Healthy Meals for a 5 Year Old

Angel1978_2

delain wrote: »

Hmmm. Cheese strings, yes that I understand. Frubes are just yogurt so I honestly don't see the issue there! Plus they are so small it's actually a good portion size for a child as it's easy to bung huge yougurts in without thinking about it!

My DD1 (7) takes salads in, chopped cucumber, chunks of cheese, ham, tomatoes, and another container with grapes and strawberries and maybe a bread roll. She is underweight though despite eating like a horse.

She does love her salad stuff so maybe I can increase this in her lunchbox too. She loves pepper - not cooked but raw so I can add this.

I wonder if she'll eat the cracker bread. The ryvita kind. This may be better than the jacob's crackers i'm sending her with no?

gingin wrote: »

Well done for getting on top of this

My parents are the same, they overfeed the kids when they have them. They took them away on holiday last year and we could definitely see that ds had put on a few pounds.

We don't eat sausages, I find them far too fatty ( yes, even the posh ones) so we just cut them out.

Non potato meals mine like are

Stir fry add loads of veggies, beansprouts and grated carrot to the noodles and they really don't know they are there. I make my own stir fry sauce of soy sauce, honey, ginger, garlic and chilli ( all lazy stuff in a jar) and it's cheaper and healthier than the bought stuff.

Tuna pasta bake, I add a tomato layer as my dd loves tomato sauce.

Pesto pasta

Fish of any kind. Salmon topped with pesto is a favourite

Stews

Spaghetti bolognese ( I use less than 10% fat mince and make sauce from scratch)

Any kind of soup - lentil and tomato or lentil and bacon are favourites, as is butternut squash. DD takes this to school for lunch, with bread and fruit - that's all she has and loves it.


Got to get dinner now ( spaghetti bolognese) but will come back in a bit and add some more.

Wow! Lots of things there for me to have a look at. I've not tried her with salmon yet. I do think she'd like it! Thank you!

She's not a fan of soup though unfortunately and wouldn't eat any bread to go with it. Would be fantastic if I could find one she liked though. I do believe she likes Irish Stew though. Perhaps I can cook a low fat version of that. Hmmm.

pelirocco

Does she snack in between? what does she drink? ( especially when at grandparents ) growing children do need a fair amount of food , its more likely to be the processed foods rather then the ''normal'' stuff thats causing a problem . making too much of an issue over food and diet at 5 years old could , I imagine , cause a future of food '' issues'

patchwork_cat

Don't get hung up on low fat - people, particularly children need some fat (think olive oil not lard etc.). The NHS Live well website has some info as does http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/. I would avocate good home cooked food and trying to wean her off her likes and dislikes. If she is not eating complex carbohydrates then she may well be hungry and filling up on more calorie dense foods.

She may well grow into her height as children do tend to pile on teh weight and then grow. However keep on an eye on it, but don't go overboard. If there is one piece of advice I will give it is do not make her finish her plate, if she is full.- it is an easy trap to fall in!

Yes as Peilrocco says what does she drink?

Angel1978_2

delain wrote: »

No that's a good thing

Switch from full fat to semi skimmed milk if you haven't already.

Well done, by the way for getting the ball rolling even before you've seen anyone!

Phew! Good! I really should have looked into this earlier tbh. I knew she was a bit chunky but considered it a healthy robust kind of chunky rather than a health issue chunky.

Now I know I need to make the changes for her future health the ball is definitely rolling.

We've always had semi skimmed milk. I only ever have it in coffee and the hubby doesn't mind which milk we have so i've always bought semi skimmed.

And thank you for the PMA. I honestly felt like a complete failure when I got the letter. Not ashamed to admit I shed a few tears. But i'm never down for long and now i'm looking at planning ahead to do right by her.

Wilma33

Angel1978 wrote: »

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

Does she have this every day? The key is moderation.

Personally I'd only let my child have processed ham or cheese once or twice a week. What sort of juice drink does she have?

I think you need to come up with new ideas so she has a varitey of things. Salads, pasta salads, pittas, different fruit and veg, tuna, chicken, etc.

Angel1978_2

pelirocco wrote: »

Does she snack in between? what does she drink? ( especially when at grandparents ) growing children do need a fair amount of food , its more likely to be the processed foods rather then the ''normal'' stuff thats causing a problem . making too much of an issue over food and diet at 5 years old could , I imagine , cause a future of food '' issues'

She is a snacker. And I must admit I allow her a bag of crisps here and there. Not every day but every few days. We have decided we are no longer buying crisps, biscuits or sweets throughout the week. She can have a treat at the weekend but we need to cut down the 'extras' that aren't needed and are doing harm.

Well... this is the thing. Here she has a bottle that we fill up with water every day for her. And she's happy with it. At my mothers... it's fizzy pop. Not even the diet kind either. And i've told them until i'm blue in the face to stop it but her reply is 'she's only here once a week and we want to spoil them'. I do have to put my foot down now though. Hence the not looking forward to the conversation

I've addressed the healthy eating plan with her as a 'family thing'. I've said to her today that mummy needs to get more healthy and said we'd be having more fruit and vegetables and less crisps and biscuits. She asked if she could have cherries and I said of course.

