To not allow 'seconds'...

[Whatsername7]

...I mean on a daily basis, not a second helping of a special meal or treat which I would allow.

Dd1 is 8, she is a little over average height, slim, medium framed. She absolutely loves food. Like most kids, she loves sweets, chocolate, cakes etc. She would eat them most days, given the choice. She likes healthy food too. We take an 'everything in moderation' approach to food, however, dd1 regularly ends up asking for more once she has eaten her portion. Tonight, I made an admittedly crap tea of sausage, potato smiles and salad. (Dd2 is poorly - I made something I hoped would entice her to eat - didn't work.) Dd1 had 5 potato smiles, two sausages, tomato, cucumber, peppers and a bread roll. Dd2 didn't eat hers and so dd1 asked if she could finish it (after finishing her own). I said 'no, its not healthy to eat a double portion' and took it away. She has since had some yoghurt. DH thinks im unreasonable and will give her a complex. I think im trying to teach her portion control. However, Im a recovered bulimic - my issues with food, and desperation to shield my girls from ever having those issues, cloud my judgement. So AIBU to say no? Is my approach to teaching dd1 healthy portions just going to set her on a path of restricting? DH is no help - he eats a lot of crap, is happily a couple of stone over weight and is totally relaxed about everything. Thanks.

an ex bulimia mum

I’m not sure that’s an appropriate way to describe another person.

I gave a description of her size so that people could judge if her portion was too small/large - thats all. Lots of people saying it is on the small side, some saying its fine. She is taller than average for her age, makes sense she needs a bit more food. I thought it was a decent sized dinner, telling you her size helps you to agree or disagree with me. Thats the only readon I described her physically. I was genuinly asking for advice and have taken on board the comments.

And my DH would struggle to finish four sausages. That would have been far too much.

Pre-teens going through a growth spurt can easily out-eat adults.

I’m on the fence a bit.

I think that meal sounded like plenty and disagree with a lot of what is being said about it being a small meal. One of the reasons I think that something like 1 in 3 kids are overweight by year 6 is a complete lack of awareness around portion control. It sounds like around 600 calories at least giving her another 1000. School lunches are likely to be around 5-600 and are planned to make sure of that. I’m sure she’s getting the rest at breakfast and snack times.

However, I wouldn’t make a big deal about it with my dds and likely as a one-off as your other dd didn’t want her dinner would have let her have it so as not to make it a big deal. In other days I would let her have a bit more provided it was a healthy dinner and then as much fruit/veg/natural yoghurt/nuts/ basically any whole foods as she wanted until she was satisfied. As long as she was not eating out of boredom. I would also encourage her to drink plenty of water during the day and wait a while after meals to see if her tummy is still hungry then allow free access to healthy foods. All this while she remains a healthy weight.

If she started to put weight on then I would reassess. I also think your eating disorder could be getting in the way of you trusting yourself, I think above all whatever you decide you need to make sure you are not making food a focus for your dd except for teaching her to listen to her own body and hunger cues.

Remember that they need the calories and high quality food as literal building blocks of their bodies.
The metabolic differences to an adult are huge.

Recovering bulimic here as well. My son is allowed seconds, but I make him wait 15 minutes and he knows this is so his stomach has time to tell his brain if he is full or not. 9/10 times he will then not want seconds as he knows still eating when he feels fun can give him a bellyache.

Please don't tell me my first born baby is a preteen aged 8! Stop the clock! sorry - derailing my own thread. .

I'm all about having as most first course as you want.

One serving of pudding/dessert.

Same rule at school.

Absolutely hated it when our new head rewarded children with extra desert or full English breakfast for achievement.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves If they are a healthy weight and don't seem hungry for more, then you're probably fine, but if they're on the slimmer side and often saying they're hungry, I would definitely give more than that.

I do think children seem to vary massively in the amounts they need. I often see those 'portion sizes' guides and they don't seem to apply at all to my two skinny boys.

My 5 year old seems to eat more than I do, and he's very slim, at times he's been on the border of being underweight. He must just have a really fast metabolism, and he's growing taller very quickly.

It's also easy to forget that unlike adults where you either burn the energy or store it, children are converting some of their intake into growth - new bone, new muscle, new fat, etc. So that explains where they put some of it!

Absolutely hated it when our new head rewarded children with extra desert or full English breakfast for achievement.

Yup. Ours started giving out massive chocolate chip cookies for punctuality and good behaviour. (Ahem - obesity crisis!) It was awful when the overweight kids came up to you and were like, “Can I have my cookie token?” And you had to give it to them.

