Very overweight 4 year old

[DumbleDork]

Hi all.
I realise I may have in the wrong place but I’m desperate for some help.

My DD is 4 (just turned 4 in September) and is massively overweight. Her BMI puts her on the 99th centile. She’s 108cm and a whopping 24kg. At birth she was a fairly teeny 6lb 7oz.

The HVs get on at me about this a lot and she’s now age 5-6 clothes as she’s so podgy.

Obviously I don’t want to give her a complex and make her worry about weight at such a young age but something has to be done. I was advised to keep her weight the same as she grows so she finally catches up with her weight (if that makes sense). But her weight keeps going up and up and with her starting primary school in just under a year I want to get her to a healthy weight. Not just for health, though obviously this is priority, but so she’s not bullied for her weight and so she can do stuff as easily as the other kids.

Any ideas on how to go about this delicate subject?

Thanks all

The thing is being hungry is not a bad thing. As long as she isn’t faint with hunger and has eaten you can ignore that.
You simply cannot lose weight if you respond to slight hunger pangs immediately with snacks. It will be tricky at first but she will get used to it.

I’m begining to feel like a crap mum about this to be honest. She’s so little still and weighs so much. I’ve obviously gone drastically wrong somewhere. I don’t understand though as my 10 year old is totally different and only just in the healthy weight range and if he weighed much less he’d be underweight

I am also amazed by that link showing portion size, and very grateful to the poster who linked it. My DD is 2 and I am serving her waaaaaay too much.

OP I would do what someone else suggested and gradually cut the portion size down, tablespoon by tablespoon.

Oh Dumble, you are not a crap mum, otherwise you wouldn't be looking at how to fix it. Also I bet many parents are serving portions waaay too large (I know I am) the only reason my children aren't overweight (yet) is because they won't eat it.

My son is nearly 2 and we'll past any centile for his age. He's about to go into 3/4 clothes and weighs nearly 3 stone. He's not "fat though " don't take any notice of centiles. Please don't cut out any food she needs until you have spoken to a Dr and confirmed this is the best way forward

I was advised that a stomach is the size of your palm think of this with portion size. It's really hard but when mine were this age they had never had pop takeaways and only crisps/sweets on holidays

If she’s eating double that then yes it would be a massive shock to reduce it to what I suggested. But if you reduce the carb portion slowly to a normal one and continue to let her have a big protein and veg portion then she would unlikely be overeating too much. The fact that she’s overweight and still gaining means she’s consuming more calories than she needs (more than likely in huge portion sizes).

My eldest who is a similar age to yours will eat much more than a just turned four year old as they are double the size and burning much more energy.

I think it's a shock to see how little a toddler should eat, partly because our own idea of portion sizes are skewed and partly because we have an innate instinct to feed.

Any op you're addressing it now so you are not a crap mom. Good luck

Aside from portion control, I'd definitely look at exercise too, my 4 yo son does an hour dancing and a swimming class per week on top of walking to/from school and playground exercise each day.

Choose an activity or two that is fun, girls that age would love dancing/gymnastics/trampolining.

Build in outdoor trips at a weekend, long walk at a National Trust place or park. Does she have a bike/scooter to ride?

Also don’t be hard on yourself! We are so used to seeing massive portion sizes, that it has become the norm. I’m overweight myself and am guilty of this! When I eat round friends houses who are slim I’m often surprised at the tiny portions I’m served! Except they’re not tiny, they’re a normal portion which I’m not used to.

conseula can I ask why you're not concerned that your child is obese?

Stop buying/offering all crisps, sweets, squash, highly processed foods, etc. Go for wholemeal carb options instead of refined white ones for your pasta, rice, bread. Don't give things like raisins or lots of dried fruit as snacks.

And yes of course you can self refer to a dietitian, same with Slimming World, you can just start it yourself rather than waiting. But at the same time Slimming World isn't the greatest if you want to know about the best food choices for you and your family but it could be a start to weight loss.

You aren’t a crap mum! If you were you wouldn’t be trying to change this.
It is very very easy to overeat.
Just take your time sorting it out. It may be that your 10 year old made you worry more about portions for the little one.

Is it a case of feed her that and then just offer fruit and veg snacks if she’s still hungry (which knowing my girly she will be crying telling me she’s “so hungry”)

No. Feed her that then tell her no more till next meal. Tell her that 'wanting food' isn't the same as being truly 'hungry.'

She's overweight because she is given far too much food. That's it.

You MUST act now or you are setting her up for a lifetime of obesity.

Consuela that's dreadful. Why are you not concerned!?

You could walk to school and your daughter could scoot? That would do you all good. A mile each way is not far but you could do it just once a day to begin with and then build up to both journeys there and back.

I’d say a couple of miles a day was fine for a 4 year old-maybe next year when she starts school she might be a bit tired towards the end of the week but if you do it most days this year she’ll have built up her stamina.

Swimming good too

And try to make snacks vegetables rather than fruit.

Re portion sizes-have something engaging to look forward to after dinner-game, story so that she’s distracted from asking for seconds.

Up the exercise as much as possible-even just energetic dancing for 10 minutes at a time would make a difference.

My 2 are completely different builds-one eats for England but is permanently leaping around and is string bean. The other has a small appetite but is pretty sedentary despite my best efforts and is prone to a little podge.

The number one reason any of us is overweight is portion size. The other problem is that now snacking is considered normal (my mum swears we never snacked between meals except in special circumstances). Reduce portion size particularly for starches (check online for guidance) and increase veggies if asking for more food, switch snacks to healthy ones like carrots or cucumber with a little hummus dip. Increase exercise, good for you all - if you don't have one, consider a dog, it gets you walking every day whatever the weather and a good incentive to get your daughter playing actively in the house too.

It's hard, I'm constantly trying to loose weight but one thing that's recently helped me is parkrun, she's too young for that but running together working up to 1km will get a healthy activity for you

A mile each way isn’t far for a 4yr old.

Can you walk/cycle as a family? If you are getting the magic 10,000 steps and she is with you most of the time then she will also be walking a lot. Are there any groups like gymnastics locally? Junior park run on a Sunday?

Gosh i'm also shocked about those portion sizes. I work with small ones and most of them would be seriously unimpressed with

1/4 of a banana
1/2 a piece of bread
1/2 biscuit
4-6 crisps

And none of their parent send such small quantities in their packed lunches, so you are not alone OP.

You’ve all been so lovely Thankyou.

I’m starting to keep a food diary today and I’ll track our walk to and from school today with my tracker.

We’ve started doing a beat the street thing in our area yesterday (each child in school or preschool is given a preprogrammed key fob and on various points in the area are boxes where they can tap their fob if they walk past it and it registers how much she’s walking and the winning school or preschool gets a prize) She’s excited to do this so it will encourage her to walk

For those who think my son is obese.... is assure you he is not. He's very sturdy as all drs have said. If they aren't worried why are you ?

Does he look overweight to you?

My six year old is over 4 stone and 3 and a half foot tall. Ever occur to you my children get their size from genes? My dp is 6 ft 17stone ex rugby player . They are just built well.

But thanks for the suggestion I would leave a morbidly obese child and not be bothered...

consule impossible to say from that photo but the height and weight would say he is very overweight, yes