To stop my daughter (what I see as) overeating?

[isthisfairidontknow]

She's 7, fit and healthy but neither skinny nor fat. Does gym, dance, etc each week.

But she has an enormous appetite. And we keep clashing over it.

For example this morning she has cried that she is hungry but has had a bowl of rice crispies, a banana and a cheese sandwich. She's only been up since 7. I've made her have a big drink in case she is thirsty. I would be full if I had that.

Yesterday she had a bowl of bran flakes, strawberries, breadsticks and Nutella (as a snack) mid morning, kids portion of fish chips and peas (at a restaurant) and apple crumble and custard for lunch then 'green pasta' for tea (peas, pesto, courgette, garlic, onions) and a corner yoghurt for pudding.

There is a rule in our house that food is unlimited but if it's outside of mealtimes it's fruit veg and water or milk. And I've offered all of that but she's still whinging on.

She's been like this every day of the holidays and it's relentless every day. Even before the holidays she was always complaining about portion size, 'can I have more? I'm hungry etc'

Is she just chancing it for more food? Because she doesn't want the fruit and veg and water on offer.

Benji cereal is not particularly nutritious. They add additional vitamins to the cereal to make it somewhat nutritious. A friend worked for a cereal manufacturer and she was somewhat taken aback when they actually added in the vitamins and minerals they literally threw it in on top of the batch. Some bowls of cereal would be particularly covered in the added vitamins and the ones at the bottom of the batch not so much.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Our DS, aged 12, has eaten a lot since the age of about 5. His normal day is:

breakfast - bowl of porridge or muesli then a pancake or two or two slices of toast.

snack in the middle of the morning - fruit when he was at primary school. Now he's at secondary school he buys a waffle or sausage roll.

Lunch was a school dinner - now he'll buy a pasta pot or school size lasagne or similar. He's off on school holidays now so he's out with a packed lunch (two meat wraps, a bag of crisps, fruit, some mini sausage rolls and a piece of cake)

He'll be home at 4pm when I guarantee he'll demolish some biscuits or have another wrap or half a sandwich

Then we have a homemade meat pie with veg tonight. He'll then have fruit for pudding. Then he'll want a bowl of cereal before bed or a piece of cake if I have any.

He's been like that since 5 years old. He's in the 10th percentile for weight. He does have a heart condition so uses more energy standing still than the average person - but it's probably only the equivalent to a woman breastfeeding.

DS is tall and skinny. He doesn't over eat - if he doesn't want all his lunch he'll leave something, if he doesn't want two slices of toast he'll have one. If your daughter is doing the same don't worry about it. DS is growing, putting on muscle, hormones raging and constantly moving. Don't judge by what you can eat - your body is moderating your intake, your daughter is moderating hers.

Added vitamins, minerals and most importantly iron, is the best thing about cereal. That and the fibre.

A bowl of all bran has more iron than most fruit and veg and many other foodstuffs

@Siameasy funny, there I was, boredom eating away in the 80’s. I also ate for fun, because I liked it, because I was hungry, because I was reading a book...

However because food was never restricted at our house, and we didn’t have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, we just had food... We didn’t often have biscuits in the house, and never had crisps. I never had a problem self regulating. And I was a skinny girl, now a slim adult.

I don’t think it’s totally helpful to say it’s ‘not like it was in our day’. There is plentiful, convenient food to choose from yes. Not all of it is healthy. But our own personal food cultures are just that, not representative of a generation. We’d serve our children better to help them learn about how to self regulate rather than restricting food - whilst ensuring we offer appropriate options.

Oh god reetgood youve brought back the memory of eating 30,40 freezepops whilst devouring babysitters club books

Talk to her when she isn’t moaning and ask her whether, when she complains of hunger, she is hungry or bored. If she is actually hungry she needs to eat more. Rice Krispies are pretty light and bland as an energy source.

My daughter is 7, she’s apparently below average on weight for her age, I’m not sure how as she’s constantly eating and hungry. In the holidays I have to spend an extra amount on groceries. I always say how she manages at school. She’s not the only one loads of the kids are the same. Some days she eats more than me.

she feels hungry because;

1. she's not got enough protein, and
2. lots of what she's eating is quite sugery.

