How to lower my child’s BMI?

[Poolofjoy]

She is currently on the 99th percentile. About 4 months ago, we cut out takeaways. We had a dominoes every week, sometimes a curry too. Sometimes a McDonald’s as well. Food was pretty processed and crap. Now I cook homemade, healthy meals. No takeaways. I also enrolled her on two after school activities which are great exercise. This is the new lifestyle now, that we are fully sticking to. But, her weight does not look like it’s gone down at all.. will it gradually? I weighed/measured her in July ( under the guise of testing the machine at the leisure centre before I had a go, as I don’t want to make her self conscious ) should I weigh her again to check? I just don’t want her to worry that I’m weighing her again. Should I make more changes?

@InTheNavy

That advice seems very tailored to your son and his situation and family history of height.

Guidelines suggest it for 2-5 year olds. And healthy eating is really what has been suggested to the OP. No one is suggesting "dieting". Just correcting portion sizes and cutting out junk.

OP should see her own GP, that's a given. But it's really unhelpful to tell her she absolutely shouldn't aim to knock a few pounds off her daughter as she is already having a hard time getting her mind around cutting out sweets. If shr hears "no need to lose weight" from mumsnet then they might end up back in the same rutt.

Prepare for the worst- which is cutting it all out. And if her doctor tells her otherwise then it won't be as difficult.

*My disclaimer is I worked in mental health and that often crossed over with overweight children. I wasn't involved in the dietician stuff but was told about the 2-5 age rule. That was many many years ago so could be very different.

HeyMicky

One idea to tackle seconds is to actually have two courses for dinner

But make the first one very light - a green salad or a carrot salad, some steamed green beans with garlic, some stir fry veg with just a little ginger and lime, or a low calorie soup, for example

I lived in France for a long time and this is actually what they do. Even just a plate of sliced tomatoes with vinegarette, but it does exactly what you say and starts to fill you up. And gives your stomach extra time to feel full up.

The other thing I was going to suggest op is, if she likes the idea of seconds, give her a smaller first plate (maybe 3/4 or her usual plate), and them a smaller second plate so she only actually gets the amount you want her to have. But as it's stretched over a longer period, she may feel fuller sooner.

The other thing to remember is that if she's been overeating for years, it will take a while for her to get used to smaller portions.

Having courses during s meal means that you are eating for longer. Which is far better than gobbling your food down to quickly. I was told after twenty minutes your brain knows it’s full regardless of the amount eaten.. not sure if that is correct, but the idea of eating slowly does seem to work

The other option is to provide soup before each evening meal. A simple vegetable soup made with stock. Soup going into the stomach will literally start to fill the stomach and then only a smaller amount of the next course will have been eaten and the gherlin receptors shut of much quicker as the soup takes up so much space

A simple batch of vegetable soup will keep in the fridge, serve each evening but no bread with it, befor you meal.

We are a very tall family. DH is 6ft 4 and I’m nearly 6 ft, so presume our daughter has a fair bit of growing to do! A veg starter is a clever idea!

How fast does she eat? Chewing properly and not eating fast helps you feel fuller sooner and eat less overall.

I also agree about two courses route.

She will got used to large portions from the takeaways. Definitely knock seconds on the head. Not being show offy but my kids don’t even know the word ‘seconds’. If they are still hungry they have a piece of fruit. You must be cooking too much food if ‘seconds’ is even an option so you need to change your mindset and cook less.

She also needs to make sure she is having enough protein throughout the day. Sugary cereals such as rice crispies will only have the effect of making her crave more sugar and be even more hungry. Could she have an egg for breakfast?

She should also up her activity levels.
A walk at the weekend and a bit of swimming is nowhere near enough.

Only have healthy snacks in the house. If it’s not there she can’t secretly snack.

You say she has a yoghurt for pudding. Make sure it is plain and not fruit as they have an awful lot of sugar in. Plain Greek
Yoghurt is good and very filling.

I would have thought that swimming 3 times a week, an hours climbing and an hours trampolining was enough? What do your children do for exercise in a week? Honestly?
I’ll stop seconds. Many recipes are for 4 people, hence the leftovers.
We don’t have Rice Krispies. We have wheetabix, shredded, porridge, fruit, wholemeal toast with beans or egg for breakfast.
I’m really trying

The yoghurt is fruit flavoured so I’ll swap it for plain

Exercise-wise DS2 does 3 PE lessons, 3 hours kick boxing, 3.5 hours cricket, 2.5 hours football. 2 hours of badminton on top of that. Occasionally the odd extra hour of 1:1 training.