She was actually quite chuffed she'd be getting more fruit! :rotfl:

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Don't get hung up on low fat - people, particularly children need some fat (think olive oil not lard etc.). The NHS Live well website has some info as does http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/. I would avocate good home cooked food and trying to wean her off her likes and dislikes. If she is not eating complex carbohydrates then she may well be hungry and filling up on more calorie dense foods.

Thank you for that link! I'm going to go and have a look at that now.

I need to look into carbohydrates and see if I can find some recipies that she might like in that region. As I don't think she has much at all.

Angel1978_2

Wilma33 wrote: »

Does she have this every day? The key is moderation.

Personally I'd only let my child have processed ham or cheese once or twice a week. What sort of juice drink does she have?

I think you need to come up with new ideas so she has a varitey of things. Salads, pasta salads, pittas, different fruit and veg, tuna, chicken, etc.

Yes she does have this every day. She wouldn't eat school meals and won't eat bread so it's been difficult. Maybe I could shake it up with salad. She might like the pitta bread too! Never thought of that! I know she likes my chappati's when I have an Indian so might like pitta!

Just a normal juice cup drink. It started off with her having Ribena but then she saw these little juice cup drinks and decided she wanted that instead. It says no sugar added on it so thought it might be ok.

Thank you

poppy-glos

hi

my dd takes to school,
some carbs - a cheese or tuna sandwich, cous cous with veg, pasta tuna salad, rice salad.
fruit - an orange cut into six, a banana, some tinned fruit set into sugar free jelly, or if i've run out of all of the above some sultanas and dried apricot.
two tesco value fromage frais (if i've run out a frube from the stash in the freezer for when i have nothing else)
and one other thing, sometimes fruitbread, sometimes carrot cake, sometimes flapjack.

i had the opposite for a while with dd, she was on the 0.05 centile so we had a dietitian to fatten her up (adding oil and extra formula to everything), but there came a point where she said, at about 4 years , now was the time to set the pattern of a balanced diet rather than try to get the calories in (cos i was so desparate to feed her i fed her what she would eat!). So balance of carbs, protein and the five a day of fruit and veg now rule..

ideas for food;

how about boiled rice, with some peas and sweetcorn mixed in, mixed with a chopped up one egg omlette (a healthy version of egg fried rice),

or

homemade curry with rice, the website for 'cook yourself slim' has a few low cal curry recipes, or tesco do the healthy eating range of jars - i do them sometimes with chicken and mushroom. The other thing about this site is it is a good way to get ideas for tasty foods that are low in fat that are also appealing...

the other idea is the website, can't remember the name but someone else will remind me i'm sure, of the gov't current campaign to get active and eat well. I went on the website and filled in some questions and they emailed me a plan of what we could do to increase our excercise and improve our diet.

good luck, i too will be reading along to get some ideas

Angel1978_2

poppy-glos wrote: »

hi

my dd takes to school,
some carbs - a cheese or tuna sandwich, cous cous with veg, pasta tuna salad, rice salad.
fruit - an orange cut into six, a banana, some tinned fruit set into sugar free jelly, or if i've run out of all of the above some sultanas and dried apricot.
two tesco value fromage frais (if i've run out a frube from the stash in the freezer for when i have nothing else)
and one other thing, sometimes fruitbread, sometimes carrot cake, sometimes flapjack.

i had the opposite for a while with dd, she was on the 0.05 centile so we had a dietitian to fatten her up (adding oil and extra formula to everything), but there came a point where she said, at about 4 years , now was the time to set the pattern of a balanced diet rather than try to get the calories in (cos i was so desparate to feed her i fed her what she would eat!). So balance of carbs, protein and the five a day of fruit and veg now rule..

ideas for food;

how about boiled rice, with some peas and sweetcorn mixed in, mixed with a chopped up one egg omlette (a healthy version of egg fried rice),

or

homemade curry with rice, the website for 'cook yourself slim' has a few low cal curry recipes, or tesco do the healthy eating range of jars - i do them sometimes with chicken and mushroom. The other thing about this site is it is a good way to get ideas for tasty foods that are low in fat that are also appealing...

the other idea is the website, can't remember the name but someone else will remind me i'm sure, of the gov't current campaign to get active and eat well. I went on the website and filled in some questions and they emailed me a plan of what we could do to increase our excercise and improve our diet.

good luck, i too will be reading along to get some ideas

Hi, thank you for taking the time to reply to me.

You have put some wonderful ideas in there! She does love chicken curry so i'm going to go and have a look at that. Not sure about egg fried rice but considering the lack of carbs in her diet i'm willing to certainly give it a shot.

Just looked at that web link posted earlier and there are some fantastic lunch box ideas on it.

You guys on here are brilliant. Thank you!

poppy-glos

sorry to be back again, sign off then have another idea!

when i did weight watchers, what they were saying about was good planning, of having available the good foods rather than going looking for the not so healthy ones.
especially with working too, planning can really help in having healthy foods available.

hope that makes sense x