Nearly obese 7 year old - what else can I do?

[Shmanmonet]

My DD is 7, nearly 8. She's 127cm and 33kg. This puts her on about the 95% percentile for her BMI, verging on obese.

I struggle to find the best way to approach this with her and to balance ensuring she eats healthily and exercises with not driving her crazy and making this into an 'issue'. I always think 'Will she thank me for this when she's older?'. Obviously she won't thank me for not trying to control her weight gain but similarly she won't thank me if I make her miserable about this!

We eat healthily at home and we're relatively active. The differences I see between her and her peers and her normal weight sibling is that:
a) She loves to eat, she doesn't seem to have an 'off' button and stop when she is naturally full, she will always notice if a meal is late, she'll talk about food a lot and she hardly ever refuses food
b) She's not naturally very physically active. She's just not that kid who runs around and it's a struggle to get her to be physical. She's not the kid racing around the playground playing footie at breaktime.
I think she really gained weight around one when she was just not moving. She only crawled at about 15 months and walked at about 18 months. Since then she's kind of tracked the same BMI percentile. I thought it might even out but it clearly hasn't and I'm increasingly worried. i did take her to the GP once when she was about 4 who just laughed basically and said she looks fine!!

My strategy with her is:
a) Fill her up with veggies and restrict carbs. I try to give her appropriate kid-sized meals and if she wants more, she has to have finsihed the protein and veggies and then only a little more of the carbs. Thankfully she's not fussy and more or less eats where we give her. I have sometimes told her no, that she's had enough. i don't know if this is right or wrong in terms of strategy. Should I be restricting more? Would that backfire? I don't want to be controlling, it doesn't feel right, but am I letting DD down by not doing more?
b) Restricting junk food at home. Is this right? Will this just make it mroe attractive elsewhere? Sometimes if we want something junky, i'll make it at home where i can control sugar, fats and portion size e.g. homemade healhier cakes, homemade popcorn for movie night, frozen banana icecream (whizzed up frozen bananas - she loves it and thinks it's a real treat like real icecream). But is even that too much if she's still obese? And what to do when we're out or with friends? Like today we were out at soft play with a friend, I bring water, an apple and a cheese stick for a snack for both of them. But then friend's mum arrives and allows friend to buy a pack of cookies. Friend of course offers my DD and they share. In this case, stepping in and not allowing would be far more harmful to DD (I think) but at the same time not helping DD's weight.
c) Fun physical activity as much as possible. We do try to get this in. I know she'd probabyl prefer to do activities that were not physically active (drama, art, robotics) or to just hang out at home but we do push her a bit to get out. She does Taekwondo 3 times a week and she does come out quite hot and sweaty so she works hard - thankfully we've found something she enjoys there as I think she likes the structure and having to think quite a bit as she's quite smart and has a good memory. She also does basketball once a week as an activity at school (which she enjoys because her friends do it too) and swimming once a week (enjoys less but swimming is an important skill). Then she has PE twice a week at school. At home, we try to get her out for at least an hour playing ping pong, badminton, cycling, walking the dog or roller blading. Again, she won't take herself out to play - she prefers to be at home playing with lego or reading a book - so we have to initiate and encourage it. I think she already does quite a lot of formal activities so probably not much more to do. But how much to force this if she doesn't want to be active? If she'd prefer to be inside? We aren't at the point of tears but definitely a lot of cajoling and encouragement is needed!

I will say that she doesn't stand out as a fat kid (but completely aware that's because the population overall has grown fatter compared with the reference population) and she does have decent physcial fitness. But I know her BMI and that she is very close to being obese, not just a little overweight, and I see her compared with her friends that she does have more of a tummy than they do.

Apologies for the long post but what else can I do to help DD? Where am I going wrong? And how do I address this issue without fucking her up (to put it bluntly)! I feel like I'm in a minefield here and I just want to get it right for her

But I can't help thinking she should have some control over how much she eats even if I guide her to what, otherwise I'm really disempowering her when I already make so many of the decisions here

At the end of the day OP she is only 7! It's important she is taught how much food is needed for her age group. You are not giving her the ability to make good food choices if she doesn't understand portion size. I have said before I really commend what you have done with your family around healthy eating, but if you want them to make healthy choices into adulthood, portion size is an extremely important part of that!

It sounds like you're doing all the right things OP, looking out for both your dd's physical and emotional health.

One thing that might help is making sure she drinks plenty of water - the body can often misinterpret thirst as hunger. And if she asks for seconds get her to have a drink first, that often tips me over from unsatisfied to full.

