Healthy Meals for a 5 Year Old

Angel1978_2

Hi all

I need a little help, hope it's ok to post this here.

Basically I've just received a letter from the Health Authority that my daughter is grossly overweight. She is actually 5lbs above the top tier of what they consider her weight 'should' be and therefore we feel we need to start her eating a bit healthier. I've made a start with cutting out the drive to school to us walking. It's not far and something i've allowed to become a habit after a wet day got us in the car in the first place.

We're looking at activities for her but we're a little concerned with meals. I work all day 9-5 (homeworker) and I simply don't have a lot of time to cook. So i'm looking for quick, easy and healthy meals for my 5 year old.

Currently she has a packed lunch every day to take into school containing:

4xcrackers
1x cheese string
some ham
some tomatoes/cucumber
1x yoghurt tube
1x banana
and a juice drink

Is this ok?

Then i'm needing to look for some easy to make quick meals for the night time. Any suggestions? She'll not eat bread. She loves baked beans, most meats, fish. She'll not touch potatoes and hates gravy.

Help!

Shelley84

Hi, For dinners could you maybe make a bulk load of one or two meals on a sat or sunday and freeze them ready for the week day dinners?

My 4yo loves spag bol, sausage or chicken casserole, chinese chicken. When I make them I try to make double the amount I need so I can freeze some for days when I can't cook. I cheat sometimes and buy the 98p jar sauce from asda. At the moment we are having sweet and sour pork courtesy of an asda sauce!!

What about raisins as a snack? I give my DS bananas, Organix Cereal bars and Organix corn snacks, yoghurts as snacks. I can't get him to eat any fruit or veg other than carrotts and bananas!

That probably doesnt help! I'll be watching this thread as I'd like ideas for my son too :-)

Fen1

What do you eat?

How healthy is your diet? A child of five can easily cope with an adult's (healthy) food, but with smaller portions and less salt.

What you need to ask yourself is: would I put cheese strings and yoghurt tubes in my packed lunch?
If you would, then you should really look at your diet, as well as your child's. Highly processed products like cheese strings are no good for anybody.

Try talking to your local GP surgery for food advice for yourself and your daughter. They will put you in touch with a suitable advisor who can help you plan meals, and how to 'break in' new foods and flavours.

Angel1978_2

Shelley84 wrote: »

Hi, For dinners could you maybe make a bulk load of one or two meals on a sat or sunday and freeze them ready for the week day dinners?

My 4yo loves spag bol, sausage or chicken casserole, chinese chicken. When I make them I try to make double the amount I need so I can freeze some for days when I can't cook. I cheat sometimes and buy the 98p jar sauce from asda. At the moment we are having sweet and sour pork courtesy of an asda sauce!!

What about raisins as a snack? I give my DS bananas, Organix Cereal bars and Organix corn snacks, yoghurts as snacks. I can't get him to eat any fruit or veg other than carrotts and bananas!

That probably doesnt help! I'll be watching this thread as I'd like ideas for my son too :-)

Hi Shelly

Many thanks for replying. I'd certainly be happy to bulk freeze some things at the weekend. I was told things like Spag bol are high in fat though??? Chicken casserole might be alright tho!!! It's all so confusing.

She likes her raisins but unfortunately her body doesn't. She spends hours on the loo when she eats them! Fortunately she loves lots of types of fruit and I plan to stock up on them so she has them as snacks.

She'll happily snack on cucumber and carrot sticks too. She's quite a good eater. Just certain things she absolutely will not touch like potatoes and bread which makes a meal complicated.

She'll eat beans and sausages every day of the week if I let her! :rotfl:

Sarahlou_2

Hi Angel

My little boy is also five, maybe I can give you some ideas of what he eats etc......

Breakfast : small bowl of cereal (i try to avoid sugary ones, and do not add any sugar), fruit
Lunch: Sandwich, yoghurt, fruit and a drink
Snack: fruit - bag of crisps once a week
Tea : normally what we have, try to do small piece of meat, small portion of some type of carb, veg. Although tonight he has just had a chicken wrap as he is under the weather.

It's rare I make him a seperate meal, I work part time and it's just easier to all eat the same meal.

Well done on the walking though, it definately helps. We walk everywhere as I cant drive lol. He plays football for a team once a week.

Will she eat pasta or rice? Or how about a salad with cheese or ham? I'm sure others will be able to suggest more.

Sarah

Angel1978_2

Fen1 wrote: »

What do you eat?

How healthy is your diet? A child of five can easily cope with an adult's (healthy) food, but with smaller portions and less salt.

What you need to ask yourself is: would I put cheese strings and yoghurt tubes in my packed lunch?
If you would, then you should really look at your diet, as well as your child's. Highly processed products like cheese strings are no good for anybody.

Try talking to your local GP surgery for food advice for yourself and your daughter. They will put you in touch with a suitable advisor who can help you plan meals, and how to 'break in' new foods and flavours.

