To stop 9 year old eating all the time

[Pineapplestropical]

9 year old dd is overweight. She eats far too much and exercises too little. Started putting on weight in year 2 now in year 5 and kids have started to call her fat at school. Bloods been done all normal. No medical issue to explain why she should be eating too much. Constantly grazing and looking for meals. Yesterday example;

9am 2 scrambled eggs and 1 toast
1130 am Small bowl of rice
Orange
4pm Another small bowl of rice
6pm A small bowl of pasta bake
French francie
7pm; 2 thin slices of rolypoly cake.
9pm; a grilled cheese sandwich.

I know i shouldn't have the junk available. I do have 3 other kids all healthy. Find it a bit unfair that none of us can have treats Coz of her but maybe that's a sacrifice we have to make. She hates exercise, will do less than 2 minutes then sit down.

We did a timetable yesterday to say we need to stick to these times for eating (3 times with 2 snacks) she agreed and was happy with healthy ideas. Fast forward to today and she's gone downstairs by herself to make a grilled cheese sandwich again. She's definitely not hungry as had a good dinner of chicken soup and garlic bread. Im Losing it with her and have said you are getting overweight , you need to get healthier, im worried about ur health. Feel bad about this but i just can't stop her eating or get significant exercise out of her. She helps herself to food if i say no and im with the other kids. AIBU for pointing out she is overweight?

Some areas have free healthy eating/exercise fun type classes for families with children with dietary needs. Give your school nursing team a call for support. The gp may be able to refer you to a dietician for help with food intake.
personally I would say make lunch more sandwich and fruit based. She definitely should not be eating at 9pm. Maybe milk/banana as a snack but it needs to be much earlier. Please try not to get cross with her. Maybe try as it’s the school holidays making her a snack box for the morning/afternoon and once it’s gone it’s gone. With fruit etc in it.

She's definitely not hungry as had a good dinner of chicken soup and garlic bread. Im Losing it with her and have said you are getting overweight

Way to go. Give her shit meals and then blame her.

I think you probably need to look at the whole picture of the family's lifestyle rather than singling her out.

Look at bedtimes and whether the children are getting enough sleep. 9pm seems quite late for her to be making food at 9 yrs old? I'd be more expecting her to be getting ready for bed.

As people have said, you won't get far expecting her to do exercise for its own sake - she needs an active lifestyle/hobbies, which would be best achieved by the whole family getting active.

If her diet changes and include more protein and vegetables as well as more physical activity and she is still gaining weight, there are rarer genetic causes to consider which cannot be ruled out using routine blood tests. Your GP will be able to refer you to a paediatric Endocrinologist who can screen for them. Again, genetic causes of overweight and obesity are rare so common things need to be addressed first. Perhaps ask for a referral to a dietician if that is available to you. Good luck!

@Pineapplestropical I am not armchair diagnosing but does she have any other symptoms of ADHD? I have grazed constantly my entire life. Diagnosed at 35 and finally now at almost 37, 18 months after starting meds am starting to eat normal portions at normal times.

I'm happy with my body though definitely overweight/obese at a 16/18/20, but I'm so sad that pretty much every medic I've ever had an appt with has blamed my weight for whatever I was struggling with and has told me I need to lose weight. Parents always provided healthy food and portions, and I couldn't understand why I was always looking for food even when I tried hard not to. From what I understand and what I experience on the days I take the meds, I was looking for dopamine not actually hunger.

I would have soup and bread for lunch or maybe for dinner on a day where I had eaten a big lunch. I wouldn't give my dc soup for their dinner. I just don't feel like it's enough.

"I wouldn't give my dc soup for their dinner. I just don't feel like it's enough."

Doesn't it obviously depend what else you've had that day, how thick the soup is, how much there is of it, etc.

My DD eats way more than that, always has, and is slim. Meals throughout the day are properly balanced and nutritious. She is active (walks to school as well as clubs) so eats treats as well, like most kids I imagine.

I find your comments about her awful tbh.

Doesn't it obviously depend what else you've had that day, how thick the soup is, how much there is of it, etc.

Yes, but if it's thick it's a stew. I'd give my child stew for dinner. And the
OP's child isn't eating lunch at all. Not actual lunch.

The OP only seems to have small bowls.

Congrats @Pineapplestropical , you've sown the seeds of a lifetime of disordered eating! I suffered from extremely severe Bulimia and restrictive eating in my teens to the mid of my 20s because my mother kept on about my weight, shape compared to my siblings, monitoring what I ate. She's 9, you're buying the food and feeding her. It's on you. You sound like a child: 'Find it a bit unfair that none of us can have treats Coz of her' Good grief!

I don't think soup is a good dinner that ensures that a child isn't going to be hungry later, no.

My DD 10 is allowed as much fruit and veg as she likes, she snacks on carrots, cucumbers, red peppers and clementines etc. In terms of other snacks she is allowed one oat cake with marmite if ravenous or a few nuts. Maybe you need to get rid of the rubbish in the house.

