HV rant - my toddler is 'overweight'

[sleepcrisis]

Well clearly he's not, he looks totally normal to me and any sane person. My HV on the other hand is massive.

DS was born on 25th centile for both weight and height. His height has remained steady on the 25th but as soon as he started putting on weight it crept up to bang in the middle of 50-75 centiles at 6 months and has stayed there ever since.

HV at his 2 year check this week told me that such a discrepancy must be monitored and that I should cut down his sugar intake.

The boy has a massive head (99 centile) and always has. Surely that weighs a fair bit?

I have found myself doubting his diet! He does eat a huge amount of fruit, fresh and dried. HV commented on sugar content of fruit. HE also has a Ellas kitchen cereal bar every day or so. She was scathing. Other than that he loads of veg and a balanced diet with portion sizes roughly 1/4-1/3 and adult size ( I have in the past wondered if he eats enough but never forced him to eat more)

When I have a cake or an ice cream (probably every other day) he shares it with me but rarely has his own. Although he likes to think it is his own - I just make sure I eat 3/4 of it! SHould I cut this out? He clearly does have a sweet tooth but he very rarely has biscuits (toddler group only), never juice, never sweets. The HV was banging on about sugar and sweeties and biscuits etc - he never has them!

Am I in denial about DS's diet and should I be more concerned than I am?

Oh and the other thing she critisized was that he eats little and often - for example he has a barely there breakfast but then 2 morning snacks at 930 and 11. (a banana and then later a box raisins or more fruit). She told me to cut out all snacks and just give him 3 meals a day.

Disclaimer: I was on here about a month ago listing his food intake and questioning whether he eats enough. Clearly I was wrong about that.

I'd imagine children who are habitually hunger for hours a day don't have the energy to complain.
I'm not actually sure whether starving children into submission is an ironic suggestion or not these days.

Feeding children 3 regular meals is not a suggestion to starve them. children adapt to the feeding regime you provide them. If you have constant snacks on offer, they will pick and whine when they are hungry. If you feed them 3 regular meals a day they will learn to tolerate a certain amount of hunger and eat well when food is provided.

You would be surprised how much children play even when living off one meal per day. I would struggle, because I am used to 3. But life does not stop just because it is tough.

Oh FGS.. what a ridiculous suggestion. DS has 3 meals a day and has plenty of energy. He was running around for hours yesterday afternoon and only said he was hungry about 20 mins before dinner.

3 meals a day is what I had as a child, same as most of my friends. Its fine.

Why tolerate hunger if you're not in poverty? Sounds like a weirdy controlling thing to me.

And as food restriction is probably the main cause of obesity, you are setting yourself up for a fail.

Eat when hungry, stop when full. For some people that will be 3 meals a day, for others that won't be enough. Particularly toddlers who have small stomachs and high metabolisms.

Can I just ask, how old are your kids who go 5 hours without eating? There is a huge difference between 2 and 3 imo, esp as many toddlers will be bf on demand throughout toddlerhood and surely it would take a while for them to get used to not having something every couple of hrs or so.

DS is 3.7 and has had the same feeding routine for about the past 18 months.

Some days he will have a snack mid morning or mid afternoon (one piece of fruit or one biscuit) but most days he doesn't ask for anything because he eats well at meal times. I would never let him have more than the 2 snacks a day either because I know he can't be hungry then.

I think snacking only becomes an issue if they are constantly after food (and getting it) having a small snack between meals is fine, moving from one thing to the next not good!

Why is it not good if they're not actually getting fat from it?

Because the need to constantly eat is not a good habit to get into and could very easily lead to obesity later in life.

Overeating is a massive problem in this country and why childhood obesity (and adult obesity) is such a problem.

Binge eating in response to restriction or other stress seems the most likely cause of obesity. Allowing children to self regulate will help them avoid obesity. Restricting their eating is more likely to make them obese as time goes on.