An active 7 year old and an adult sedentary woman can easily have the same calorific demands, indeed, if you're smaller or even mode sedentary than average she could have more - stop comparing your appetite to hers.

This. A few weeks ago I checked the required calorie intake for the whole family - a website that took into account age, height, weight and activity levels. I am 5 foot 8 and 64 kg, only do light exercise. Turns out both my kids (5 and 8) should be having more calories than me - the 8yo significantly so. It was an eye opener.

It's not about you. It's about your child. You are giving her some foods that have little nutritional value, are high in calories and lead to overeating - there is excellent advice upthread on good swaps.

The food you are giving isn't that nutritionally dense, you need to do a bit of a diet overhaul, she is active and needs dense calories to support that 😀 look up meal plans like joe wickes for ideas.

reetgood's post makes the most sense of all to me.

I think there are some seriously eating-disordered posters on here who just dive in to any thread about a child's food - especially a female child. Catnip!

Proteins a fad..... I'm dead grin

That made me laugh too. Protein is an essential nutrient for humans. I love the idea of it being a ‘fad’, as though one day we’ll all say ‘remember those days when we thought it was cool to eat protein? How silly were we?!’

MythicalBiologicalFennel has a good point. If you check the 'average' amount of calories a 7 year old girl needs on the NHS website it's over 1,600 per day. A woman needs 2000.

So a girl who is very active, as your daughter seems to be, is likely to need more than 1,600 calories a day.

If every child on MN is tall, skinny and active (my arse) where is the obesity epidemic actually happening? Is it on the “other site”?

No, protein as a diet tool to “fill you up”’is a fad. LCHF, keto, paleo etc - fads. It’s the law day of the 70s equivalent.

And yes, in 30 years people will be looking back at the people who thought you could lose weight by eating mainly protein and cutting carbs in the same way you look at the rosemary Connolly low fat brigade. They thought they had the answer too

It's not that protein is a fad....it's the obsession with protein that's a fad!

Passthecherrycoke but no one here is suggesting that the OPs daughter follows a keto diet or anything like that. Just stating that her diet appeared carb heavy and she needed more of a balance. Protein helps you to feel full. Children need carbs and protein.

And most people have more than enough protein in their diet without it needing to be deliberately protein heavy. There is plenty of protein in the diet OP posted

I have never regulated what my children eat. If they say they are hungry then I believe them. I do keep quality snacks available to them, peanut butter, cheese, hard boiled eggs, whole grain bread and crackers.

Ok. Well my children definitely ask for fewer snacks if they’ve had scrambled egg for breakfast than if they’ve had rice crispies. I don’t think there’s any harm in suggesting that may help to the OP.

Everyone's here saying she's bored, but judging on the amount of exercise she does (dance and gym etc weekly) then she will need more food to sustain her.

Just make sure she's eating a balanced diet and she will be fine!

Please stop clashing over it as it can cause serious disordered eating in the future.

If every child on MN is tall, skinny and active (my arse) where is the obesity epidemic actually happening?

There are around 9 million children in school in England and Wales. Around 60k are obese in y6, 22k severely obese. Epidemic or not, it's obvious that most people will know/have children that are not obese,even if you triple the numbers.

Ramming yourself full of protein definitely is a fad. You store excess protein as fat.

My youngest dc is 5 and on non school days likes to fit in at least 3 breakfasts before lunch, which he is usually desperate for from 11am onwards.

He always eats a big lunch, then tea with a snack in between. He is really skinny, much the same build as my dh who grew up on Findus crispy pancakes and runs a half marathon to full marathon weekly because he loves being active.

All this handful of nuts and a small drizzle of Manuka honey stuff is such pretentious bollocks. Children can eat a range of foods in a day, from healthy to junk and still be a good weight. Making an issue of how much they eat and being too prescriptive about it will cause eating issues further down the line.

You store excess protein as fat

You store any excess energy as fat, whatever it’s source.