Overweight DD, is this a healthy menu?

[TheChild]

Hello, I'm looking for some advice about my DD(7). She is not technically overwight in terms of BMI but she is very nearly, she is 4 ft 6 inches and 5st 7lbs.

She has always been what I'd describe as "sturdy", but with lockdown I really noticed her getting a bit bigger with the lack of school run, PE and less activities on.

We are trying to be more mindful of what she is eating, but she seems to constantly be hungry! I've kept a track of what she has eaten in the past few days, I was wondering how this daily food compares with other children and how we could improve?

Breakfast: porridge with raisins
Lunch: wholemeal ham wrap (plain, she doesn't like mayo or cream cheese), cucumber sticks and tomatoes, greek yogurt with strawberries, 5 ritz crackers
Snack: 1 chocolate from a box of Thorntons
Dinner: chicken fajitas (1.5 wholemeal wraps), cheese doritos (I'd guess maybe 2 handfuls)
Pudding: small bowl of sweets (9 skittles, to be pedantic 😁) and 1 Thorntons chocolate
Supper: apple

Breakfast: 1 slice toast (best of both) with chocolate spread, handful of grapes with a few tablespoons of Greek yogurt (dad gave the toast with Nutella and she said she was still hungry which is why I gave the yogurt, we have agreed nutella on toast is not the best breakfast!)
Lunch: wholemeal ham wrap, cucumber sticks, pepper sticks and tomatoes, 4 ritz crackers, 2 small hotdogs, grapes
Dinner: 3 chipolata sausages, 5 small roast potatoes, sweetcorn and gravy
Pudding: bread and butter pudding with custard
Supper: apple

Breakfast: 1 slice best of both toast and 2 scrambled eggs
Lunch: wholemeal ham wrap, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and tomatoes, 2 small hotdogs, 4 ritz crackers, raisins
Dinner: chicken fajitas (1 wholemeal wrap), handful of cheese doritoes
Puddin: peach slices with custard
Supper has not happened yet but she will get the option of either an apple, grapes, melon or greek yogurt with frozen strawberries

A bit more info, we cook most meals from scratch and have really tried to cut out convenience food and find meals we can all eat as a family. I think her portion sizes are fairly normal, I try to go by the "portion is the size of your (in this case her) wrist. She gets a glass of fizzy fruit pop as an occasional treat with her evening meal if I'm feeling generous.
We walk to school and back every day (approx 15 minute walk each way) and she has just joined sports club one afternoon each week. We are trying to encourage her to take up a sport to get a bit more active but she is very shy and keeps saying no to everything we suggest. Neither me or DP drive so we do a fair bit of walking but she definitely doesn't enjoy this much 😂
She is very fussy with trying new things, she doesn't like nuts, cheese, rice, spicy food, stirfry etc so trying to get healthy recipes that we all can eat is a bit challenging! (she is pretty much the opposite of her sister!)
I know the puddings aren't great, she would usually be fine with greek yogurt and fruit but her little sister will not eat greek yogurt at all. Is it better to have say 1 "treat" food per day or have 1 day per week where we might allow her a few treats?
I have also never mentioned any concerns about her weight to her, my mum bullied me about my weight as a young teen and it gave me a lot of issues around food and I will always struggle with binging and my weight, so I'm just trying to talk more about healthy eating and discuss why having too much sugar and pop etc is bad for our health and our teeth.

Thanks so much if you managed to read all that 😊

Dd who is 9 eats this typically-

B- whole meal bagel with peanut butter, half an apple. Water
S- handful of sugar snap peas or an apple
L- whole meal roll with marmite, 3 mini cucumbers, 2 carrots chopped up, small kitkat or similar, carton of juice (bit sugary!)
S- hummus and breadsticks
D- vege tacos made with chickpeas and blank beans, served with home made guacamole, shredded lettuce, rice and a little cheese ( not a huge fan of cheese) she will eat 3 tacos.
No puddings, if hungry sometimes she will have a piece of fruit or some veg.

She does gymnastics and dance and is very active. After she days will have an egg or beans on toast for supper.

