to worry about slightly chubby 4 year old DD?

[microferret]

My DD is 4 and a half, 107 cm tall and weighs 20.3 kilos. Our daycare provider flagged up her weight as a potential concern at the last meeting we had, a couple of months ago... It has been on my radar since she was about 2 though.

I'm at my wits' end... We did everything right. She was EBF until 6 months, and then we slowly introduced solids. We offer lots of veg and fruit. I made sure small amounts of sweets and treats were part of her daily intake because I wanted her to have a healthy attitude to them. She loves them, but doesn't over do it. She understands that there are limits, and accepts them. She doesn't overeat at all! She's active, she runs about a lot and rides her bike. It's baffling.

After the meeting, DH and I decided to take some action. We decided to skip carbs in the evening, so she has a dinner of protein and veg, and then some olives or a small amount of nuts if she is still hungry. But it's made no difference - she's still gaining weight at a worryingly steady rate. She has a sweet treat after daycare at about 4pm, just to make sure she doesn't feel deprived. Breakfast and lunch are normal, with carbs. The daycare staff don't feel she really eats too much, they say she eats just like the other kids do, who are all of course skinny as rakes.

I'm really at a loss at this point. It's a mystery as to why she gains weight constantly. DH and I are both slim, we eat lots of veg and model good behaviour. I wasn't a very skinny child although I was never overweight until my teens, but even I remember feeling horribly different and chunky because all the other kids were beanpoles and I was more muscular, with short legs. Even though my mum was feeding me super healthy stuff and I only ate sweets and desserts at weekends.

I just don't want her to suffer like I did. It's a quandary.. Do I take action now (and what fucking action, really, apart from starving the poor kid???) and risk screwing up her relationship with food, or do I relax and wait for the puppy fat to disappear, and risk the problem getting worse?

Has anybody experienced similar? Can you offer tips?
*if you're coming on to tell me about your kid who was fat until 2 and then became a skinny minny with a huge appetite and hollow legs please don't. It's not the same situation and isn't helpful.

Is she muscular with short legs? It's surely quite likely she's going to be the same as you - in which case you're doing everything right, as it sounds like your mother did, but she's naturally going to have a bit of puppy fat until she gets older.

What does the daily sweet treat consist of exactly? I honestly can’t see why she needs a treat every day. Make it a Friday treat maybe.

Her height and weight are fine! I don’t understand what the daycare teacher is on about? My daughter is 6 and is 116cm and weighs 23.5kg. She is slim and sporty and by the bmi chart is a normal weight. I’d be very surprised if your daughter is overweight.

Does she do lots of exercise, my children run everywhere

She could have an issue with her thyroid, a pituitary tumour hormone imbalance?

What about exercise? Sounds like she eats well but maybe you need to up activity. My daughter is very slim because she never sits still.

Do you give puddings? I am overweight and so is my whole family. I am trying (successfully so far) to break the cycle with my kids. This means most days pudding is fruit. All sweets and treats they are given outside the house go in a tin and they can take something once a week if they ask. I don’t do food as a reward. I don’t let my parents feed them crap as a treat. It sounds like you are giving a treat after daycare as a guilt thing? How about fruit and a cuddle instead?

What's the daily treat?

What's her portion size like?

Nuts are high calorie and olives often salty

Does she drink juice?

I was also going to ask what the daily sweet treat is.. That's the only thing I would suggest dropping down to once a week. However, I don't know if there's a separate issue as mentioned above.

The thing is, people are built differently. It sounds like you’re doing the right things, but your DD just isn’t built like a beanpole. My twin boys are 3.5. They are both very tall and sturdy. One is slimmer than the other despite them eating the same things and doing the same amount of activity. It just happens that he has a stockier build. As long as you offer lots of healthy food, model good habits and live an active lifestyle, I really think it will sort itself out. She just might never be a skinny child. I know it’s scary when you worry about your children going through something you went through and suffering from it. I feel the same. But the best thing you can do is encourage her to value her body for the great things it can do, not how it looks, especially in comparison to others.

The only point I would make is that I know mine have dessert at nursery, so I try to avoid offering sweet treats or anything on those days because they will have already had something sweet.

ChristianGreysAnatomy

Usually a single scoop of ice cream or a couple of sweets. It's partly because my mum's refusal to let me eat anything like that fed into my own obsession with it that led to an eating disorder in my teens and twenties, and partly because advice from psychologists recommends including dessert-type foods in the diet precisely to avoid this sort of obsession.

