To Tell Friend To Feed Her Child Properly

[ChilledBee]

I have a friend with a four year old son. He's very small for his age and her HV and GP have made suggestions about how to change this. She isn't vegan but eats meat seldom and only shops organic and local. She makes these dishes which are foreign type stews with things like aubergine and squash (I eat/cook these things too) and will sprinkle some feta or another cheese on top. Or something with spinach and lentils. It isn't awful but for an acquired taste. My DH says it Italy seems like a side dish and he is waiting for the joint of slow cooked meat and some potatoes to accompany it. Any meat is organic/free range butcher ordered so very expensive and rarely eaten. She is very much into ethical shopping/farming/eating.

The trouble is, when I see the vegetables,they are often old (she gets a lot of home grown produce from her own allotment or that of friends) so I imagine the nutrients are depleted. Her son barely eats any of the food she gives him and she does worry about that because he's not only small but has some vitamin deficiencies too. But she thinks it has something else going on rather then he just doesn't like the food she makes.

Last week, she had to unfortunately stay in hospital for several days (10) with her mother who was touch and go. Her son stayed with me and even though it was something completely unfamiliar, he settled in well. She gave no dietary instructions so I just fed him like I do my own kids (3,3 and 1) on home cooked meals cooked from scratch (spaghetti bolognese,shepherds pie, burgers and chips) and he wolfed it down. In fact, the first day he came he had seconds and ice cream and jelly afterwards (pudding isn't routine in our house). I am embarrassed to say that I weighed him that night and the day before he went home. He gained 5lbs! My DH felt that I was out of order weighing him but I have to say that seeing him eat like that made me want to prove something I'd suspected all along.

I want to tell her that her son badly needs to eat food he likes and is healthy for a child. She often refers to childhood obesity but I think she underestimates the amount of fat and carbs a growing child needs. I know she feels quite isolated by her HV and GP who have sort of threatened her with SS (she says) but won't refer her for the medical investigations she wants. Her sister had 'failure to thrive' and was later found to have cerebral palsy which contributed to this but it isn't a hereditary condition which could explain her son's small stature. My DH doesn't think she is mentally stable. I think she is precious at best.

Would you say something?

I am not sure why the disbelief at the doctor saying he should eat more meat. That is exactly what my aneamic, vegetarian mother's gp told her to do.

@ChilledBee what other health conditions does he have?

I think your getting a hard time here at least two medical professionals are concerned enough to discuss hospital stays and social services but people on the internet are telling you it's fine and her food is great despite the fact the child doesn't eat it as he doesn't like it. It's obviously a problem and I feel very sorry for him and if your child likes food like that fantastic but this child doesn't. It doesn't make any difference to me if she was feeding him pizza and chips every day or meat and potatoes if your child hates it , wont eat it , has numerous medical issues you need to try alternative foods. Would any adults eat food they didnt like every day ? No they wouldn't so why is a poor little boy served food he doesn't like every day and has the choice of eating food he doesn't like or not eating. I also think even if you love that food eating similar stews every day would soon loose its appeal most people eat a wide variety of things . think I would tell her as nicely as you can but just say that when he was at yours he had a great appetite and ate lots of things like spaghetti bolognese and shepards pie ( I think both of these are lovely home cooked food and I'm sure you gave veg aswell ) Now if she generally cares about her son illness and failure to thrive I think she will be thrilled he has found food he likes and she could easily make vegetarian options if she would prefer. If she is unhappy about this I do think you will have to mention this to a professional. Look at the threads of hear about being anaemic ( I am ) you feel like shit with physical symptoms.

Some of the posts on here made me so cross, im the first to jump on racism and bigotry, but thats not what i read in the OP's post. Her friends son is not being fed enough because his mother hasnt accepted that he doesnt like what she likes to eat. If he is that underweight, you do need to very gently offer support and take any opportunity you can to feed him! X

I’ve been told to eat more meat by consultants at the hospital, it’s not that uncommon

If he is that underweight, you do need to very gently offer support and take any opportunity you can to feed him!

Weight should be gained or lost slowly and sensibly. You cant just offer to baby sit and let him.stuff his face with chicken nuggets. You will make the poor boy ill.