Probably the higher end of the scale but the kickboxing in particular is what I would consider proper exercise. PE at school isn't that strenuous IMO. Swimming is ok but o suspect swimming lessons do not involve enough full on swimming to burn many calories nor does climbing.

It is very true that it is 80% diet and 20% exercise. I have done both, eat well/no exercise and eat crap/lots of exercise. I lost weight doing the former and stayed the same then eventually put it on doing the latter.

She does school pe too and still at the age where she plays out with her friends

I’d have definitely said that was on the higher scale zany, surely? I can’t think of any of dds friends who do that amount?! Unless my heads more buried in the sand than I’d thought

It probably is, some days they go from one thing to another, they don't do anything on a Friday (DS1 is in a band on a Friday so not sport but he plays 2 instruments so busy on top of that all). It's totally their choice though. They still seem to have time to play playstation etc and then catch up with friends at the weekend.

I wouldn't recommend that much for sure but I do think you should really consider a higher intensity exercise for her if you really want things to change. I find the fitter they get the more they want to eat right to improve even more. It's a great way of thinking to grow up with also.

School PE is generally not great IMO. What I also find is that team sports or even stuff like tennis still gives kids the opportunity to only work as hard as they fancy on that day. A more body conditioning class, martial art etc tends to have more discipline which means they actually push themselves but it feels like fun.

I have definitely noticed the difference in both my boys since starting the boxing. The group plays games where they race in teams so they really push themselves, they have a huge smile on their face the whole 90 min class. They always do 30 mins of fitness training before the technical stuff. Its so good. Loads of girls at the session too so I suspect that's the same in all locations.

Could you encourage her to join a competitive club, perhaps swimming if she is already competent and enjoys it? At her age I was swimming for about 8 hours a week in 1.5 hr training sessions covering about 2 miles (120 lengths) per session, including interval and sprint training and competing probably one weekend a month on top of that, plus netball for 3 hours, trampolining and horse riding....doesn’t have to be that full on but my brother also did similar and we loved it, it does need to be something she really enjoys though and it’ll need to work with your other family/time commitments.

When dd 2 was that age she was swimming 3/4 x per week doing 2km with club, 2 hours on a Sunday of running, Cycling & swimming, then going to the running track for 2x sessions per week for an hour and a half each time

Saturdays we’d often go out for a cycle ride, summer time we’d cycle to the activity’s

This was governed by dd2 though as there was no way I’d push, the only thing I’d insist was walking to school

As dd went into her teens the sport increased, training for cycle was added in at around 12 with a good 5-7 hours & dd would go swimming on a Saturday morning at 6.30 finish at 8 then go on a club ride of 30 miles

I must admit I never had a problem with bed time with dd2 she would always sleep well

I can’t afford any more clubs sadly

Does she do some brisk walking every day?

If not find some reasons to walk places.

Walking to and from school, walking to those activities she does. Walking to the shops and carrying bags back. It won't make a quick change but long term doing these little bits adds up.

Walk for longer on the weekends. An hour is a start, well done.

Not walking every day so we could definitely implement that. How far/for how long do you think?

Climbing is great for strength but doesn’t get the heart rate up. I don’t even count school PE as exercise as it’s so bad.
I have boys, they are sporty. So they do tri club( running and cycling), hockey twice a week, park run, football. I think you need to mix exercise up a bit to get the full benefits. Rather than just focus on swimming. Plus yes, lots of walking where possible.

The key though, in addition to upping her activity levels, will be portion size and reducing sugar.

Is school walking distance? For us that adds up to an hour a day.

Cycling, do you have a canal tow path to cycle along or park to go to?

What activities/sports do the adults in your family do?

We stopped school dinners because of a similar issue. School dinners at our school were massively unhealthy, and followed by junky deserts. Maybe you could swap her onto school dinners, some healthy home made pasta in a hot food flask, fruit and a yo-yo/ rice and chicken salad even a whole meal room fruit and a light dessert like alone light bar, sugar free drink is going to be way healthier than what she is being given at school, plus you can actually see what she is having for lunch. There will be other kids on packed lunch too x