"Overweight" 3 year old

[venus417]

I have a 3 year old whose bmi puts her at 96th centile according to nhs website. She has a slight pot belly but other than that she is a good build. She is strong and very active. Walks everywhere, goes on her balance bike, goes to swimming lessons, gymbastics once a week and nursery. At nursery they play outside for at least 2 hours a day. She eats a lot of fruit (which i know is full of sugar but is still good for you?!) She has treats at both grandparents but we dont stock biscuits or crips at ours. For breakfast its porridge or shreddies, lunch a sandwich or tuna mayo pasta something like that and tea is generally meat with something. For instance its chicken and leak bake today. Cottage pie tomorrow 🤔 so where are we going wrong?? I think she is slightly food obsessed too. Her first question of the day is always "whats for tea tonight?" We all eat together, the same meal, and she helps to cook it (or thinks she does. She will probably grow up thinking its normal to stir chopped onions 😂) advice for healthy snacks/meals or what i am doing wrong will be greatly received!

Sounds like you're doing all the right things to me! My DD also snacks on a lot of fruit, and i am wary of the sugar, but surely it's better than biscuits etc. You could substitute some fruit snacks with e.g. carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, chopped cherry tomatoes if you're worried about the sugar.

What are her portion sizes like?

How tall is she??
What percentile for height?

Logged in to ask as above^, is she on the same centile for weight and height?

Sounds like she just eats too much of the right thing.

portion size?
what does she drink? should be only water ideally and 1 cup of milk before bed.

how much fruit does she eat? 2 portions are the max recommended. maybe swap fruit for carrot/peppers/peas/sweetcorn

Bmi takes height into account. Is this the first time you’ve calculated it? I’d wait a while and do it again, as children don’t seem to put weight on/grow taller in a straight line as a one off measurement it’s not that useful. I do it every few months for mine, and my dd5 has varied from 12th percentile to 75th, she seems to put weight on all at once then shoot up, and weigh the same (or less) for months.

I'm not sure I trust bmi calculators go children. I've just done it for DD who is 2 and it out her on the 0th percentile whilst she is 9th in her red book

We have a just turned 3 year old who is also 96th centile... she has been there since birth! Never wavered from the line (EBF). It feels a bit alien as DD1 (4) is 12th centile.
She eats healthily, only drinks water and is extremely active so I’m not too worried, I think it’s just her build. She is built so differently to DD1. We’ll keep an eye on it but I’m not going to panic.

What is her height and weight? Is she over weight or on the 96th centile?

Have you plotted her height against her weight? I think BMI sometimes doesn’t take height into account in children’s calculators.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Girls_0-4_years_growth_chart.pdf

If she is obsessed with food (like my 3 year old DS is) then you might have to control portions. For ages I was relying on him to self regulate, but it turns out he is programmed to eat everything he can get his hands on, and needs to be stopped from doing so.

He also needs to be reminded to drink loads of water, and he also starts thinking about food when he's not busy doing something else, so I keep him on the move a lot.

He really is a lot like me.

Can you see her ribs if she sticks out her arms? I thought that was supposed to be a better measure?

What does she drink?

I’ve a 4year old on the 3rd centile and 7 year old on the 4th they both eat really well. I think sometimes it’s just how they’re made

Sounds like you are doing all the right things. How often does she go to her grandparents? Can you get them onside with giving chopped fruit for a treat? Also, perhaps smaller portion sizes (I am obsessive about fruit and veg, but portion size is my downfall....).. Also agree with substituting the fruit you give her with cherry toms, cucumber, pepper and celery sticks.

My DD is 3 and she varies so much depending on if she's on a weight pile on or a growth spurt. She'll start looking a bit chubby then suddenly shoot up and look average again. A couple of lbs/cms at that age makes a huge difference to how they look and they don't tend to grow and put on weight at the same time.

Please don't give fruit as a treat, you're giving them an emotional attachment to food. So if she's not good she can't have fruit? She didn't deserve food for doing certain things, she deserves a week balanced diet of lots of foods

A child with a centile BMI of 96% is significantly overweight. It takes height into account and is a generally good measure of size, but of course shouldn’t be used in isolation.

Watch her portion sizes - you can eat the right sorts of food but if you eat too much of them you will become overweight.

An overweight child doesn’t need to be put on a restrictive diet, she needs to have her portions and snacks reduced as she grows in height to “match” her weight.

A 3 year old needs much smaller portions than the rest of the family - many families dish up food automatically and out of habit and overfeed their small children.

I think those of us asking height are wondering if its proper bmi or just the red book growth centiles

Its proper bmi from nhs website. Perhaps I will plot both in red book and see that. I am definitely going to check for her ribs later off the top of my head I think you can but its just a pot belly like she had since a baby. You make good points about the height/weight not being gained in a straight line. I will swap some fruit out for veg too and check portion sizes. She rarely finishes a meal I give her anyway so I could be dishing up a bit much yea. She hates milk and always did as a baby which made the first 6 months of her life very tricky. I wonder if since then she has loved food cos she was so starving for 6 months. Thank you all! I dont give any form of food as a treat she is so good that she rarely gets a proper treat. She may get a comic or something sometimes.

Out of interest how tall is she? And how heavy? I have a boy one similarly aged

Oopse. I have a bit one similarly aged. He was always higher for weight than height but has never had much extra on him - skinnyb legs and arms, knobbly knees and ribs I can see - but he's clearly "dense"

Also just looked at those charts from @thepricklysheep and she is only 25th centile for height but 75th cebtile for weight. Makes me feel a lot better and maybe she is due a growth spurt too. Someone else said to leave it a few months and redo it. Think I will make changes as suggested and do it again end of august. Thank you all for your input 😊 and your non judgement!

96cm tall and 16.2kg

I have a 3 year old whose bmi puts her at 96th centile according to nhs website

A healthy BMI at that age is the 90th centile and under. The difference between 90th and 96th centile night only be 1kg, so the good news is this should be easy to remedy.

Check her carb intake, especially white/beige carbs. Good time of year to reduce carb intake now, with it being hot. Pasta/rice/potatoes can easily be skipped completely from meals and not missed.

This thread just spurred me into measuring and weighing my 3yo (4 in Sept). She's always been on the big size, in terms of height and weight, but in proportion.

She is 108cm and 19.5kg - 76th centile