Did the GP even agree she was overweight? I agree you need a referral to a nutritionist to plan better meals and frankly, to get you to stop being so controlling about food.

Do not call ever her fat or say she is overweight or anything of the kind ever again! Or go on about her “health.” That’s so abusive and will give her an eating disorder. So is going in about how no one can have treats because of her! Absolutely shocking.

She just may be genetically predisposed to a slower metabolism, you need to start accepting her for who she is. Controlling food, pushing exercise…sounds like a complete nightmare really.

Get nutritional advice as the day above is horrendous and frankly, probably not enough food. And secondly, work on finding an activity she likes doing and encourage it. Calling a child overweight is going to kill their confidence and willingness to try anything the way you are going.

Whether to have soup and bread for a meal is not the issue here. There are carbs every meal but no protein, veg or fruit. Small portions that may not be filling enough. Empty calorie treats. Eating late at night etc.

But yeah, subject a child to blood tests and get annoyed you can’t have treats in the house as that’s the problem. 🤔

I wasn’t overweight as a child but the complete opposite and got loads of comments. One particular that stand out is ‘Tell me dear, do you eat?’, whilst I was at church. I was mortified.
I’m a strong believer in not discussing weight with children or to ever let my child see me weighing myself. Weight shouldn’t be a focus but being healthy should. I’m now overweight, years of comments on how skinny I was led to many, many issues and battles with food.

My best advice in this case is to take the focus off her weight focus on things she likes and is good at, weight doesn’t make a person but can easily break them.
Avoid comments, which are so easy to make such as ‘you can’t possibly be hungry, you have just eaten’. Instead set meal times, someone else said a healthy snack drawer and try to add in more fun and exercise. I honestly think if the poor girl is getting comments at school the last thing she needs is a food or weight focussed approach at home.
Try out online classes together such as this one:
goteamup.com/p/1124706-project-hb/
she does crazy disco aerobics, lots of folk dress up and get their disco lights out. I did this with dd during lockdown and was a right laugh. We kept our camera off though! She also does some free spaces if money is tight. Think they are called community spaces.

Free accounts like GoNoodle which has some fun exercise dance style videos. She may have used this in school.

Kids yoga on YouTube, lots of choice.

These could all be done as a family so perhaps New Year’s resolution get more active together which takes the focus off of her.

Give her a bigger portion then, then she won’t need to snack on junk. Just a wild idea.

A 9 year old is old enough to understand the link between weight and health so I don’t see an issue with saying her weight is unhealthy and the only way to fix that is diet and exercise. It’s just part of understanding her body.
Her meals are bizarre though. Where are the vegetables and fruit?
I would rid of any ready made food or junk food and make everything fresh with extra vegetables thrown in. At every meal have a “one more” rule so add one more portion of vegetables (NOT fruit due to sugar). So the eggs and toast could have mushrooms too.
If she has a weakness for cheese and will sneak food she likes, just don’t buy it.
And if you take her for exercise take all the children, she won’t want to exercise if you single her out and all the kids should be heart healthy (not just weight healthy).

That doesn't sound like that much food to be honest, our children are younger and would eat more (we are all skinny). I guess your small bowl might not be the same as my small bowl. The eating pattern looks weird though, it's like there aren't meals at the times you'd normally expect, just snacks/meals at funny times. Never a good idea to tell a 9 year old they are fat (or words to that effect) or to put them on a diet, I'd be focusing on getting her moving more, but not just targeting her making everyone in the family up their exercise. Don't make her have a weird relationship with food, if you want to target food do that as a family too. She knows what you are up to though so it's probably too late to approach this as getting healthy as a family.

What's wrong with a nutritious meal of homemade soup? My kids will often have a lentil and carrot soup or leek and potato with some bread.

How much is a small portion???

Some people don't weigh pasta or think 100 grams is small?

sorry,i know loads of people have commented already but i really think you need to get some advice on meal plans, this really isn't an example of a balanced diet, try giving her protein at every meal and she needs a heck of a lot more vegetables in her diet and far less grain/rice based carbs...and why is she having cheese toastie at 9pm ??? If you are on a low income then I really get that it can be difficult to provide variety but perhaps try a baked potato with tuna and a side salad or something for lunch then do rice plus chicken and pulses with veggies for tea. if she is having treats have them much earlier in the day, cake at 7 pm is pretty late if you are hoping to get her to sleep at a good time....poor sleep quality in itself is a factor for putting on weight.

Also a bowl of soup is a starter or a light lunch at best, it isn't an evening meal, I'd be back for cheese toasties too if soup was my main meal!

Walk outside daily as part of life not as specific exercise eg. to school/friends/shops.

It’s fine imho for a light lunch for a menopausal woman, but not for a child’s dinner. Especially not for a 9yr old with the energy needs of puberty,

Your daughter’s diet is your responsibility and it’s currently dire. Where are the veg?
Get her moving - swimming, dancing, bike rides, walking, gymnastics …. There’s endless possibilities at this age.
Please take your parenting role seriously - your daughter is the product of your decisions to date. It’s time to step up.