@jesaminecollins I was so happy to read your post about your son now eating well. His diet sounds exactly like my son's (he's 6). He eats pizza, boiled eggs, chicken goujons, tomato soup and a few other things. He's really skinny (everyone comments on it) and only just in the healthy weight range - 5th percentile. I do worry about him but it's so hard to get him to eat normally. Anyway back to the OP - I agree with others. Her friend's diet sounds very healthy but if her sons not eating that's a big problem. What OP feeeds her children is also very nutritious - shepherd's pie made from scratch etc. I wish my kids would eat that food. I don't know what you can do except tell her how much her son ate of your food, offer her the recipes etc. You sound like a caring friend.

Please tell the HV

Adult choices and diets aren't best for little children who have much higher nutritional needs and need protein in their diet.

I am constantly fighting my idiot P to stop treating my 9month old like an adult. Babies need fat in their diet not low fat yoghurt which is pumped with sugar - something some "health conscious" people think is perfectly okay to give to babies and young children.

My son doesn't like porridge from my country but will wolf down virtually anything else for breakfast and loves fruit, toast, eggs etc. Though the porridge is nutrient dense and packed with vitamins, there's no point in me continually giving it to him if he wont eat it is there?

And the OP's diet can be perfectly healthy. I love to cook and bulk up my sauces with plenty of veggies and herbs, make my own pasta with whole wheat flour and bake my own bread and rolls. I also make my own burgers and chips and I choose leaner meats not necessarily red meat but Turkey is a good alternative and bake everything instead of frying. Same with shepherds pie made with mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes.

What @HerbsAreNotTheOnlyPlant said.

OP, some of your wording has helped to put backs ups, but the basic fact is the kid doesn't eat what he's fed and is medically suffering as a result.

I don't know the best way forward, but I think a casual mention of how well he ate at yours is a start.

Do your children attend the same school? If so, what do you think about raising it with a teacher... particularly if he is struggling with his packed lunches as well, they may be able to flag it from their point of view, and access help if required...

It sounds like the kid needs more people on his side, and if that's not the case then no harm done, surely.

I think that some people that have eating issues themselves forget that the diet of a growing child and a fully grown adult are different. I have known since I was 18 what did and didn't work for me food wise and have been the same weight within half a stone for 25 years. if I have this, I won't have that. My DS have always been taught about healthy eating and mainly about balance. When feeding my teen DS I very much consider his needs as an individual, rapidly growing boy and not a slim by nature fully grown female. Many people don't separate the two in my experience so it could be that that the mum isn't taking into account the difference between her needs and her child's needs. Lentils are great but lots of people have problems with legumes. It's going to be a difficult conversation but if GP and HV have already expressed concern it's got to be worth trying. I'm sure if you have talked about food before OP she knows you eat differently and therefore that you fed her child what you eat while he was with you. I don't carry much stock in weighing him as unless you weighed him at the beginning too there is no guarantee he really has put on that much weight.

YANBU OP, it doesn't matter how much healthy organic food you plonk infront of a child, if they don't like it and won't eat it then it's not healthy is it?

I would just quietly pass on a concern to the HV and let them keep an eye out/tackle it.

Anything you say directly will be seen as interfering and maybe make her defensive

This is a tricky one OP. I remember being fed this type of food frequently as a child (thankfully balanced out with more traditional meals like fish and potatoes, pasta dishes etc with snacks available) although I'd enjoy it now, all us dc absolutely hated it as children and would usually leave the table still hungry on those nights. Also lots of kids who eat things as babies then go off it as they get to toddler age so she may think he was fine with it before so it must be another problem. Definitely don't mention the weighing but I'd make sure to mention how well he ate/ asking for seconds etc. You could suggest them come for tea (so she can see it) maybe say that he must like eating with other children. What she's serving sounds like a lovely balanced diet but only if eaten in sufficient quantities which it clearly isn't being here.

YANBU!! It doesn't matter squat how healthily and great her food is if he won't eat it! Any sensible parent will encourage a wide variety as much as possible, but any child can be a fussy eater at times, and you give them what you know they will eat! Spag Bol goes down well with most
so a great example!

Still RTFT but OP, how is this even relevant -

Oh and the recipes she uses are usually from other countries. She eats a lot of North and East African food as she travelled there a few times

Definitely what @happycamper11 said. My mum would have happily fed us those kinds of foods every night but we just wouldn’t eat them. So we had a middle ground - lots of kid friendly pasta (spag Bol/carbonara/pastapesto) with salad as obligatory as well as stir fries, roasts etc. And the enough foreign muck for us to still have something to complain about.

Oh and also we were famous for eating food at other people’s houses that we refused to eat at home. It’s a kid thing..