Hmm.. some people are coming across as a bit rude. Implications of being controlling about food are nothing to do with it.

We eat proper meals, and don't go hungry between them - believe me! Just get peckish just before a meal, which is normal.

I don't want to be stuffing my face with snacks every 2 hours.. I don't need to. DS might have the odd biscuit or something, but not as a rule. Its just not part of our routine.

OP- agree. Expecting a 2yo to go 5 hours without something is unrealistic. DS is 5, and hasn't had snacks in the day since about 3 I think

Robot that's it though isn't it, you get a bit peckish just before a meal, then you eat, not tolerating hunger in the way Fraxinus talked about.
And just because you only need three meals a day doesn't mean that's the best way for everybody, anymore than I was failing because my DC1 never went more than 2 hours without a bf for a very long time.
Stopping a child eating regularly who wants to is far more damaging than allowing it.

But nobody is saying that, where did anybody say you were failing your DC . If snacks work for you, fine. If they make you fat, don't eat them (my case). I always find I'm more hungry if I eat biscuits or something mid morning, and end up eating more for lunch - probably the sugar crash a couple of hours later making me want more food. Once I got out of the habit of snacking mid morning and mid afternoon I didn't get hungry at that time anymore, and ate better at mealtimes.

I have to say though - I know so many kids who are constantly nagging for snacks and get them! They live on little bits of crap and then when it is dinner time, they don't want to eat and then their parents inevitably complain about it (not saying you do this!!)

My parents seem to want to stuff DS full of cake and biscuits between meals (which is weird as this never happened when we were kids) and then they moan at him when he doesn't want his dinner. Well.. of course he doesn't, he just had a magnum two hours ago.

I think I'm going off on a bit of a tangent now

It was just a bit of a revelation to me, that's all. I think we're all so conditioned to think that snacking is needed and that people can't go 4/5 hours without eating, that we feel deprived if we don't have something to eat every couple of hours.

Ds2&3 both started on the lowest centile and moved steadily up to the top, ds3 was over the 95th in weight and height by the age of 1 and is the same now at 2.4 years. They were both premature though and would probably have been big if full term (ds1 was 11lb 2 at birth.)

Ds3 still has two snacks a day, around 10 and 2 o'clock. Ds2 is 10 and hasn't had a snack between meals since starting school. He's still tall for his age but isn't overweight.

The thread is becoming generally anti-snack, with the implication that avoiding snacking, which means preventing children snacking, one way or the other is better for them, and it's not that simple.

No, avoiding shit snacks with little or no nutritional value, and filling children up before meals is not good for them. An apple of a biscuit between meals is obviously fine.

ugh.. re-wrote that half way through and contradicted myself. You know what I mean :)

A lot of those people, women particularly, who mindlessly graze eg. biscuits at toddler group, doughnuts at work, inhaling buffets etc. are likely skipping meals and trying to stick to some rubbishy 1400cal diet, whose body then grabs at the first calorie dense food it comes across.
If they were actually eating sufficient at meals, they wouldn't be drawn to the high cal snacks.

I agree though, the more nutritious the food, whether at main meals or snacks, the healthier and more weight stable everyone would be.
And nutritious food means full fat dairy, fruit etc.

I think if you saw a diff hv you would get a diff opinion. If you saw five you would have five diff!

See GP. He's you know medically trained where hvs are monumentally useless it seems in RL and on here. If GP worried, worry.

Cut back a bit on multiple snacks but meals with two mid am/mid pm is what nurseries/cms work on generally.

Then relax as you will cause a food issue!

And toddlers should be on full fat milk not semi or skimmed.

I always thought it was full fat milk until 5 but the nhs website says they can have semi skimmed from 2 as long as they are eating well and on a good varied diet

Why not give them full fat?

Because mine drinks alot of it and full fat contains alot more saturated fat and calories.

They need both fat and calories.

Yeah he gets that in his diet, he doesn't need it from milk

Doesn't he? Why is he drinking it then?