How to get my 2 year old to lose weight.

[TheBdaddy]

My little girl turned 2 on Christmas day this year, she is currently 15kg, and 86cm tall. At a recent hospital visit we were told she is overweight and we should take steps to help her lose weight, we have cut out full fat milk and gone to semi skimmed, we are giving her less food (not leaving her hungry) and cutting down her snacks and changing out chocolate for fruit etc however she is still gaining weight.

They warned us is we dont help her now it could lead to weight issues throughout child hood, what do we do? What would be a sensible days food intake for a 2 year old to help them lose weight?

It would appear the problem is your daughter is on nearly the top centile for weight and one of the lower centiles for weight. How much milk do you give? What is a typical daily diet

Stop snacking altogether - it’s a very modern invention for children.

What does she eat on a typical day? Not a good day or a bad day but generally.

What exercise does she take?

Is she active?

Did you get advice from the hospital?

She should be gaining weight as she is growing, however what you want is for her to gain more slowly so that she comes back into proportion for her height and age.

Have you not had a referral to a dietician?

Could you give an example of what she usually eats?

Be aware MN can be a bit nuts about food! But if you take the thread as a whole you may get some constructive advice from it, just try not to take every single post by the letter!

(Unrelated, but car seats are my thing - since car seats are sold by weight in this country she will likely outgrow her current seat before she's developmentally/behaviourally ready to go into a booster seat without harness. Feel free to PM me or post on the car seat section if you need help purchasing a car seat that will allow you to keep her in a harness for the right amount of time :))

As far as I know, the advice at that age generally is to focus on maintaining weight and letting their height catch up, rather than weight loss as such. Did the hospital give you any advice?

I would look at snacks and sugar content. Also is she active enough? Upping her activity in fun ways might be a good way forward.

Cut out snacking completely. You can also stop giving two course meals (ie no need for a pudding)

Loads of vegetables with main meal.

Look at drinks. No milk at night, swap milk for water during the day and if that's unlikely swap for sugar free squash. Don't give fruit juice.

Increase activity, make it fun and keep going. Kids don't tend to loose weight as constantly growing in height but as height increases weight:height ratio will get better.

You need to keep a precise food diary of exactly what you're feeding her. It's not often weight issues at that age are down to disorders, it's primarily wholly down to the crap parents feed their children.

I wouldn't stop the full fat milk just don't be giving her lots of it.

In your position I would do no junk, sweets, crisps and biscuits. Snacks wld be a piece of fruit or a yoghurt. No sugary cereal for bfast, look at labels and see what is best maybe porridge or weetabix.

I wouldn't do anything different for lunch or dinner but make sure it's not really fattening. So maybe scrambled egg and toast or a sandwich. Dinner fish gingers and chips with salad or veg another day pasta & veg, roast chicken dinner just whatever I wld usually be cooking.

Tbh this is nearly exactly what DC2 measures, I just presumed a growth spurt is due.

Hang on, 86cm is 75th centile, 15kg is 98th centile. That's hardly hugely overweight. It's near the top of where she should be, but it's not a concerning difference. Perhaps she is just tall.

Agree re keeping her on full fat milk - it's important for brain development. Swapping chocolate for fruit is likely a good move as chocolate should be an occasional treat, for her teeth more than anything. Other than that trying to keep her diet mainly "real" foods (fruit, veg, meat, dairy, bread, pasta, rice) rather than too many processed foods is a good idea. But you don't need to go insane. Fish fingers chips and beans once a week is hardly terrible parenting.

Oh wait sorry. It's not the same for over 2s as it is for younger children.

If I've read the centile chart right, ideally she should be max 91st centile for weight which is about 13.5kg at her age/height. Or to aim to maintain the 15kg until she's about 2.5 as by that point her height should have caught up.

This is the sort of typical day for my 2.5 year old and what she usually eats

Breakfast 1.5 weetabix, or raisin wheats (small bowl) with full fat milk. Small glass of full fat milk - like a shot glass amount she always asks for milk at Breakfast but then never actually drinks much of it.
Morning snack- a banana or similar
Lunch - something like a bowl of pesto pasta and veg, or scrambled egg on toast or egg and soldiers.
Afternoon snack, just after nap- satsuma or passionfruit or similar
Dinner- smaller portion of whatever we're having
Supper- about 20 minutes before bed, small bowl of porridge or a crumpet.
She drinks water throughout the day whenever she has a bottle of water for in bed.
She's also really active and always running, jumping or dancing around.
Don't know if that's helpful at all 🤷‍♀️

I would look and be honest with your own health as you health/ diet / size will have a huge bearing on how healthy you child will be.

