To be worried about the lack of understanding around how many calories children need?

[MandalayFray]

I’ve seen a few posts over the last few weeks that have really concerned me around how adults, and parents at that, genuinely seem to have no idea how much food or how many calories the average child needs.

On the pizza thread the other day people were saying 2 slices of pizza and a few nuggets was more than enough for a teenage boy, that they couldn’t eat more than that as a grown woman.

Failing to understand that yes, because the average teenage boy need almost double the daily calories compared to an adult woman.

The average teen boy needs between 2,800-3,000 calories a day, moderately active ones 3,000-3,300 a day, very active ones 3,500-4,000. So no a 500 calorie dinner wouldn’t cut the mustard.

Same again today on a soup thread, apparently half a tin is MORE than enough for a child. The recommended calorie intake for a 4-5 year old is 1,400 calories! So no, a 200 calorie lunch is most definitely not ‘more’ than enough.

I know this site is known for ‘disordered’ eating posts at times but this is genuinely confusing me, do people not look into how many calories they should be feeding their kids as a baseline?

And yes before people start, I know they could be eating an entire pack of aunt Bessie’s pancakes for breakfast and a whole hog roast at tea, and yes I know your kids might be tube fed and need 5 calories a meal. But if we look at averages this doesn’t stack up with many posters views on here.

If you have 15% of calories at dinner when do you have the other 85%? Surely dinner is the main meal of the day so would be much more than 15%.

How were you calculating his BMI? It sounds like you were using an adult calculator rather than a teen one, which are too utterly incomparable metrics. A kid in year 8 should have a result based on Gentile. Not a number with 18 to 24.9 as healthy. The latter takes into account adult bone density and organ development and can't apply to a teenager. Measurements that will give an adult an underweight BMI of 17 put a teen on the perfectly healthy 19th centile.

Yep and the amount of people on here who clearly have eating disorders and mumsnet do nothing.

My 13 year old son is 6ft tall and slim, he eats more than his father - probably because he has a teenage metabolism and is still growing.

People need to learn to eat only when they are hungry and stop when they are full.

These threads are always the same - we could make a bingo card

My child eats loads and loads and they aren't fat, just solid
My child eats loads and loads but they are really skinny
I eat ABC and I'm not fat
Leave fat people alone, there are worse things than being fat
All children I see are obese
I only cook from scratch
Something something empty calories
Processed food is the work of the devil

etc etc

Neither of my sons is overweight (unlike me) - both very slim. Both eat probably less than I do but they still have cake, biscuits etc. What neither of them has much of (DS2 (14) absolutely none) is fizzy drink. I think quite a few kids are putting away a lot of unseen calories via what they’re drinking.

No, people are really flaming stupid when it comes to food….no one seems to be able to look up the information you have quoted. Nor are they able to read a label or use critical thinking.

We live in a very M Class to upper class area and a Mum at school was deriding chips the other day whilst our kids were tucking into Halloween biscuits from a local run o the mill bakers (so not sugar free, organic, healthy etc.). She was one of the ones who suggested going there. I was literally bamboozled that her child has never had a chip so a potato fried in oil. But she was happy for her child to eat a massive gingerbread man type thing complete with several different colours of icing, cheap catering smarties and cheap mass produced chocolate coating (which isn’t actually chocolate, I mean the amount of absolute crap and empty calories in that biscuit and she’s got a problem with potatoes….I mean stupidity abound.

I don't get the issue around snacking. I was born in the 70s and certainly had plenty of

Sorry, had plenty of snacks as a child. I am a grazer as an adult and have always been at the low end of the healthy weight range.

I teach nutrition and find that generally people are bored about hearing about nutrition, think they know it all already, and therefore don't want to listen to advice, or else understand their diets aren't good and want to continue anyway. It's horrendous!

Far more teens in my area are over weight as opposed to underweight and it's definitely from consuming large amounts of unhealthy foods, so think both quality and quantity do come into play. (although majority of teens here would be in a healthy range).

Wow I had no idea a 5 year old needed so much. That's about the same as I am eating!

I’m 70s born, school in 80s. We had snacks but nothing like now. So a custard cream and a cup of squash or small packet of crisps. Pop came from a pop man and was occasionally drunk not weekly. A fairy cake not a big muffin. My mum wouldn’t take snacks or buy food out - wait until you get home. Chocolate didn’t come in family size packs and would be shared. Sugary drinks like Frappuccino and bubble tea didn’t exist.

Surely for neurotypical unfussy kids you just offer them as much healthy food as they want and the odd treat and they self regulate? As long as they are growing and developing then they are fine.

Some days mine eats the house and others just picks at food. I've never thought to calorie count her. We have the odd treat or binge of junk food.

I guess it depends on what, and how much you snack. I doubt we would have so much childhood obesity if children only ate healthy food.

maddiemookins16mum, overfeeding teens or not meeting calorific needs of a teenager? Surely a teenager, particularly one who is mid to late teens can judge for themselves, equally they will buy food and eat it IME, they are not 6 years old , it is controlling to tell them yes/no at that age. If my very slim, very high metabolic rate and active 15.5 year old is hungry I definitely trust his judgement, he is not bored or greedy as he is good at self regulating and will leave food when not hungry. His friends are the same and all skinny. Sometimes they eat loads and eat me out of house and home, other times they say no they have eaten or got dinner in an hour.