Hi Fen

Thank you for replying. I have to admit, my diet is atrocious. I skip meals and rarely eat healthily. I do make time to cook the children their dinners but unfortunately I haven't gone the right way about it. Hence why I am here.

I am awaiting a meeting with my health advisor but wanted to get cracking on ideas in the interim. And possibly we can all become a healthier family because of it.

pukkamum

I find that most meals can be healthy with justr a little though going into them.
Here is an example of my kids(8&4) meals

Roast dinner with chicken (mine have the usual roast and mashed pots with this as well as veg, however, if she doesn't like pots how about carrot and swede mash or something similar)
Cauliflower cheese.
Pasta with pesto and broccoli.
Chicken casserole with rice.
pilaf (rice dish with chopped toms veg etc, i serve this with potato cakes i know she doesn't like pots but would she eat them disguised?)

JBD

Her diet actually looks fine to me [apart from the cheese strings], perhaps you need to look at portion size and increase her exercise a little. Remember she probably doesn't need to actually lose weight but just to remain stable for now so that she grows into it.

pukkamum

You say she likes sausages and beans well how about turning that into a sausage cassserole add loads of veg half a can of beans tin of toms, that way you can lower the amount of sausages needed.
Serve with rice.
Pasta salad with tuna etc.

Angel1978_2

Sarahlou wrote: »

Hi Angel

My little boy is also five, maybe I can give you some ideas of what he eats etc......

Breakfast : small bowl of cereal (i try to avoid sugary ones, and do not add any sugar), fruit
Lunch: Sandwich, yoghurt, fruit and a drink
Snack: fruit - bag of crisps once a week
Tea : normally what we have, try to do small piece of meat, small portion of some type of carb, veg. Although tonight he has just had a chicken wrap as he is under the weather.

It's rare I make him a seperate meal, I work part time and it's just easier to all eat the same meal.

Well done on the walking though, it definately helps. We walk everywhere as I cant drive lol. He plays football for a team once a week.

Will she eat pasta or rice? Or how about a salad with cheese or ham? I'm sure others will be able to suggest more.

Sarah

Hi Sarah

Thank you for replying hun. She'll have rice krispies for breakfast (but she has now requested bran flakes!) :j so i'll get her some of them tomorrow when I go shopping.

She'll not eat bread at all hence the cracker lunch. Although I didn't think cheese strings were that bad for her i'll now have to have a rethink about what I can use as an alternative.

Dinners - tonight for example she's got lasagne and sweetcorn (she'll eat sweetcorn with anything!). She also has an apple for her pudding.

Like I say, she eats a lot of fruit. No more than 5 a day granted but it's there if she says she is hungry.

I also have an issue that i'm going to have to address with my mother who has them every Friday night and Saturday morning for me and spoils them absolutely rotten. They do over feed her and i'm going to have to put my foot down on this one. Not looking forward to that conversation!

But yes, the walk round to the school today whilst crisp out gave me a bit of fresh air too. So maybe that's a good thing for both of us

izzybusy23

Angel1978 wrote: »

Hi all

I need a little help, hope it's ok to post this here.

Basically I've just received a letter from the Health Authority that my daughter is grossly overweight. She is actually 5lbs above the top tier of what they consider her weight 'should' be and therefore we feel we need to start her eating a bit healthier. I've made a start with cutting out the drive to school to us walking. It's not far and something i've allowed to become a habit after a wet day got us in the car in the first place.

We're looking at activities for her but we're a little concerned with meals. I work all day 9-5 (homeworker) and I simply don't have a lot of time to cook. So i'm looking for quick, easy and healthy meals for my 5 year old.

Currently she has a packed lunch every day to take into school containing:

4xcrackers
1x cheese string
some ham
some tomatoes/cucumber
1x yoghurt tube
1x banana
and a juice drink

Is this ok?

Then i'm needing to look for some easy to make quick meals for the night time. Any suggestions? She'll not eat bread. She loves baked beans, most meats, fish. She'll not touch potatoes and hates gravy.

Help!

I have a 5 year old DD; my problem is that she is mega tall for her age and quite skinny!

My DD has for her packed lunch:-

Ham on wholemeal roll (not processed ham or with any added water)
Cheese String
Frube
Carrot sticks or red grapes
Crisps such as quavers, wotsits etc, not the really bad ones
Piece of fruit for mid morning snack

I try to get my DD to eat healthy with a couple of cooked dinners in the week containing peas, carrots, broccoli etc; which she does eat after some moaning. She would live on pasta if I let her! Does your DD like rice; if so do a vegetable / sausange casserole and serve with rice instead of potatoes. My DD isn't a great fan on potatoes and hates chips, so I tend to give her pasta to bulk out her food. I think its quite difficult to get a child to eat healthy; they just always seem to want something quick and get on with their day!

Good luck

Just edited to ask; why are cheesestrings felt as such a problem? I hear it all the time. They are no worse than putting full fat cheese in a sandwich; its a source of calcium. And frubes are petit filous in a tube; again calcium so nothing wrong with those but I also hear frubes being bashed a lot too.