DS classed as overweight!

[Blondie1993]

I read a thread on here earlier about BMI in children. I have felt that DS (7) has been looking like he has a bit of a belly recently (family/friends have looked at me like I'm crazy when I've mentioned it) so decided to check his weight and height today. He's overweight! He has just turned 7, he is 4ft 4.8 inches tall and weighs 5 stone 4.1lbs. This is using one of the machines in Boots. It puts him on the 95th centile according to the NHS website!

His dad and I share care 60/40. At mine I am fairly strict with healthy eating but will try and change a few things - thought cutting to semi skimmed milk and maybe brown instead of white pasta? He only gets milk/water to drink, veg with every meal, fruit for snacks, weetabix for breakfast - the only treat he gets from me is dessert after Sunday dinner. Is there anything else I can do? It sound daft but I am 5ft 8 and 9 and a half stone - I'm naturally slim, I've never even had to think about what I'm eating in terms of weight!

I'm not sure if I should perhaps make a doctors appointment or if this would be a waste of time. I'm not convinced me telling his dads side of the family that they have to be careful with what they are feeding him is going to go down well ...

Ah, that explains it, you put 4 ft 8 in the OP.

Ok, we get those meatballs and have 4 each.

We're also all adults !!

Try making your own with turkey mince, they're much healthier and tastier tbh.........the qourn ones are good too.

Sorry, he is 4 ft 4.8 inches tall.

I wouldn't eat 6 meatballs to myself and i'm an adult.

DD 3 would have one
DD 8 would have three
DS 11 would have four

6 is loads.

He is pretty much eating all day according to your post. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner....

Cut the mid morning snack, doesn't need it if he's had breakfast. I'd cut the afternoon snack and bring dinner to 4.30/5. Cut portion sizes. Semi skimmed not full fat milk. One pudding a week on a sunday. If he wants a snack before bed, a piece of toast with butter or some natural yogurt with blueberries.

Then you only put 4 ft 5 in the calculator. Try again with 4ft 8 and he wont come out as overweight!

Adult portion of pasta is about 70-75g dried weight, m so I'd say about 35-40g dried weight for a child.
I think 6 meatballs is too many, and I'd half that portion, but up the veg (if needed).
2 slices of bread with soup is what my oh would have, I only have 1 slice and I'd give a child 1/2 to 1 slice, depending on what else they're having and the size of their portion of soup. If it has carbs in it, I'd try to do without the bread completely.

Her son is four foot four point eight inches. So she was right when she put it in

Right I see it now. I and other posters misread the OP!

Managed to chat with his dad today and thankfully it went a lot better than expected. His dad and his family seem to have realised too and are on-board with getting DS moving more and making sure he is eating well. I'm going to try and take him swimming on Wednesday evenings and to an extra basketball class on a Friday so that's doubling his exercise there. We went a four mile walk/scoot yesterday plus 45 minutes in the swing park so we will try and do this once or twice at the weekend or if the weather is really bad we'll go trampolining. Hopefully with these changes and his dad increasing exercise on his days, it will make a difference.

He also had a much smaller portion of meatballs last night (3 meatballs, 40g of pasta and lots of salad/cucumber with semi skimmed milk) and was totally fine with it. He didn't even seem to notice so i'll definately be more careful with portion sizes. Thanks for all the replies/advice.