My 10yo son is overweight, he's not massive, but he is definitely carrying some extra weight. He's exercise avoidant so while we are increasing this (swimming and walking as often as possible, plus climbing and trampolining when we can afford it) I think managing his diet is going to be critical
I'll pop down what he (and his brother) generally eat, we have started making some healthier swaps already but any ideas especially for dinners would be amazing!
Breakfast is almost always cereal, he'll very occasionally eat porridge, sometime buttered toast instead.
Lunch mon-fri:
Pasta with homemade 5 veg sauce (last term was a bread and butter sandwich, he won't eat fillings except peanut butter which he's not allowed in school)
Grapes
Carrot sticks (eldest), blueberries & strawberries (youngest)
Small bag fridge raiders (eldest), small sausage roll (youngest) (previously a small Aldi pepperoni stick)
Aldi frube
Small chocolate bar
Lunch weekends:
Spaghetti/beans on toast or
Peanut butter sandwich with extras like what they have at school
Youngest will sometimes have egg and soldiers
Dinners:
- Spaghetti and meatballs (currently jar sauce, but swapping to homemade)
- Frozen pizza (pepperoni) and fresh (not homemade) garlic bread
- roast chicken dinner, roasties and Yorkshires homemade with at least 2 veg (usually 3)
- quiche, waffles/wedges/chips and veg/beans/Spaghetti hoops
- chicken/turkey shapes, waffles/wedges/chips and veg/beans/Spaghetti hoops
- burgers (fresh) with lettuce, waffles/wedges/chips and veg/beans/Spaghetti hoops
- fish (fingers or frozen battered fillet) waffles/wedges/chips and veg/beans/Spaghetti hoops
Snacks:
Mini muffins, crisps, apples, bananas (youngest also sometimes has mixed fruit pouches, the ones for weaning), biscuits, bread sticks (won't eat hummus/dips).
They eat an ok selection of veg (I think), carrots, peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, green beans, cabbage. The sauce on their lunch pasta has carrots, courgettes, celery, onion and red pepper in. We try to give fruit/veg with almost every lunch and dinner
Neither are big fans of potatoes in less processed forms, they nibble the roasties under duress, won't touch mash. Would an air fryer be a game changer here? Are homemade air fryer chips much healthier than oven chips or waffles? Same for chicken nuggets etc, is the same thing but homemade much healthier or is it negligible?
Eldest won't eat fruit yoghurt or Greek yoghurt, will only eat smooth toffee (which our Aldi seem to have stopped selling) or the crunch corner ones (which are expensive for yoghurts and don't seem healthy anyway)
Neither are big fans of rice, or ground beef, or unprocessed chicken (eldest is just starting to eat roast chicken the last couple of weeks), eldest won't eat sausages.
Drinks wise they drink water at school (and home), they also have carbonated flavoured water, squash, milk, orange/apple juice if we have it (I usually only buy one carton a week) and they get about 1 small cup of coke each a week (when OH has a bottle)
Portion wise he eats more than me, but he's hungry! He can have a full plate then start eyeing up his brothers 🤦
So, that's about as much info as I can think of, any help would be amazing! I grew up on reformed frozen chicken, frozen potato products and veg/tins and I'm not a foodie, unless it's sweet I'm only eating it because I have to to survive. My partner is a good cook but is rather limited by our fussiness!