Is my 2yr old overweight?

[CaffieJ]

Hi all,

My mother keeps mentioning that my daughter is chunky for her age and that I feed her too much.
Im not sure how tall she is, 18/24m girl clothes are just long enough in the legs still.. but the bodies I have had to move her into the 2-3yr ones as otherwise length way they are too tight.

shes nwarly 2yrs 2months and weight 14.4kg. She was born in the 85% weight.

Her typical eating would be;

breakfast;
Grapes, Melon, maybe some berries, and cereal. Or if she wants toast she has 1 slice and some Greek yogurt on the side.

she might get a snack.. some days she’ll ask other days she won’t I go by her asking. This could be a little box of raisins, or a fruit bar.

Lunch:
most days looks like;
A brioche bun those small ones plain or cheese/cheese & ham, a baby bell, fruit again, half a packet of crisps, a yogurt pouch and maybe one of those teddy bear cake things or a mini soreen bar if she’s lucky.

Sometimes we may do a bit of pasta, others it could be beans and cheese on toast.

Snack:
If she asks again or says shes hungry it’s normally a whole apple/pear/banana.

Dinner;
whatever we’re having. Could be chicken chorizo pasta, sausage and mash, a roast etc. But she’ll have a smaller portion than us of course. We don’t do pudding.

is this too excessive? Or not balanced enough? I feel the veg content/protein is normally pretty packed up in the dinner.

cheers x

Measure her height and use the NHS calculator to check her bmi.

Her diet sounds very sugary and processed at lunch,the rest sounds decent though.

Could you swap some of the fruit for veg sticks - carrot cucumber etc her diet is very sugary, eggs or porridge for breakfast instead of sugary fruit and cereal

Hard to say whether she is overweight without knowing her height but she's the weight of an average 3 year old so quite big. She seems to eat a lot of processed food e.g. crisps, Soreen, whatever a yoghurt pouch might be (I assume not just plain Greek yoghurt). I'd definitely suggest cutting out that stuff if you can.

Her meals sound fine to me.It may be that you drop the crisps every day?
Children come in different sizes, small and frail and chubby and tall.She may just take after a family member and can’t help her size.Kids clothes are made very small nowadays, just buy any size that fits her.
Does she rush about and get plenty of exercise?

Diet sounds very similar to my DC2 who is 2.5. I can't remember his weight off the top of my head but he was weighed at the hospital very recently which is in his red book now, so I will add it tomorrow if I get a chance. He is quite short though so obviously that influences what is a healthy weight for him.

But as others have said, take her height and weight and use the NHS websites BMI calculator. You can also call your health visitor and ask her to weigh and measure your DC and plot it in the red book.

Sounds like lots of sugar have veg sticks instead, raisins are really high as are brioche buns....I take it she has about 1/4 of a full size one....portions are what fits in the palm of her hand so a 1/4 of a banana etc.

So, 91st to 98th centile for weight, but we don't know the height centile?

Try and cut out the fruit bars and raisins - they are AWFUL for teeth as they stick. Crisps also stick to teeth. So cut those out, replace with veg sticks if you can.

She two years of age let her eat. You know as a mother if she is unhealthy and by the sounds of it you're feeding her well!

I do have some experience with this and I have found where parents often trip up is the portion sizes they are often far too large. Some toddlers will just eat and eat whatever’s in front of them. Plenty of info on portion size for a child’s age available online.

I personally don’t think the occasion fruit bar and half a packet of crisps would be the cause.
What is she having to drink? Does she have milk still? What physical activity does she do typically?

Bloody hell, some of these replies! She sounds fine OP.

Food matters. But also activity. How much screen time are you doing- ideally very little. They just sit so still when they are watching or on any sort of device.
Do you still push her everywhere or is she out the pushchair and walking a good amount?

I wouldnt give so much fruit.
I would swap for things like Carrott sticks, Cucumber, Tomatoes.

Then for lunch things like scrabbled eggs

I'd definitely measure her height. Doi this correctly with her lying down at her age. Feelt and heels up against a wall straighten her out and mark to the to of her head. ( they are shorted whet standing at that age so it will skew, results). Plot her centile for both weight and height in your red book in the chat, there are also online calculators. As long asa the centile for height and weight are similar they'd no concern. If she's in a much higher centile weight than height speak to your health visitor or hp.

All children grow at different rates and to different sizes.

My daughter is 7 next week. She weighs less than 17kg (0.2nd centile) and measure approx 107cm (3 -5th centile) she's just tiny despite being born on 75th centile. She's tracked evenly and consistent which is the important thing. My son has tracked all his life on the 99th centile for both. Consistency and no sharp rises/ drops in weight and no bog discrepancy are the important factors.

As a note at that age if cut it cross apart from a very rare taste due to sit and flavourings and very high fat content and adjusting some of the packet cakes. They have no decent nutritional value. If she's having a piece of aapple or a fromage frais got to be better. Less full of nat chemical s abs bad fats.
Just be aware if potion sizes, there are online eviscerated and pictures- if of course dh is overweight that is. I still would get rid of the teddy cakes and cakes largely though.
Add un things like raw bait sticks and cucumber/ red pepper and make sure there's lot of veg for dinner too. Broccoli and carrots seem very popular in my experience.

I agree. A lot of sugar in her diet which could be replaced with alternatives which could help x

Looking chunky at this age I wouldn't get too stressed about. Both of my kids were very chunky babies and toddlers and became very lean by their school years- looking at my similarly chunky baby pictures I think it was just genetic.