Take steps to normalise exercise and active rest periods, then look at diet.

Our DD (8) gained quite a bit of weight over lockdown. She had quite a rounded tummy, & her legs & arms were quite chubby, & her face & chin were a lot fuller as well. It was purely comfort eating, due to my being ill, & being an only child so she was lonely - she's very sociable but has ASD, struggles with her emotions. Between August & now she's lost most of it (not quite all - we're still getting there). What we did to remedy it:

• Increase vegetables in all meals. Not just the volume, but the variety. If there is more variety of anything in a meal, a child is more likely to eat more of it. If they eat more vegetables, they'll get more fibre, which is filling for longer.
• increase healthy lean protein. Again, variety. Whatever kinds you would usually eat & can afford. Protein is necessary to feel full at mealtimes.
• Decrease sweets, crisps, general "junk food". Don't discuss it with them, just do it. DD never realised we were doing this.
• Healthy fats are also necessary for feeling full at mealtimes. Decent cheese is a good option, as are oils, nuts, seeds, hummus etc.
• Better bread is just more filling than cheap white sliced, if you can afford it. I'm sure there's science to back up why. Also, it's a lot tastier. If possible get bread that goes stale rather than mouldy.
• Exercise. This was the biggest thing, aside from restricting junk food. Get out for an hour, even two of walking, running about, or general playing outside, every day if possible, unless they're poorly.
• Don't fully restrict anything. If it's completely off limits, you make it into some kind of sacred goal. We tell DD than crisps, sweets etc "aren't proper food", & if she's hungry or wants a snack, they aren't suitable options. Fruit is the only snack here.
• Generally we only do snacks if a meal is going to be delayed or missed for some reason. Only then would we have (for example) a hot chocolate or cake from a coffee shop. Always have. Snacks after school are a no, despite a long walk home, it's over a mile up a big hill. If she's hungry, she's told she'll enjoy her dinner more. Like we were as kids.

Also, you don't need to get her to actually lose weight. Just reduce her weight gain until her height catches up with it. I believe this is generally what is recommend for children.

This is pretty much what we've done with DD - she's grown 2 inches since the end of summer, not sure if she's actually lost weight (maybe, TBH we haven't weighed her again) but the tummy has vanished, arms, legs & chin still a little bigger than before but definitely much better. And she's still got her usual big appetite, just eating lots of vegetables now, more protein, & less rubbish.

In my experience upping exercise shifts the weight at this age.
Upping their walking and increasing playtime outside made a big difference without having to restrict diet too much.

Semi or Skimmed milk. No snacks. No puddings or sweets. Plenty of protein, fruit, vegetables plus some dairy like cheese and yogurt, carbs like rice and pasta.

Ask for your health visitor for some support and dietary advice.

DS is 1 and on the 25th centile for weight and 75th for height. But the HV has said his diet is great and we don’t need to reduce calories to it as he gets older.

Breakfast
Porridge made from 1 cup of whole milk and 1/4 cup of oats and a few spoons of ground almonds. Cooked with either cinnamon or apple with raisins. He usually eats most of this.

Or
2 weetabix in a cup of whole milk with some berries.

Lunch
Usually a very small portion of whatever we’re having plus either a cup of natural yoghurt or 30g of cheese. Today he had 2 avocado finger sandwiches with natural full fat yoghurt.

Snacks
I give all snacks as part of a meal so nothing seperate. It’s usually a few raisins from a baby sized pack or half a banana or a grated apple or berries or one or two organix items.

Dinner
Tiny portion of what we have.

As I breastfeed I don’t offer him any additional milk and the HV said not to offer this when I stop either because he gets enough through his diet.

Children benefit from full fat milk, so you need to trim the calories elsewhere. Stop snacks. They're not essential. And stop any junk, rather than just decreasing it.

It's mad to stop giving a child full fat milk (which they need) but let them carry on eating some snacks (which they don't).

Snacks are such kryptonite for many reasons, they really aren't necessary and getting her out of the habit now will
Be such a gift when she's older.

I do agree with the others that she isn't massively overweight? They have made it sound like she's terribly over. My girl has been on the 91st percentile since she was born and stayed there and nobody has said a thing.