It can't be this single thing that's causing her issues, I've calculated that it's only an extra 60-80 calories that it adds

Why does she need a daily sweet treat? She wouldn't feel deprived if she didn't have it because she wouldn't know any different. It really isn't necessary to have daily treats. My kids have a banana or an apple if they're "absolutely starving" 🙄 after school.
Be careful not to project feelings onto her.
What are her portion sizes like? She might just be eating too much in general even if it is healthy foods.

At 4 those are fine? She’s somewhere between the 75th and 91st percentiles fit weight(depending on when her birthday is) but that’s because she is also taller than average at somewhere around the 91st . My DD saw a peadiatrician this week and her height/weight percentiles are very similar (she’s older so not the same numbers but the same part of the chart and her exact words were ‘perfectly healthy tall and slim’. I really wouldn’t worry!

Cut out the sweet treats. It's not a treat if it's every day. Also check your portion sizes. I think people ge really have no idea of what a portion size for kid should be.

Actually from what you’ve said it’s really hard to know if it’s her or the diet you’re giving her. Firstly not giving her a ‘treat’ every day would not be depriving her!!! This is a red flag to me that you think this way. What is this treat usually? What are her portion sizes like? Cutting carbs for a 4 yr old sounds literally like ‘dieting’ and is wrong. Keeping her plate balanced, including carbs is what you do for children.

It may well simply be her build or a medical issue with her but people are often delusional about what healthy eating actually is so nothing would surprise me.

I think four is too young to put her on any kind of strict regime. She sounds as if she eats healthily. What does she say - is she always hungry? But I suspect she is just going to have a heavier build than you, and perhaps a slower metabolism.
My son was quite chubby from about 4 and he LOVED his carbs! As he got older I realised he was helping himself to cereal after school and after dinner too! But he was also genetically going to be heavier as all the males in his family easily put on weight. By 12 he was more than chubby. He’d always been active and loved sport, and his weight was holding him back. Then at 13 something happened. I think he decided he wasn’t going to be the fat boy at school. He got on a (very strict) diet and exercised even more and wow he lost 40kg in under a year!
What I’m saying is no matter what I said to him, it was he himself who had to make the change. As painful as it was to know he was teased at school, and as much as I only had healthy food in the house, the only way was through his own motivation. He has friends who can eat twice as much and exercise half as much and still be skinny. He knows he has to always be careful. That’s life.
I know they say there really is t a difference in metabolic rates but I definitely think you can feed two people the same amount and they can exercise the same amount and one could be quite a bit heavier. As long as she is healthy and happy I wouldn’t worry. You don’t want to give her an eating disorder! Give it time. She may lose the extra weight as she grows or she may get to a point like my son and do it herself.

I would cut out the daily sweets, but don't cut out carbs in the evening.

My children were / are both quite chubby at that age, but they don't start to check bmi until school age here and my eldest had slimmed down by then. If you were a similarly shaped child then the chances are that your dd will just take after you.

Buy a trampoline, (if you have a garden, clearly not a good idea if you live in a flat without one!).

Can you post a photo of DD?

As she has been like this for two years, if she’s genuinely overweight, honestly not overeating and reasonably active then take her to your GP and ask them to run a few tests to rule out hormonal issues, diabetes, thyroid, pituitary gland issues etc.

It sounds a healthy diet to me and I agree with you about allowing a sweet treat every day she's four FFS. Can you increase activity on a weekend or something? The main thing for me would be to not let her know you were worried about it as it could make her feel bad.

I’m not sure that no carbs in the evening is a good thing. Kids need regular fuel.

The nuts/olives, though they contain good oils etc are high calorie. She’d be (in my opinion) better off having this with her meal.

What time is she eating.

A sugary snack at 4pm isn’t going to encourage eating a proper meal at say 5.

If you want to do the dessert type thing daily, then do it after the meal as a dessert.

She may then not want it as she’s full from dinner.

Titus

"The only point I would make is that I know mine have dessert at nursery, so I try to avoid offering sweet treats or anything on those days because they will have already had something sweet."

This is a good point. I'll ask them what sort of treats they are giving now and how big the portion is. Maybe she can do without her afternoon treat if dessert at kita is sufficient...

Just read your next post.

I think you’re going the opposite way to your Mum, in order not to be like her.

It’s not necessary to deprive a child of ice cream & sweets, but it’s not necessary to have them every day either. Vary her afternoon snack with cheese & crackers, fruit, yogurt, etc. Ice cream or sweets every day after school is setting her up in a bad habit.

Please stop using food as a reward. Use treats as part of wider eating. Otherwise she will associate sweet treats with making herself happy which is not great long term. Drop the treats every day, use fruit as her snack instead.