackers
A custard cream

Her friends mum said most children have sandwiches and crisps only so I can see how her lunch looks big, but it isn't unhealthy so I don't see the issue - or am I missing something? She was going straight to a netball tounament after school until 6 and only had a banana for breakfast so I think she would be starving if she only had a sandwich and crispsfor lunch. For dinner she had 4 meatballs, pasta, salad and a slice of garlic bread followed by pineapple and custard.

What do you think, is it too much for an active 10 year old?

My dd is nearly 10, just made her lunch for tomorrow:
ham sandwich
cucumber slices
yogurt
mr kiplin cake
bottle of water

I'd try and get her to eat something different than fruit for breakfast just because it won't really give her enough energy to last the morning but more importantly i'd say she needs to get kinder friends. xx

There's no need to have pasta and garlic bread, no, but it's nice! I enjoy it so I'm hardly going to say she can't have it.

That is a huge lunch, more than an adult should eat. It doesn't matter if every single thing is "healthy", too many calories are too many calories.

My dad is 8 and would eat that no problem and is petite and very slim.

I couldn’t eat that much, OP, and I’m a not remotely slim adult.
DS1 (10.5) would take:
1 sandwich (2 slices of bread)
Crisps
Fruit
Yogurt
Treat - cake/biscuit etc and eat it all.

DS2 (9.5) has:
Half a sandwich
Fruit
Yogurt
Crisps (never eats a whole pack)
Treat.

Agree with most posters, that's a lot of food in one sitting. I would also ditch the garlic bread when serving pasta too. No need for bread soaked in buttery garlic.

Having said that, even if she was a really overweight child it’s not remotely appropriate, or helpful, for anybody to be commenting on it to her and I would be going postal at school to sort it out!

That seems a bit much just for libel ch or is there a mid morning snack as well?

Have you checked her height and weight recently to confirm that she's a healthy build? Going by clothes sizing is fairly meaningless as a guide, as clothes vary in cut and can be quite broad. It's also meaningless comparing children visually due to the number of children who are overweight (although this will have localised patterns). Looking "average" can be overweight, and looking "super skinny" can often be a healthy build. It's difficult for people including parents to tell without objective measurements.

Children's appetites vary so she may need a little more than her friends. It does sound like there are some extra snacky items that can be edited out. Most adults I know wouldn't eat that much in a packed lunch.

The only way to tell if she is eating an appropriate quantity to her needs is to check her measurements.

My four year old would also eat that for lunch, and come home “starving” after an adult size portion of porridge for breakfast. We don’t give biscuits or crackers but he eats 2 slices of bread with ham, malt loaf, an inch of cucumber, 3/4 strawberries and a yoghurt.

If they’re hungry they’ll eat and I’d rather that than have them go hungry. Some kids eat loads, others don’t; is she aware of her lunch size and what others are saying? If so I’d be concerned that she takes less but starts snacking / eating in secret away from other kids; maybe keep an eye and if needed ask the School to do the same.

Why does nobody find it bloody outrageous that the other children are commenting on the size of her lunch? Why are they even interested in another child's lunch at that age? Why is this considered normal behaviour?

It is one thing to learn to eat healthily, but to be obsessing and judging about about how much someone else is eating and calling them 'fat' just screams of deeply unhealthy food issues to me. Bloody parents should pay attention to what they are giving to their children along with their 'healthy' lunch.

I give mine a sandwich, piece of fruit, veg sticks and popcorn.

Surely if the kid only has banana for breakfast it all evens out though?

It doesn't sound too much to me, OP, suggestions of just veg sticks are all well and good, but remember she's an active ten year old who needs calories, she not a sedentary 40 year old office worker.

Give the kid some fat!

That seems like too much IMO op.

My ds1 is 9 but more 11-year old sized, very tall and broad shouldered. Very active, playing high intensity sports every day and constantly hungry lately (I think growth spurt).

His lunch is larger than his friends lunches - and item for item he has nearly the same as your dd but WITHOUT the chicken and crackers and with a natural Greek yoghurt rather than frube.

Your portions seem to big. If in doubt, make her lunchbox one day and then lay it all out on a plate. I was amazed at just how much food there was when I did that...it looks much smaller when it's all portioned up in little tubs and foil etc.

I think everyone feels like it’s a lot
From comments here
Why ask the question if you don’t want the replies if they disagree with you?

Age clothes aren’t really a guide as they vary so much

Have you checked her bmi ?

