8 year old girl always hungry!

[Orangeorganic]

My 8.5yr old DD is always saying she’s hungry and asking for food. She’s not currently overweight and she does sporty clubs 3 times a week, but I’m conscious it seems like she’s constantly eating and I don’t want her to become unhealthy. She is my eldest so I have no reference point.
Example of today’s food -
breakfast - small bowl of strawberries & blueberries, yoghurt, cheese, banana
snacks - apple, bag of popcorn,
lunch - 2 poached eggs on toast, crisps
dinner will be chicken with rice and veg but I know she will ask for about 20 snacks before then
I don’t restrict food (if she says she’s hungry I offer fruit, yoghurt, cheese string etc) and I don’t deny her stuff like sweets/biscuits, we eat out fairly regularly at kid friendly places like pizza express so she doesn’t see food as something that’s scarce and she needs to fill up on when she has the chance, it just seems like whatever I give her she’s never satisfied 😂 and I’m wondering if this is typical for her age and growth spurts or not?
What do your 8/9 year old girls eat?
Thanks!

Sounds like she’s probably getting quite a lot of calories via snacks if you never say no to snacks. I’d limit a snack to mid morning and mid afternoon and ensure there’s a good amount of protein / veg in meals. What about something like carrot sticks / peppers with peanut butter or hummus? I’d try and ensure she’s not over eating if already overweight but without making a big deal about it. My friends 10yr old DD has anorexia after being teased about her weight and its heartbreaking. Do tread carefully and do some research on good filling protein meals and less snacks.

Her meals don't sound substantial enough. I'd limit snacks to twice a day and provide more at her meal times. Her breakfast sounds paltry!

What about a couple of scrambled eggs for breakfast with a couple of sausages? Lunch a jacket potato with cheese and ham and a banana afterwards. Dinner carbs, protein and vegetables. Snacks grapes, hummus and carrots sticks, a slice of pizza, an apple, a slice of toast and Nutella etc.

Could you do spinach pancakes op? The crime I use has oats in it. She could have those for breakfast with yougrt and berries/bananas?

french toast with honey and berries?
i sometimes do egg muffins with spinach and feta in the oven just adding so you have variety on what to prep.

For your comparison - DD 8 years old. Today (a school day) she had:

Breakfast - Huge bowl of shreddies with warm milk

Break time - 4 crackers with butter

Lunch - ham wrap, pot of grapes, greek yogurt (I used to put so much more in her lunchbox, box she would eat crisps and chocolate over the healthier options saying there isn't enough time to eat it all and have a decent amount of time to go out to play)

Dinner - 2 big sausages, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cabbage & snap peas (a few raw snap peas and cabbage before I could get it in the pan because apparently she was starving)

Dessert - Jelly and ice-cream

Snacks - Orange, plain wrap (she loves plain bread with nothing on it) packet of crisps (asked for grapes but we've ran out

She often eats Weetabix for breakfast - she has 3! She also has milk before bed most nights.

On a weekend she eats more snacks in between meals - boiled eggs, fruit of any kind, raw veg sticks, sweets, sausage rolls, nuts. Basically what ever she can get her hands on. I don't mind because she is generally an active kid. I only say no to food if she's asking for a snack just before a main meal or if she asks for sugary type foods and I feel she's already had a lot of sugar that day. I always offer a healthy alternative in this case.

Not enough in my opinion. My 5 yo would easily eat

Breakfast: porridge with stewed apple (whole milk). 2 x marmite crumpets

Snack: banana, 3 biscuits

Lunch: salmon, cream cheese pasta and peas

snack: toast with butter and jam

supper: shepherds pie. Maybe a hot chocolate

(a slim 50th centile boy)

Add snacks like Cucember sticks, Carrott sticks... Cereal bars. Fruit bars. Tomatoes & Hummous.
Grapes.

