Toddler height-weight ratios

[love2sleep]

DS1 is 2.10 and has always been big. His weight has always been above the 90 centile on the chart. He started off fairly long (75th) but now is down on the 25th. I'm not a big fan of all these charts, but they are telling me what I already know which is that he is a chubby boy who is heavy for his height. He constantly says that he is hungry and I have to be really strict about when/what he eats. He is not very active - prefers books and jigsaws to running, jumping, climbing etc.

Does anyone have any experiences to share with me? I'm a fairly laid back sort of parent but am starting to wonder if this is something I need to pay a bit more attention to.

Does he eat healthily and regularly?

I am very careful about what he eats because otherwise he would be the size of a house. He eats a very good diet with loads of fruit and veg. He has 3 main meals a day and then a fruit snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

Well, you are probably doing all you can for him. Some children are just built the way they are built.

As a baby, and young toddler, my DS was pretty chubby, but he is now nearly 3 and definitely thinned out just right. He's no bean pole, but no longer chubby.

He has always eaten the right things, generally at the right times, and I think if you just keep doing what you are doing, it all sounds perfectly healthy to me!

I did once watch one of those programmes on tellie that talked about a child who was slightly overweight (at that age, really, are they 'overweight' though?), and one problem was that his meals were just too big. Not quality in this case, but quantity. He did not need as much as he was getting 3 times a day.

If I let my DS eat as much as he wanted, he'd polish off two bananas, two bowls of cereal, several yoghurts and 7 million cartons of juice- all before 8 o'clock in the morning.(!)
Same goes for lunches and teas.

I do not think it is true that a child will only eat what he needs. Rubbish in fact. I always have to stop mine eating.

Just because he's on the 90th centile doesn't necessarily mean he's overweight. Here's a link to a body mass index calculator for children (the normal way of calculating BMI doesn't work for children).

BODY MASS INDEX

My DD eats like a horse and is in the 80th for weight and the 9th for height...I think some children are just built differently from average!

If you are concerned I would try to up his exercise rather than restrict his food intake!

Thanks for these replies.
According to the BMI calcuator his "BMI for age" is on the 98th percentile and he "should be seen by a healthcare provider for further assessment". I guess I'll take him to the HV next week.

HCtG - I agree about the excercise, but it is really hard. He walks loads - hasn't been in a puschair since he was 2 and I don't drive much - but he doesn't really do much else. When I take him to the park or a soft play place he just sits/stands in one place and makes up some complicated pretend story about what he is doing. I'd be grateful for any tips on encouraging him to be more active. He likes his mini trampoline but that is about it.

I'm afraid I don't have any tips as my DD is super active..I'm sure someone will though

Does he like kicking a ball?

If it's any consolation my nephew was a little barrel at 2 and 3 but he's 13 now and super fit and slim.

If he's eating a sensible diet without too many sugary or processed foods then he will slim down as he gets more active when he's at school.

Agree that you don't want to restrict his diet (or start a pattern where food becomes an issue).

Just try to encourage the activity levels - easier as the weather improves. An interest in activites from sports to cycling to trampolining is just creating good habits for life.

Kick a ball around
Go to the local park and encourage lots of climbing on jungle gym etc
Bike/tricycle rides
Walks -ds (3) loves "nature" walks. He collects sticks, stones, leaves, pinecones to bring home - but I draw the line at old cigarette butts (yes he did want to collect them too!).

Anything that gets him moving is good. DS is very energetic so I don't have personal experience of trying to encourage him to do active things, but I think that it is always good to balance cognitive pursuits with some physical activity - it gives children confidence in their bodies so there are lots of benefits besides fitness!

Those are all good suggestions. Thanks.
He is not very confident physically so it's hard to encourage him to do much climbing etc. I don't want to make a big issue out of it as I can see him digging his heels in a refusing to do anything active. Walking is no problem but anything else is an uphill struggle. DS2 on the other hand is not yet 1 and is already toddling energetically and causing far more mayhem than DS1 ever did.

Hi,

A friend of mine went through this with her LO and found it very hard. Her LO was extremely big, but eating very healthily - lots of fruit and veg and always home made meals.

Anyway, she finally went to see a dietician and got lots of great advice. My friend had been cooking from a recipe book by a children's food expert.

The dietician told her that the recipes are very high fat, and that they would be okay for kids that are fussy eaters but not advised for children with big appetites. I haven't heard of the cook before, but when she showed me the recipes they did seem to use alot of butter and cheese.

I think she knew that the recipes weren't low fat (which you shouldn't do for a young child) but was surprised by the amount of calories that she was feeding her dd.

Maybe you could go to see a dietician and bring a list of the things your ds would eat in a week. Friend's dietician advised her not to restrict calories, but make changes to the diet. Some of the other advice given was:

• Encourge her LO to slow down when she ate. Apparently some kids eat so fast that they miss the bodies' cues that it's time to stop.
• Cut her food into small bites so she would slow down.
• She got advice on portion sizes for protein and carbohydrates. If her dd is still hungry she'll give more fruit or veg, or she can get seconds, but at least she's not just automatically eating everything on her plate.
• More walking

I should add that my friend's case was quite extreme. The dietician said that in most cases they wouldn't worry about such a young child. Good luck.

jemum
thanks for all that advice. the bits about eating too fast are defintitely right. DS1 cleans his plate really really fast. He cuts up his own food, but I could prob do more to encourage him to cut it up smaller. The HV offered to refer us to a dietician but I don't think I need to do this yet. He seems to be going through a bit of a growth spurt at the moment and has just grown out of load of clothes and also he is starting to become a bit more energetic - having to run away from ds2 ...

thanks to you all