4yo constantly claims he is hungry (not sure whether to post here or in health)

[Pinholes]

DS is 4yo and all day long he tells he "I'm still hungry".

He eats a varied diet. Today he has had:

• breakfast; Weetabix with milk, blueberries and honey
• snack; he started with "I'm still hungry" straight after breakfast so he had a drink (water) and then a banana and a Babybel around mid-morning
• treat; a little bag of Haribo from his Halloween pot and a small brownie (he helped bake them)
• lunch; chicken, peas, carrots, mashed potato, two small roast potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding followed by a yoghurt and some apple slices
• straight after lunch; a second Yorkshire pudding
• tea; tonight will be chippy tea as we're going out

A typical midweek day would be the same sort of this for breakfast, fruit or veg and milk for mid-morning snack (at school), school dinner, snack at home time and then tea would be typical tea stuff - pasta, roast dinner, curry, jacket spud, etc.

I thought he might be getting hunger confused with thirst so I've been offering a drink when he starts (he always has a drink available anyway) but it makes no difference.

He was clearing his plate at meals too and school told me he's clearing his plate at lunch there so I slightly increased his portion sizes but he's leaving the increased food so I don't think it's his portion sizes.

Within 10-20 minutes of eating he will tell me "I'm still hungry", then he'll whine "I'm sooooo hungry" and will start to get upset.

He's started stealing food, which I'm attempting to nip in the bud. For example, today he had a small bag of Haribo from his Halloween pot and DD had some from hers. Two seconds later DD started crying. There was DS, literally stuffing her entire bag of Haribo into his mouth having finished his own. He went straight to time out, he also had to let DD choose a replacement sweet from his pot and has been told he won't be getting any sweets when we go out tonight (they give away free sweets at the lights switch on).

The second Yorkshire pudding he had after lunch was one that he snatched off the tray and jammed into his mouth before I could say anything. If he'd asked I'd have said yes, it was more that he snatched and stuffed like he hasn't eaten in days.

DD eats slower than he does so usually he's finished and she's still eating, by which time he's "hungry" again. He will ask her "are you finished? ... You're finished this bit, aren't you?" and will then help himself to food from her plate.

It's been this way for around two months so not a growth spurt, I don't think anyway.

Any ideas what's behind it or what I can do?

DD1 (4.7) has been doing this all year. Sometimes I can tell she's asking out of boredom but most of the time she's just hungry. She eats all the fruit and veg you can throw at her so sometimes she has an apple, a pear and a banana as a mid-morning snack, and is hungry half an hour later. That'll be cheese on toast type thing. She'll then eat well at meal times. I do give her fruit stars, yogurt covered raisins and a couple of times a week a mini pack of haribo type thing but she's as happy to have a piece of fruit or a babybel (or 3)

She is tall for her age but is not overweight. She goes to karate 3 times a week, and I think it's just over a mile to walk each way to school. She's burning all the calories she consumes.

DD2 (3 today) is the same. Eats all day long but hasn't put any weight on in a year (18kg), she's losing toddler chub and aiming for height.

If he's not becoming overweight (and maybe ask an honest friend as well as checking for child's BMI calculations and seeing if you are in the ball park for numbers) or showing any other medical symptoms then I would just try to keep up the healthy snacks and range of snack foods, minimising the sugary stuff and not worry.

Maybe more protein, the protein demands of a growing boy are significant, and the body will be "hungry" if any of the macronutrient needs are not being met. So maybe avoid the pure carb snacks, and go with ones with more protein in (ie the yoghurt and cheese is better than the banana, but more milk would be better than honey and blueberries to increase breakfast)

There really isn't a lot of protein in that diet. Try more savory snacks or less appetising good which will be eaten if hungry but not if bored.

He does have quite a lot of protein. He has a glass of milk with meals and eats a lot of chicken and fish (one of his favourite snacks is seafood sticks), the school dinners are quite heavy on the protein front too. He'll eat even when it's not appetising, I tried making his snacks unappealing (to him) and functional rather than seeming like treats - a pot of plain nuts or dried fruit, crackers and hummus, carrot and cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, etc. He still eats. He'll happily hoover up even dry crackers if hungry.

He was on 91st centile at birth and is around the 75th now (I think). He's 105cm tall and was something like 17.5kg when weighed at the hospital in July.

Thanks for the replies. I'm doing the food shop tomorrow so I'll try stocking up on protein based snacks and see how he goes.

He's not on any meds is he? My DD is on anti-seizure meds and is constantly hungry as a side effect.

Otherwise I'd say give him plenty of whole grains and fibre.

No meds. I've even considered worms as a cause after my mum joked about how he must have a tape worm

Dd1 at this age used to ask for food when she was bored. Finding her something fun to do would distract the "hunger".

I also have the "I'm starving" from all of them as a "putting off". So bedtime/time to do homework/go and tidy etc. is often met with a cry of "but I'm hungry".

Also they get into a habit. eg. Dd2 got into the habit of coming back from Brownies, saying she was hungry and having fruit. After doing it a couple of times she then expected it.
I've found that the body does seem to adapt to habit, so if you always have a snack at 11:00, your body will feel you need it at that time. Get out of the habit, and you don't feel starved then.