Fatten up my kids please!

[adognamedrover]

I have 2 children age 8 and 6. Girl and a boy. Both are ridiculously skinny. Around 10th centile for weight. They never really ask for food/snacks and eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks of fruit (including cooked school dinner daily)
They are both really active. I'd say my daughter does 6 hours of exercise a week and my son 4.
What foods can I give them that will bulk them up a bit. My daughter especially looks emaciated compared to her friends. Her legs are the same size from her calves upwards, so tiny thighs and tiny arms. Just want them both to look a bit healthier!

Strangely enough my son doesn't look as skinny as my daughter but his bmi is lower?

If 6th and 9th centiles are their "just post illness" weights, I wouldn't change anything. They sound great, and will probably naturally come back up a little once well.
I suspect they do look pretty skinny compared to many of their peers - but that isnt because yours are too thin!

Ok,
I'll just keep on as we are doing. Friends find it odd that mine never ask for snacks or food. But I just don't think they're that interested in eating. They take a few bites of a meal and ask to go and play. We are really making an effort of trying to get them to eat a decent amount without insisting they clear the whole plate (as I don't believe in forcing them if they're full up)
I wish I cared as little about food as they do. I'm the opposite and eat far too much!

If they've been ill then just feed them up with normal healthy hearty food, porridge made with whole milk, egg on toast, full fat Greek yogurt, bolognese and so on.

If their height and weight percentiles are similar, you probably don't have much to worry about. www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/uk-who-growth-charts-2-18-years

Are you and DH short?

I'm 5 7 and he's 5 8. So not massively.

That’s ok size wize. I’d only worry if they fell off the percentile scale

Do they eat enough calories and a balanced diet with enough protein? A friend of DS's is very thin, very fussy about food, to the extent that I think he's malnourished. He's 14 and over a foot shorter than his contemporaries, despite his family all being quite tall.

Maybe vitamin supplements are your friend here. My appetite goes when I'm rundown. Supplementing can really help give appetite a boost, among other things.
Maybe they could do with some vitamin D gummies, Vitamin C, omega 3s, zinc... a good multi-vitamin. Mine aren't huge meat eaters either but they love a good meaty spag bol (I use wholewheat pasta just to make it more nutritious). I think it's less about fattening up and more about making each meal more nutrient-rich, if possible, especially if they're under the weather. I tend to use brown rice instead of white, make scrambled eggs on toast or porridge instead of the usual bowl of rice krispies (which is DS2's favourite every morning). I mean, I don't do this consistently. Life is busy and we love our white bread! But when I feel like we all need more of a health boost to chase off the pasty skin and undereye shadows, I start adding more 'good stuff' to our meals, more olive oil, more butter, more greens.

As long as they are eating 3 meals of an appropriate size each day you have nothing to worry about, people's idea of normal has been skewed by the fact most people are now overweight

They’re not though. OP has said they only eat a few bites of a meal. That combined with them being pale and being ill a lot could mean they’re lacking in nutrients.

I’d definitely get some vitamins for them OP for a start. They can stimulate appetite in some cases.

Had to convert weight as I don't understand old money but your 8 year old is 24 kg and your 6 year old is just under 20. My 7 year old is 20.5 and my 5 year old is about 16. Both look ideal weight for me, not under at all. And on their current trajectory I would expect them to still weigh less than your do in a year, or very near.

This. Your perception will be skewed because so many children are overweight, but their parents see them as ‘average’ or ‘solid’. 10th centile is very slim but not emaciated. You’re doing a great job, please don’t try to ‘fatten them up’.

As for this, it’s been an exceptionally bad winter for bugs and lots of parents have posted about their kids being constantly sick whether they’re slim or not. I doubt it’s to do with their weight.

Those BMI centiles put them in the healthy range so nothing to worry about. They're towards the bottom of the healthy range so worth keeping an eye on, but given they've both been unwell recently that probably explains it.

Just make sure they have a healthy balanced diet, and if they're not big meat eaters make sure you're replacing it with other protein sources. But honestly don't make the mistake of comparing them against other kids!

If they're a healthy weight (which they are) and do lots of exercise, logically they must be eating an appropriate amount?

My 9 and 6.5 year olds are 27 and 22kg respectively.

They're slim but not skinny.

Maybe give them a multivitamin if they're not super well at the moment.

Feed to appetite too. They sound fine 🫶🏼 a LOT of kids are just fat now unfortunately

DS2 (10) is similar. Feels like you could snap him like a twig! But, he is very active and eats when hungry. He can also take a few bites of something and leave the rest.

It runs in DH's family (not mine unfortunately!). Several cousins of DH's were skinny as anything as children but now as adults are slim but healthy looking.

I'm not worried. He'll bulk out in time to an appropriate size.

No idea, I don’t know them. But if they’re ill a lot and pale AND they don’t eat much, deficiencies are a possibility.

My friends daughter was ill often, looked pale, didn’t have much interest in food and she was found to be anaemic and deficient in a few vitamins too. She saw a dietician who said she wasn’t having enough protein either. She still did lots of sports/activities, seemed to have energy most of the time, her doctor only suggested doing some tests because she had had quite a few infections and looked very pale.

They've just had the usual, coughs and colds lasting months. Hand foot and mouth, tonsillitis etc.

@adognamedrover - my DS10 is similar - very skinny but with energy. He prefers eating plain boiled rice, cucumber, yellow pepper and marmite rice cakes, ice cubes and chunks of lemon... Ho hum. These are his list of favourite foods...

I'm trying finding the odd high calorie thing he suddenly likes (pancakes with sugar and lemon was the latest hit, croissant with ham and cheese melted inside, spaghetti with pork meatballs in tomato sauce, and chocolate caterpillar cake... and supplementing his five favourite (healthy but practically zero calorie) with these foods which generally wouldn't be seen as healthy choices, but do mean he's getting a dose of calories occasionally- and letting him eat small and often, rather than doing a strict meal time thing.

He has always been tricky!

Houmous is another good one for healthy but reasonably calorific in small portions. He eats it on the side with any meal...

And Yorkshire puddings!!!

Then get them outside in the fresh air, they need to be soaking up vitamin d in the sun.

I wouldn’t focus on making them bigger just on a healthy diet with calcium included- plus other important stuff

Pale is fine too

They did used to have the whole milk with added vitamins. I'll stock up on that again. Plus they'll both eat ready brek and that has added vitamins. Just bought them some liquid vitamin medicine on Amazon.