High calorie healthy food?

[hodgehegs]

Hi

My 9 year old daughter is on the 1st centile for her weight (25th for height).

I am small (approx 5ft 2 and a size 6) so this is no surprise to me.

We have a fairly healthy diet and she eats well when she has her favourite meals (eg spaghetti bolognese, home made special fried rice, roasts etc) and likes healthy snacks like carrot and cucumber sticks.

For puddings after lunch and dinner she is allowed ice cream or chocolate biscuits for a treat.

Any ideas of extra snacks or other ways I can boost her weight? I don't want to start giving her a junk food diet after bringing her up on a healthy one.

Unfortunately she doesn't like dairy products: milk, butter, cream etc so it's hard to get extra calories into her that way.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

If she likes Doritos, crisps etc could you give her a small tub of dip or hummus to take along for her lunch to have with the crisps? More cals that way than just carrot sticks (can have those as well!)

Would she eat something like a risotto, where you can bulk it out with all sorts, and can mix some cheese in?

If she enjoyed sweetcorn omelette, try different fillings in it. I used to like omelette but hate scrambled egg until after a while I realised its virtually identical, so that may change in time for her.

Thanks. Definitely need a chat with school about lunches. I think one of the problems is she's desperate to get outside to play with her friends, and is a slow eater (busy chatting) so tries to leave her food. Maybe I am a mean dinnerlady, but at our school I make sure the kids eat a good amount of their dinner, even if they're not keen on it, and we always check their lunchboxes to make sure they're not sneaking out to play without eating!

Sometimes she does have hummous with her carrot sticks, but then she doesn't want a sandwich as well, so one thing gets left.

Hasn't had risotto yet, doesn't like the texture - likes dry fried rice, but at least she will eat egg and bacon mixed in with it.

She does eat veg with her main meals, I just didn't mention it as that's not the high calorie stuff I'm trying to increase.

Today she had pancakes with sugar and lemon for breakfast; hummous, veg sticks and doritos for lunch; roast beef, roast potatoes and veg for dinner and ice cream for pudding, plus fruit smoothie (mixed berries from the freezer with apple juice), and home made popcorn with a sprinkle of sugar while we watched some tv in the evening.

I'll be very surprised if she doesn't put weight on this summer!

Her diet doesn't sound too bad. Have you kept a food diary for a week or two to see how varied and balanced it is and to look at the amounts of food she eats?

Have you seen a dietician? I wouldn't worry about her being on the first centile if she's happy and healthy.

I haven't kept a food diary - I use a monthly meal planner, so I know what she normally eats, apart from when we've had days out in the holidays and she's eaten more high calorie than usual.

Haven't seen a dietician yet (did when she was 4 and in hospital - they suggested adding butter and cream to things, so wasn't much help).

I'm not worried about her weight myself, since she's a similar build to me and has lots of energy, main thing that worries me is the constant allegations from my ex, using the fact she is small to try and back up his claims and have her removed from me.

Social Services and doctor were happy, but since she had fallen to 1st centile I just wondered what I could do to boost her weight.

Which meal does she eat best at?
I have a fussy little boy who is stick thin (although just about covers his food groups across a week, according to the dietican) and I can't get him to eat much in the afternoon or evening, but breakfast is one meal he loves so I try to give him as much as I can then.

You say she likes egg only in fried rice. Would she eat a kedgeree kind of thing for breakfast? You could leave out the curry spices and fish and make it more like an eggs and bacon/fried rice mash up, lol.

What about eggy bread - sweet or savoury?

Does she like sausages? Big, meaty pork sausages for breakfast - full of protein and fat.

Cream cheese frosting on cake? You just mix it up with icing sugar/cocoa like making butter cream, or you can get chocolate Philly. I know you said she's not a lover of dairy stuff so maybe this wouldn't go down well.

Egg fried rice probably goes down the best - it's white and wild rice mix, with 2 scrambled eggs, bacon, peas, sweetcorn and sometimes broccoli.

Also spaghetti bolognese, roasts go fairly well, and home made sushi (rice, smoked salmon, carrot and cucumber in nori) though that's not a very high fat dish.

She's had eggy bread once, is ok unless it "goes a bit soggy".

Cake frosting/icing gets left.

I suggested we make cakes yesterday, or anything she fancied from one of our many cookery books. Said no to everything as they all contained at least one ingredient she didn't like.

Am trying 2 new meals this week from the tesco recipe site - asian pork cakes (made with sausages) and beef on rice, and just not going to say what ingredients are in there!