I hear you about the control thing OP. You want to give her some choices and empower her to make the right decisions. I totally support your comment that it's better for her to be a little chubby with a healthy relationship with food than vice versa.

For this reason I would maybe stick to family style serving rather than plating up, but literally just make a bit less food. When I was growing up I now realise that the portions I was given of carbs were more than what I needed (based on calorie allowance etc). But you don't realise that as a child - it just seems normal. Now when I cook rice or pasta I cook enough for everyone to have a reasonable size serving and that's it. I do cook extra of the protein part of the meal (which is also easier to store in the fridge / freezer if it doesn't get eaten). I honestly don't think that is too controlling. It's just teaching everyone in the family the appropriate size of a serving of carbs. It's more likely to be habit than genuine hunger that has her asking for seconds.

I think most of us struggle to stop picking away when there's a lovely spread of appetising food in front of us, I definitely wouldn't expect a 7yo to show much self control!

Of course a smoothie is more nutritious than fruit juice. I wasn’t suggesting a more nutritious option just something less calorie dense to give her so she doesn’t twig you’re trying to reduce the amount she eats. A full fat yogurt smoothie with nuts could easily be 500 calories. That’s a meal in itself.

you keep mentioning you will change to redirect her seconds to “protein” but what foods are you talking about here? Because most people serve proteins that are or alongside high calories: cheese, sausages, lasagne , bolagnaise etc all stuff that is fine in moderation but if she’s had her protein for the day she doesn’t need seconds of it.

And allowing a child of that age to control her food is asking her if she wants an apple or orange not allowing her to eat double what she should

I think maybe you are looking at the mistakes your parents made with your brother and going too far the other way? Telling her there's no more pasta left after she's eaten a healthy portion is a far cry from putting a lock on the fridge!

It sounds like you're doing a fab job already. Most things that are advised you're already doing.

Continue to control what you can at home and when our with friends relax the rules.

She's doing a lot of physical activities so I'd say instead of making her stop reading her book and playing lego, just let her be. She's only 7 and these are things she enjoys. I'd keep up the family dog walks and swimming.

How does she actually look? Does she look larger than her peers?

How about a compromise between family style and plating up. Everyone serves themselves their own plate of food and carries it to the table. But you don't bring the dishes to the table, so the food isn't sitting there tempting her to take more.

I think you need to reframe how you see yourself. It's not 'controlling' to make sure your kid has a healthy diet, although I agree that it doesn't always feel good. I think 50 years ago parents could just let their kids eat what they wanted, but we live in such an obesogenic environment now that we do have to control it.

I am a nurse so I have a good amount of knowledge and my kids mostly eat a healthy diet. Crucially, they eat the recommended amount of sugar or less, which only 1 in 50 kids do (see here: Children eat three times as much sugar as they should do (telegraph.co.uk)). I find it really hard to make sure they eat healthily - it does require constant control actually. I do it by:

• only giving snacks to tiny ones (i.e. less than 5) and then only fruit or a cracker.
• helping them to have what I consider to be appropriate portions. I plate up for them and if they ask, e.g. for more cheese on their pasta I might say, that's enough. I see this as teaching them how to choose a reasonable portion size.
• I don't buy junk and try to limit processed food, which can have a lot of hidden calories, salt and sugar. I bake biscuits or something once every couple of weeks.
• If we're out and they want something, the default answer is 'no'. But I do buy things like ice-creams occasionally. They just know it's occasional.
• If we're having things like biscuits, they know that it's usually one, occasionally two. It's really helpful as an adult to learn what a reasonable number of biscuits is. Even if we're out and offered something by someone else, I think it's fine to say 'just take one'.
• Only drink water and sometimes semi-skimmed milk. Smoothies are packed with sugar.

I really don't want to make them obsessed with junk or give them a complex and I try to go with the 'it's not good for your teeth' line if I can. But I also think it's my job to teach them what a good diet looks like. My 10 year old is now at a point where he can self-regulate a lot, so I only occasionally have to interfere with his decisions. Don't blame yourself for what's happened - it's really hard and you're doing a good thing managing that balance between helping her to be healthy and not giving her hang-ups.

Just to add: I would apply whatever strategy you use to both your kids, so you're not singling your DD out. I have 4 and I take the same approach for all, whilst bearing in mind that the 10 year old will need to eat more than the 2 year old.

