Healthy way for a child to lose weight

[BritBratGrot]

My daughter, 11.5, needs to lose some weight, maybe 5 kilos as a starting point.

She eats hwalthy food, just too much (I guess? We keep an eyw on portions and it doesn't seem way too much?) and prpbably has too many sugary snacks on top of this.

She's not super sporty, but not completely inert either. She walks to and from school daily, a 15 min walk, plus does a few sports classes.

I'm not sure how we can fit much more exercise in but one idea I've had is we tale turns doing 15 mins on the crosstrainer in the evening when we're watching something together.

Is it best to reduce portion size, remove all snacks, is exercise the only answer?

Very grateful for any suggestions how to do this healthily.

She's not yet gone through her growth spurt so I'm also keeping an eye on that as we're expecting her to any time, and whilst she could still do with losing some weight, I don't want to harm her if she's growing fast.

She's always been podgy, was EBF and spherical but everyone said she'd slim down, and she just never did

Concentrate on her not gaining weight. So better meal choices, more vegetables than carbs and fat.

she’s got a lot of growing to do soon, love her for who she is. Her weight doesn’t define her as a person and everyone is different.

I absolutely adore her and this is borne out by her confidence in every aspect of how she acts, in school and outside of it

I think it's partly why I've been so slow to do anything about this.

However she is aware she's heavier than any of her friends and she wants to lose some weight, and i want to support her to do this healthily.

I did a weight management programme with my DS - in our area you can self refer. It was very helpful in opening up the conversation with him about healthy eating and portion sizes. The focus was very much on being healthy - it was entirely non- judgemental and very positive.

As @Neevo said, the main aim was to stay the same weight, rather than lose weight. In terms of food it was helpful with portion sizes (things like half the plate being veg, and a quarter each for protein and carbs, I think), and increasing fruit and veg. Obviously they also talked about reducing snacking and 'unhealthy' foods, and looking ot increase activity where you can too.

You can make a big difference with just reducing portion sizes and swapping out some of the snacks for something healthier.

Good luck 🙂

Your local council/public health may do a children's health programme, ours is self referral.

Also the paediatric dietitians in your local hospital may have information leaflets they could post/email you.

Otherwise this is a good start

https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/healthy-eating-for-children.html#:~:text=Meat%2C%20fish%2C%20eggs%2C%20nuts,common%20condition%20seen%20in%20children.

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/

She's old enough to have some ownership of this, so I would start with having her help with cooking, make it fun, maybe twice a week she finds a healthy recipe and you try it out together.

My DD was able to go the the gym at 11, so see if that's an option near you. It's more flexible than a fixed class.

If there's time to be watching things together, could you instead do the couch to 5k together. She's old enough to be doing things like Parkrun without you, so you could build up to that and she could enjoy beating you!

Up the protein, lower the carbs

Cheese omelette works

She loves eggs so this could work!

I'll try and give a good and a bad day's food below, keen on views of how good to awful these are as im worrying I've lost perspective

Breakfast:
Good day= Wholemeal toast (homemade) with peanut butter and honey (1 slice) plus a boiled egg and sliced orange.
Or porridge made with additional almond flour and raisins, orange juice.
Bad day= White roll with lemon curd or bacon, glass of grape juice

Weekly ratio 6 good days vs 1 bad day per week

Lunch:
Good day= Homemade Lentil soup with slice of buttered homemade wholemeal toast, half a pear and half an apple chopped up
Bad day= leftover pizza (supermarket, v rarely Domino's) with handful of lettuce, plus small slice of homemade cake or choc biscuit

Weekly ratio 2 good, 1 bad, the other r days a mix somewhere between the two.

Dinner:
Good day= Homemade chicken curry (sauce has loads of veg) with salad or steamed broccoli. Or homemade bulgur pesto dish with loads of chopped greens added, poss fried egg on top.
Pudding = full fat yog with frozen berries and small drizzle of honey, or homemade apple crumble with custard

Bad day= Chinese takeaway (one chicken ball, two slices lemon chicken, couple tablespoons each of egg fried rice and noodle chow mein, couple of tablespoons each of stir fried beansprouts and mixed veg), one quarter oiece prawn toast.
Pudding=two scoops homemade choc ice-cream with a shortbread finger and berries

Weekly ratio= 3 good, 1 bad (though takeaway itself more like once every 3 weeks), the rest eithet pasta&pesto&peas lazy meal or somewhere halfway between good and bad.

Looking at the above I don't see anything too problematic so keen to hear if others think I'm wrong.

Also my feeling is the food itself is ok, maybe the portions aren't? Though she rarely has much more than my 7 year old who is a slim child and he's not all that sporty either, just genetics? He is wriggly though where she isn't. Their portions genuinely look smallish to me.

Which leads me to conclude... The problem might be snacks.

On a good day snacks might be:
An apple
A satsuma
A handful of mixed nuts and raisins
(all the above)

On a bad day might be:
Slice of homemade cake (medium)
A Nature Valley choc & peanut bar
An apple
A banana
A handful of grapes
A packet of crisps
(all the above)

Weekly ratio= 4 good to 3 bad maybe?? No worse!

Right! Leaving it there. Very keen indeed to get some honest views about this food. Apologies for the length

Hmm, from the food ksit, it sound skiek you basically need to try and cut out most of the upf foods.

The homemade stuff sounds great - and it'll be more satisfying than the processed stuff.

Could you do more exercise at weekend,but not necessarily labelling it that? I.e. bike ride, play football, country park visit? Outdoor nature trail, etc.

Would she be interested in martial arts?