We don’t drink squash and very rarely eat puddings as a family. No one likes them much.

Packed lunches can we very samey as she will only have marmite as a filling. But in winter will have soup or pasta. Actually she will eat cold pesto pasta with peas so there is some variety.

*on sporty days she will have

Sorry afew typos up there!

Dd is about 4ft, slim athletic build.

Someone mentioned a Fitbit. I know loads of kids who have them and they do not have complexes about them!

Mini trampoline is a brilliant idea but if you live in a flat please stick a thick rug underneath!

'My family eat no processed foods'

Same poster
'Their favourite dinner is tinned fish covered in soy sauce and mayo'

Lifes to short to eat the same amount of food as a 7 year old when your 6'4

Just because an adult and a 7 year old eat the same doesn't mean its the 7 year old whos quantities are 'wrong'. Tbh a 7 year old is much more likely to eat to their hunger and body needs than an adult whos had years of bombardment from the media about weight, obesity, health. An adult is much more likely to have a disordered approach to eating than a child

Saying this child eats the same as you, or your husband or your son means fuck all, but could be damaging to the child. This child is a healthy weight, they are clearly not eating massively in excess of what their body requires.

We have never had any issue with any of that because if we have any processed food it's when we are entertaining and with friends or family, never as part of our daily diet.

our favourite dinner is what we call a sushi bowl which is basically a big bowl of sushi rice with tins of oily fish mixed with mayo, honey, soya sauce

White rice, mayo and soy sauce are pretty highly processed foods. That meal has plenty of veg in it, but it's also high in sugars (honey and white processed carb) and very high in salt.

Sushi rice: big sack not packet? With added honey or Mirin and rice vinegar

Kikkoman Soya sauce: fermented soy beans with reduced salt

Mayo: egg whisked with white vinegar and cold pressed rape seed oil or olive oil and garlic

Tinned mackerel/ sardines

By processed food I meant things like packeted factory produced junk food

Sorry for not clarifying

Not sure why the size of your bag of rice would make any difference tbh. Impressed that you make your own mayo every time though.

I'm still a bit baffled as to why you think your tinned fish, bottled soy sauce, sesame oil and various other things in your meal are non-packaged or not produced in factories though. For example, would you class a packet of batch-cooked crisps containing just potato, salt and black pepper as junk food? I'm wondering if they'd be any worse for you than soy sauce, for example.

Obviously I'm being picky, but that's because it's quite irritating reading a holier-than-thou 'we don't eat processed food' post followed by an 'Our very favourite meal is made of a bunch of processed foods' post by the same poster. Your 'clarifying' doesn't really clarify anything because you have your own personal definition of what 'processed food' means.

Meant to say- Kikkoman is good though - it's one of the soy sauces that's traditionally rather than chemically brewed. I don't find the low salt one much help tbh, because I find you just end up using more of it to get the same flavour!

Hi Op, I have a tall, slim and active family and your dd eats more than my 6'4" DH does

Lol.
Really?? The examples posted by OP would be too much for your 6 ft 4 DH?

MN makes me laugh sometimes 🤣

@Newstaronhorizon

Sushi rice: big sack not packet? With added honey or Mirin and rice vinegar

Kikkoman Soya sauce: fermented soy beans with reduced salt

Mayo: egg whisked with white vinegar and cold pressed rape seed oil or olive oil and garlic

Tinned mackerel/ sardines

By processed food I meant things like packeted factory produced junk food

Sorry for not clarifying

How did they reduce the salt without processing it? You said tinned tuna in the original post, but regardless, how did the fish get into the tin without being processed?

[quote sweetypop]@Newstaronhorizon it's not just you, it's most of the thread. How dangerous to tell a mother who is concerned about her dds diet that your 6ft 4 husband eats less than her dd!! My Dh is also 6ft 4, active, healthy and lean and he eats a shit ton more than the ops dd, I couldn't even list what he eats... but it's irrelevant isn't it? Because we shouldn't be comparing a 7 year old to grown men and as an adult with a brain you surely must know that everyone is different anyway and what's good for your dh is different to what's working mine.[/quote]
I agree. My DH also eats more than this little girl, why would anyone compare what a healthy adult male eats with what a young girl is eating? Such an unhealthy attitude to have and makes me question their advice(and if they are as perfect as they claim to be).