For breakfast, Banana amd peanut butter on two Toast. Yogurt & Orange juice

Lunch.. Crackers, Cheese, Grapes, Cucember, carrot sticks, baby Tomatoes, Raw pepper, Hommous, Falafal, Pitta, Chicken pieces

Dinner.. A mix of Meat, Potatoes, Vegetables, Pasta, Fish, Eggs

Snacks... Veggie sticks and Fruit... Yogurt, Cheese , Fruit bars, Oatcakes, Homemade popcorn

If she's hungry, let her have some food?

Toast made from proper bread plus a bit of cheese and a banana is a good option.

It is best not to be controlling about food.

My kids are 9 and 13 and that wouldn’t go anywhere near filling them up. I don’t restrict my kids eating at all (I grew up with a lot of rules around food and have a terrible relationship with food and am very overweight). If your daughter is active and hungry then you need to feed her more - and ideally give her more control around choices and portions size to start getting her ready for her preteen years.

id add way more carbs and much more solid protein. My daughter loves peanut butter and there’s other nut butters to try if she doesn’t like it.

In the morning I’d take away the cheese string and add a couple rounds of peanut butter toast. Add some proper cheese to her snacks, or nuts or hummus and veggies, hard boiled eggs, cereal bars… the yogurt and fruit you’re offering aren’t really enough.

A little younger than 8 I put together a snack trolley in the kitchen and my kids have free access to it. Less healthy stuff than you’re probably looking for but you could consider setting up a shelf for her of good options that she can have without asking.

On that menu her breakfast and lunch combined is only one meal, so she’s missing an entire meal. She also isn’t getting any carbs really until lunch time and then its a very small amount. If you consider the small amount of food she had that day as constantly eating I would personally assume you yourself don’t have a healthy view of food.

Doesn't seem like much food tbh. My youngest is 11 and eats more than this

Kids need carbs! A slice of toast with her normal breakfast won’t kill her

Give proper protein and carb meals, snacks are empty calories.

If time is an issue at breakfast, you could make a big spanish omelette with potato, onion, ham, cheese at the weekend and freeze chunks which can then be microwaved each morning. Egg muffins work well too.
Add in some toast with peanut butter, or marmite.
Croissants with ham and cheese along with yogurt and fruit.
Beans/cheese/avocado/mushrooms/tomatoes on toast (not together!)

for lunches if at home I would do beans or cheese on toast, or a toasted sandwich, or a filled omelette, or a filled jacket potato with raw veg and fruit/yogurt.

Wraps and sandwiches/roll for packed lunch.

Some days my DD was so hungry that I would just hand her a jar of nut butter and a spoon and let her eat as much of it as she wanted (the low sugar decent kind with high nut content). I remember sometimes she'd eat half the jar before bed. She needed it at growth spurt times, and she wasn't eating that every day, just now and again. After she ate it she settled right down and would play nicely, become engaged in play and could concentrate well. Once hunger is taken care of they can engage with their world properly. If they are hungry, feed them. They have peaks and troughs where they need more food. If they eat absolutely loads one day its not going to be an every day thing. Don't stress it is my advice.

I’m starving thinking of that breakfast!

Cereal or croissants will not fill her up. Poached eggs for breakfast on wholemeal toast or beans toast.

People comparing bacon to tobacco have a very poor understanding of risk and the meaning of ‘category 1 carcinogen’. The advice from WHO is to limit processed meat intake, not that it needs to be avoided completely. The poster saying that an occasional bacon sandwich is fine is aligned with WHO and NHS advice.

Me too carbs are not the devil and children NEED a lot of them, especially if she is sporty!!! OP you are going to give your child an eating disorder. I think you need to reassess your own opinion of foods and healthy eating and quickly.
She will not get overweight if she is active unless you let her eat loads and loads of junk food and processed food. She may also have a fast metabolism, not all females burn calories slowly.

‘I offer’. ‘I direct her to’.

You’re distancing yourself there quite a bit both in language and action.

As other posters have advised, please just get stuck in and give her some proper meals.