OP still used the child as an experiment to prove her hypothesis. Having to laugh at comments telling op to talk to the friend but not mention the weighing. God, I hope none of you are my friends in real life!
Yes children have suffered when professionals fail to intervene. However, op is sounding nothing more than a total busybody. And quite an insufferable, self-righteous one at that.
I am also amazed that you admitted there was a stat about the child that you didn't know! This woman has obviously confided in you about her child and you've used this as an opportunity to form an opinion and run with it. You don't sound so concerned about the child, as you are with being proved right.

Do your children attend the same school? If so, what do you think about raising it with a teacher

Tell them what though? That she knows better than the HV and medical professionals and solved all his problems in ten days with a burger and some pasta?

Allergies ,intolerances , asthma, coeliac etc can all take years to get a dx. There could be any number of reasons why he ate better at hers. Maybe he was excited about trying new stuff, maybe he was being polite , maybe he just felt better those few days and ate more as a result.

Gaining that much weight in.a short space of time.is not normal.or healthy and should not be held up as some.kind.of victory ffs.

Maybe op is right maybe she isnt who knows but it doesn't really prove anything.

Shes like those grand parents who dont believe in allergies so feed the kid chocolate and stuff and declare all is well. Funnily enough they arent there to get up in the middle of the night when the puking starts or to deal with the aversion to foods that goes on for weeks after being made so ill by people who thought they new better....

If the GP/HV advise her to give him some meat, she might be a bit grossed out by buying/cooking it in which case you could offer to have him over for tea a couple of times a week

You, "... might raise it then". OP, is this scenario what you would have liked to have happened?

It has all the hand-wringing elements and all the latest buzz. I'm expecting 'woke' to be introduced any minute.

You've had some great advice on what could be done for a situation such as this, ie. drop around some home-prepared ready meals for your friend and her son under the guise of saving her a bit of time and it's nice having a change sometimes.

But you're so strident. It's come off very strangely to me.

Haven't read the full thread, but despite those meals sounding like nice nutritious meals, if the son isn't eating it, she needs to give him something before his health really suffers. She can easily blend vegetables into pasta sauce, make tempura veg, smoothie ice lollies as a start, so he is still getting the fruit and veg. Kids are fussy, and despite what people sometimes say, they won't eat certain foods even if they are starving. She needs to concentrate on getting him fed first, then introducing the foods she would like him to eat gradually.

If there is potential for SS and HV involvememt, surely that's a wake up call? Do you know of any cases where they have intervened in the media? Might be worth showing her these incidences as a bit of a warning (not literally, but just mention to her what you've read next time she brings it up). Also invite her around to dinner and cook something that might be in the middle of your approaches, so she can see that being a bit more flexible might work for her son.

If she is concerned that the health issues could be something else and isn't diet related, she may need to demonstrate that when she feeds the child a more typical diet, the issue persists. I think that is the only way to convince her GP other than having investigations done privately.

I agree with you OP, I had a long running issue with a dietician but mine was in reverse.

I was a young teenage mum, terrified I'd be even more judged if my DS wasn't fed a super healthy diet, so I cooked everything from scratch, he ate hearty veggie stews, lentil curries, he ate meat but only organic meat and very little.
He ate it and enjoyed it but he was chronically malnourished and underweight due to a health issue.
The dietician kept on at me, saying I must feed him burgers, chips, creamy custards and fat.. but he would eat it! He had been raised to eat food I'd made him, low in salt, fat, processed meats etc. I remember her telling me on the way home to get him a McDonalds and he cried.

My point being to her that what she was suggesting may be healthy for him but if he wouldn't eat it then it's a mute point, I needed help adapting the diet he already had, slowly to help him learn to eat higher calorie foods.

Now he's 15, with a feeding peg, he's has do many food issues you wouldn't believe. He does eat convenience food but only if it fits that weeks fad for him. In times of uncertainty all he'll eat it my home cooked foods from his toddlerhood.

I have non stop judgement from people, luckily these days I roll my eyes and ignore them or smile and nod whilst ignoring them.

I don't think that talking to your friend will do much good other than mentioning how much her DS enjoyed your homemade burgers (would she like the recipe?..)

Just want to add though that some kids will always be on the second centile for weight (i'm mother of one small son who eats constantly and a baby struggling to put on weight despite having solids, and lots of milk feeds on top). We are pretty small parents, so they are likely to be around the 20th centile. I think if his weight has been dropping centiles quite dramatically and goes off the chart though I would be concerned.

You lost me at “foreign type” OP