So glad others picked up on how ridiculous it was too! I'm not bad tempered for calling her out on that BS.

In an age where women and young girls are constantly feeling the pressure around food I think it's absolutely disgusting that people (mainly women) have come on this thread and tried to limit the intake of food for a 7 year old who isn't even over weight.

It's actually sad to think that these early years are probably the only years she'll eat without guilt or pressure, just let her have a frube and a bit of cake... there's so much more to life than eating a non processed food diet and trying to be perfect

sweetypop you are not wrong.

This child is not overweight, and the competitive healthy undereating which normally makes me titter on MN is actually quite worrying. At that age kids are doing lots of growing and require enough calories to function and to keep growing. Not just from tinned fish 🙄. Never mind as @sweetypop says putting these issues in the head of a 7 year old girl.

This child is not overweight, and the competitive healthy undereating which normally makes me titter on MN is actually quite worrying

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Children do a lot of growing at this age and comparing their intake to adults is totally pointless - adults are not growing. Carbs are important and earlier in the thread op chose to remove toast from her child's breakfast (only giving eggs) because of 'too many carbs', an idea which she got from this thread. Your child should be eating from all food groups, including carbs. If you continue to feed her balanced meals and keep treats occasional then she will be okay. You mustn't worry and you mustn't listen to disordered behaviour on mumsnet which includes cutting carbs from children's diets and the insistance that THEIR child would be stuffed all day on half a weetabix and a banana would push them over the edge. Never ask about food on mumsnet!

I would definitely not be giving her fizzy drinks on a regular basis.

I'd also cut out the crackers and crisps.

OP I hope you do come back and update us.

You know what it's like to grow up with DM who was worried about you getting fat. You might not put her on the scales every week but if you start cutting out all of her treats (which outside of MN are perfectly normal for a kid to have) and she has to be hungry after school because she isn't allowed her after school snack anymore (again a perfectly normal thing for a child to have) she is eventually going to realise that her mum thinks she is fat and has put her on a diet. Please go with the original ideas of putting her in a couple more fun after school clubs or more trips to the park. I think her diet is fine and comparable to my 6 year old who is average weight.

@ForgedInFire

OP I hope you do come back and update us.

You know what it's like to grow up with DM who was worried about you getting fat. You might not put her on the scales every week but if you start cutting out all of her treats (which outside of MN are perfectly normal for a kid to have) and she has to be hungry after school because she isn't allowed her after school snack anymore (again a perfectly normal thing for a child to have) she is eventually going to realise that her mum thinks she is fat and has put her on a diet. Please go with the original ideas of putting her in a couple more fun after school clubs or more trips to the park. I think her diet is fine and comparable to my 6 year old who is average weight.

It has certainly been a thread full of quite conflicting information. I've been doing a lot of reading around the subject and looking up guides on children's portion sizes. I don't think her diet is too bad in comparison to other children I know, so there will still be room for occasional treats.

We have our first trampoline session today and we have had much more outdoor time playing with the skipping rope, football and the tennis rackets in the backlane 😊

I think there is a lot of variety in responses and some weird competitive under eating!

Glad to hear about all the activities too. Sounds great!!

An easy solution would be lots more fruit and veg for you and her. Tell her you’re all going to be healthier. Don’t discuss weight

Thank heavens you have your head screwed on OP. You're awesome

My dd 8 has AFRID and is under camhs for food phobias. She will only eat bland beige foods and her diet is very carb heavy. She has bread several times a day. She hasn't eaten fruit since she was 2 and eats only one vegetable but gags while she eats it. However, she is very sporty and trains 14 hours a week in two sports. I think the exercise in her case is the reason she is not overweight. I cannot persuade her or pressure her to eat fruit and vegetables as she has a phobia of them and it sends her into distress. She will go hungry rather than eat those foods. I think your dd diet sounds ok and she is getting a decent variety but there is no need for supper if she is having three meals a day plus 2 snacks.