At 8 she will be needing almost as many calories as you! Unless your dc are overweight then simply let them eat what they want during mealtimes (as long as it's savoury)

The obesity crisis is fuelled by crappy, easy, cheap junk food that has too many calories but isn’t filling.
Don’t blame home cooked meals for it.

I totally get where you are coming from.
Kids on the whole do eat too much these days and some of the replies on here show you why.

It is a parent’s job to encourage a sensible approach to eating.
Not restricting or denying or shaming of course not but saying to kids hang on that was a decent tea, stop now and evaluate if you are genuinely hungry still in another half an hour rather than saying yeh go ahead and hoover up a double of portion of what was lets face it, a low nutritional value treat type tea.

I think the fact you understand your ED and subsequent recovery may have affected your ability to be appropriate is very honest and loving OP.

Sounds to me like you are on the right track.

And it isn’t shaming to recognise that your DH is overweight.

It isn’t healthy to be overweight.

Stick with giving what you feel is about right, allow unlimited additional vegetables (maybe put the serving dish for extra bag on the table) and go with the ‘let it go down first’ method of seeing if it’s genuine hunger.

We all do that in this house as well as being mindful that thirst can feel like hunger.

But if we feel hungry still a good half an hour after a meal we eat.
We also accept that being hungry before a meal is ok and we don’t have to have a ‘snack’ because food is another hour away.

Hunger waxes and wanes both by the day and with activity or growth or hormones etc so learning to recognise it and react to is is a skill that we should teach children.

Teaching them it’s ok to just eat beyond satiety frequently just because food is nice is not healthy.

I don't think it's as complicated as some people are making out. I would just increase the meal portion esp more veg she likes and see if she's more satisfied. I'd rather mine was eating decent meal-food rather than junk-snack-food.

It's pretty difficult to judge how much another person needs/wants to eat. I have a different approach as, being overweight myself, I really wanted my DD to learn to listen to her own hunger/fullness cues so I give a generous portion and have always encouraged her to stop when full and leave the rest as long as she's eaten some veg. But not all children are the same

I remember what we used to eat as children (normal childhood weights - we were slim): a (one) bowl of cereal with full fat milk; school lunch or a sandwich at weekends; something similar to what the OP describes for dinner, e.g. meat and a couple of veg, or stew and bread, or curry and rice etc. We barely snacked and had very few sweets. And I and all my siblings were thin but not starving.

This constant eating and double portions really isn’t healthy at all.

Your growing child wanted more than two sausages and you said no and think that’s teaching her a healthy habit?

I think you should soon speak about this to someone in the context of your own bulimia history.

Thanks isitxmas yet.

It sounds as if she’s hungry, who would refuse a hungry child food? I really hope you didn’t throw it away, OP, that would give her a shocking message.

Thoughtlessinengland

Two sausages is going to be about 20g of protein. That’s about half what they need in terms of RDA, from memory. It’s plenty.

Tbh @Thoughtlessinengland, I think 2 sausages is plenty even for an adult.
However, having more vegetables if you are still hungry is ok and is what we all need to eat more of.

I updated a while back saying ive since asked her if she is hungry and she has said no. She wasn't hungry. She just saw the food was there and likes potato smiles.

If my pre-teens ask for more food after dinner, I feel guilty that I didn't give them enough or that the food wasnt filling enough. From reading your posts, it seems like if your dd asks for extra food after dinner, then you attribute it to greed. Indeed, as @Bluntness100 you jumped excitedly on the post where someone said children are just greedy. My dcs would happily stuff their faces with choc, sweets and sugary breakfast cereals, but I would never think they were greedy, just human, and small humans are that.

The thing is, she isn't a skinny child. Shes slim and healthy, but she is taller and more medium sized (in terms of her frame) than some of her peers. She is perfect and healthy - I suppose I just want her to maintain that and im trying to teach those healthy habits.

It does sound to me like you still view eating and weight through a subtle lens of disordered eating. I'm not trying to insult you. I am sure you are behaviourally recovered, and for the most part a lot happier and at ease in yourself, but your remarks above point to some entrenched views about slimness and perfection.

I don't think that BMI is bullshit but I do think you have to use it with a sense of perspective. There is an obesity crisis, but there are also millions of women who have a massively fucked up relationship with food because their BMI is 25 or 26 or 27 and feel like they're failing because of being a bit fat.

It's not true that being slightly overweight will inevitably progress into morbid obesity.

I don’t know what potato smiles are, but I’m guessing highly processed chips.
A request for seconds should dispense a bit of the meat and a helping of hearty veg (not water based like cucumber etc)