By the way I would still tell the people to mind their own business who called her the fat friend

Sounds fine.ur concern shouldn't be on wot others on here say hun.u no ur daughter and her size.if she is ok then so is this.more doubt like the bullies intended will spring from here.u need to talk her through shitty comments most importantly

Haffiana, agree name calling is inappropriate but so too is using the words 'super skinny' which the op mentioned in her post. I was super skinny as a child and I hated my body. Bony, ribs sticking out, no shape, no nothing. It's not nice to be labelled.

BMI is an inexact tool in children. The height / weight ratio is compared to a population spread and providing you aren't within the outlying ranges you'll be identified as a healthy weight even if you aren't (I think my DS1 is clearly overweight but according to his BMI he's in the healthy range still).

I would go by general body shape. At 10 you should be able to see her ribs and she shouldn't have a pot belly or protruding abdomen when standing normally. For boys, there should be a completely flat chest but obviously girls mature earlier and so she may well have breast buds at 10 - there shouldn't be much in the way of overlying fat though.

The lunch as described sounds like a lot even for an active child. My sons do more activity than 7h a week in clubs (they do at least an hour a day in the week plus 3h Saturday and 2h Sunday), plus walking dogs, PE/outside activity at school (and in NZ there's a lot of outside fitness stuff at school) and eat less at lunch. However, they do eat a healthy breakfast.

Today's diet for them for comparison:
Breakfast: egg on toast (x2 for DS1-11, x1 for DS2-9)
Lunch: 2 slices of wholemeal bread sandwich with meat, cheese and salad. One apple.
Dinner: Chicken stir fry with lots of veges in the stir fry (and I make my own stir fry sauce so no added sugar although there will be some in the tomato paste).

Snack will be fruit (apple or banana) after school.

Not read all the replies. I have a 10 year old ds who has packed lunches.
Mine would have:

• ham or tuna sandwich with two slices of bread
• slices of cucumber/ Carrot sticks/or piece of fruit such as apple or banana
• cheese sticks or a yogurt
• a flapjack or a biscuit.

You say you put chicken breast in as well as the ham sandwich. Personally I wouldn't put that in as well, as seems a bit much on top.
Then 4 crackers and a custard cream as well.
Does seem like a lot.
Couple of crackers or the custard cream instead? Rather than all of them altogether.

I haven't read all the replies. I would be very wary if the portion sizes are sorted and the school friends continue to bitch about your DD size. I think this also needs to be approached with the school as a potential bullying issue. I have heard of older girls actively ruling what others eat from their lunch box as a peer pressure issue. This can lead to eating disorders later. If your DS does need to lose weight (I don't know if she does); it would be easier if she had support at school.

I think there's three issues: the lunch seems large; the dinner lady says she eats much more than anyone else; other DCs are calling her fat.
None of us can tell if her activity levels balance out with the amounts of food so unless you weigh her, this is a waste of time.
Tell the school about the name-calling

Perhaps if you cut back on the amount of food she's eating for lunch, she'll be more inclined to eat a proper breakfast.

It is far too much food to be eating in one sitting, and it's very carb dense.

well, Italians eat pasta and bread together all the time, and the Mediterranean diet is considered one of the healthiest still... (although they do not put butter on bread, even garlic bread, but olive oil which is better)

I think we are all getting too obsessive about this, yes, obesity is a problem, but so are eating disorders and girls being extremely unhappy with the way they look

I would just make sure she is not overweight, talk to GP maybe, but making sure she did not notice there was any concern and showing no anxiety around her weight, if there is a problem, then you need to address it clearly, if there isn't then who cares what the dinner lady thinks! (and discuss her friends' unkindness with her and the school if it gets to the point of being bullying behaviour)

I can't believe a bunch of 10 year-olds and the dinner lady spend their time noticing how big everybody's lunch is, this is NOT healthy! and interestingly, I have never known any of the boys my DSs are friends with or my DSs themselves to worry about such things

Every person is different and people should really fuck off with policing how you feed your child. My dd (now 16) could have easily eaten that much at 10. She was active and an average to low weight. To this day she takes massive packed lunches to school that, if she wasn't mine and I didn't know her, would shock me with their size. She eats when she's hungry and stops when she's full.

Today she took a 16oz thermos of lentil soup, two oranges, a hard boiled egg, a chunk of cheese, a roll, a bag of crisps, and a couple of cookies. Most kids eat how much their body needs. Here's what she looked like at a school event last Friday.

I, however eat sparsely and diet like mad and still weigh almost 20 stone.

it's not so much about the portion size - some children (or people in general) get away with eating more than others. but I agree with PP that her portion sizes sound big and no child needs custard twice a day.

But some can just eat more than others without piling in weight.

What is her weight and size? if she is fine I would not worry.