Lots of advise given, I found she is having dairy in snack times ( cheese, yogurt). Avoid it. Let her have full fat milk when she prefers milk which make her full. Make her eat as much she wants at breakfast,lunch and dinner.Then let her snack anything with no calories added. Also delay lunch/ dinner timing slightly late,so that she really know when she is hungry, that helps to know when to stop eating may be.also plan some family time just after dinner that she look forward and finish dinner when her hunger is gone.

I agree with everything @SugarBaron said. We are there to teach them acceptable portion sizes. I had a friend who let her son eat 7 weetabix. I nearly spat my coffee out. She said ‘But it’s healthy!’ 😯

@SugarBaron
My approach is much like yours. It just feels that I do say no a lot! Or you have to plan two steps ahead. For example, i took her to the cinema last week. Of course, I could have just said no to any snacks but it's so hard. So to pre-empt any requests for junk, i made popcorn at home to take with us and brought a small carton of orange juice to make it treaty enough that she doesn't feel deprived compared with others.

But we see the junk her friends eat which makes it harder - Dd often comments that we always have healthy food compared with her friends and she (understandably) wants what they have!! I know they must naturally just eat less at other points in the day than she does but a 7 year old won't get that (and I hardly want her passing up nutritious meals in favour of junk!)

This is hard to get right!

I can't apply the same rules to dd as to my older teens they pretty much do their own thing. This is all part of why I worry as well. I know once she becomes a teen, almost all my control over her eating goes out the window!! I either sort this out now while I can or it all will have to fall on her shoulders when she's older and we all know how hard that is for teens

Totally get what you are saying @Shmanmonet . I say no to my children a lot and they're mostly used to it. They do compare to what others have which can be difficult and like you I try to find opportunities to let them be normal - so for example, once every now and then I will give crisps in the packed lunch, because 90% of the time it is very boring compared to other kids. One thing to note though is that if you as a family are sticking to a healthy balanced diet, you will be marking yourselves out as 'different', because the majority of the population are not doing this. So there's no way to avoid your kids feeling different from other kids if healthy eating is important to you.

I recommend the 'Circle of Security' parenting book if you haven't read it. It can be a bit wishy washy but I find the mantra 'bigger, stronger, wiser, kind' really helpful. Every time I say no to something I am doing it because I am 'wiser' and I'm doing it because they don't know what is good for them.

I've just realised something. Her friends are sharing their snacks with her at morning snack. She's happily mentioned this a couple of times before. Apparently they get good stuff 🤔 as opposed to the healthy stuff we send her
.I'm wondering now how much sharing is going on...

@ChairCareOh where is that well documented ? I thought its very much still about calories in versus calories used

@ChairCareOh in relation to weight loss , obviously generally you should pick the 100 calorie healthy snack as opposed to the 100 calorie unhealthy ,

OP are your portions def child portions? I only say this as my sil was shocked with what she considered how little my childrens dinner was to her ds ( who was a little overweight)

@cdba88
We're lucky that she has really taken to taekwondo and enjoys it. It's the first organised sport she's ever really enjoyed and we'd being trying lots of things out. She's focused on getting her next belt so she's quite into it. She's only been doing it for a few months but she's never been into any physical activity like this before. Regardless of weight, physical activity is super important for good health so we're really happy she's enjoying it.

She doesn't stand out as a fat kid (i think?) but I can tell she's got more around her tummy than most of her friends ( there are bigger kids in her class and year group, she's certainly not the biggest by a long shot but all kids are getting fatter overall). 6-7 clothes are getting tight on her, especially around the tum (she's 8 in about 3 months), I've been clearing a few out her closet recently which also got me thinking. 7-8 is totally fine.

I think small tweaks are needed. Sounds like she does a lot of organised activities and I'd sell that to her very much as 'you need to do an hour of exercise a day'. As long as everyone else in the family exercises regularly as well that should be fine.

DD had a chubby phase prepuberty and we a) bought a trampoline to increase the incidental exercise, b) swapped to semi-skimmed milk and spoke about having 3 different portions of dairy and how big a portion was (cheese was the big snack that was being overeaten). She was allowed one glass of milk at breakfast and then water the rest of the day, c) I refused request for seconds for a while, she was having seconds at every meal so it was clearly a habit. I just insisted I needed the leftovers for lunch the next day.

What made it particularly hard was her sister has struggled to maintain her weight at times (gets full very quickly so we encourage lots of mini meals so her 'snacks' are substantial, if often left unfinished) so I did have to treat them differently. Didn't take long to reset her though and now she's 13 she's doing lots of organised sport and is a healthy weight.