YABU. not everyone is worried about calories or knows how much calories this or that food has.

I don't really understand how people don't put much in the exercise having a huge role. I mean I visit my Mum in a town in the Midlands and I don't see many teens out let alone walking about, loads of retail parks and drive thrus. My DS will eat fast food occasionally but I will be in the high street Macdonalds, burger King etc and lots of teenagers here in Brighton go out and about, nobody gets driven anywhere or picked up. When my Mum gave up her car n the Midlands she literally lost about 2 stone as nearest food shop was 3 mile around walking trip. I don't get why people say it is 80% food. Also insulin resistance is better with exercise and slimness.

I think some posters clearly have never had teenage boys in the house. Or teenage girls for that matter. If they aren't eating junk food at every meal then they DO need a lot of food. I was the skinniest lankiest teen ever but I used to come home for lunch from school each day and my lovely mum would have cooked a casserole and a baked potato and veg and I'd wolf that down. Then have a similar meal in the evening. I've seen photos of me in a swimming costume at the age of 14 and I'm all bones and no boobs or anything, just a string bean growing mega fast, despite eating all that.

There is so much misunderstanding of calorie needs, yes, as clearly illustrated by @Hottt who thinks that dinner, the main meal of the day, should only be providing 15-20% of their daily calorie intake. Either a misunderstanding or just plain crap at maths, maybe?:

Kids are overweight now compared to say, the 70s and 80s because:

• they are generally much more inactive than their parents and grandparents' generation

• there is an obsession with snacking whether the child is hungry or not and the snacks are often calorific junk food. People link snack food with certain activities more now eg they just HAVE to get a megabucket of popcorn and a vat of coke every time they go to the cinema, or a tub of ice cream when they sit down at home to watch a film, even if they only ate a main meal an hour ealier. You only have to watch Googlebox to see how that seeps into people's subconsious - nearly every single family on there watching tv has a plate of biscuits or some other snack in front of them.

• They are bombarded with advertising which pushes that agenda, "go on, you're worth it, treat yourself" type of decadence and indulgence. The M&S style "this is not just any chocolate cake, this is M&S blah blah blah". Plus there is always a novel "limited edition" version of something being produce, which makes people buy it to try it so they can tell all their friends about it "ooh have you tried the new mars bar with real gold nuggets inside made of fairy's teeth!" etc etc

• supermarket expansion and more processed food means there is a proliferation of multipacks in every type of chocolate bar easily available for anyone to buy. That didn't used to be the case. You used to only be able to buy eg a single wispa, or aero or mars bar at a time at the newsagent, and frankly people were too ashamed to buy an armful for themselves because it would be seen as greedy. Now people can buy a multipack at the supermarket, and instead of sharing it between family or friends they can sit and eat it all themselves if they want at home, and it's gone in a day or two, and no-one would be any the wiser.

• low quality nutrient-poor, calorie-dense processed food that doesn't actually fill you up, which leads to snacking on more rubbish. There is something to be said for the homecooked non processed "meat and 2 veg, then a pudding" meals of the past, as boring as they were.

• young people are getting priced out of being able to go for a main meal anywhere that isn't mcdonalds/kfc. There are more people who are just going out for a massive decadent dessert somewhere with friends, because they can't afford a proper meal out, but at least the big dessert with loads of toppings and sauces etc feels like a treat and "something different."

If you see old videos of the general public in the 70s and 80s (and earlier) there are very rarely any overweight people in the crowd.

I have no time to cook from scratch 6-7 nights a week as a single parent working shifts. So much pressure

I didn't calculate it, he had a medical before an operation and that was what they wrote down. They did comment that he his weight was low. Sorry I honestly don't know how they calculated it. I do know he was painfully thin until he hit his 20s. Either way someone said they don't get thinner in their teens and he definitely did.

acientgran, I don't know who said that teenagers don't get thinner but I agree with you, of course they can, height and activity are probably the main factors for this.

Year on year kids are getting fatter. Its less pronounced in affluent areas but its still happening.

I have a 13 and a 16 year old. DD (imo) has a pretty rubbish diet. I've tried and tried to encourage fruit and veg but she is very limited in what she will eat and is fussy about texture/foods touching etc. She often skips breakfast at weekends and will have a tiny lunch although she does snack on chocolate.
I had anorexia for around 7 or 8 years in my teens/early 20s so I try not to get too hung up on what they eat.(ive been healthy since having kids) Both are healthy weight/bmi and so far we haven't been through the "eating you out of house and home" phase (although DS is only 13)
I'm pretty sure neither has ever consumed 2800 calories in a day

I have no idea how many calories my kids are supposed to eat. Both are a healthy weight. Growing appropriately. Both are extremely active. Both eat healthy food incl. veggies etc...

I give them what feels like the right amount and am led by their appetite (i.e. if they are full, they are full. If they are hungry I give them food! Eg. Tonight after a full and healthy meal, DS was "hungry" so he had some cold chicken and a peperami to fill him up. Yesterday my younger son was only hungry enough for half his dinner, so he left the other half.)

You know that Y6 children go on to be teenagers shortly after, right? They are unlikely to be slim teens and adults if they've become overweight before the age of 11.