My 4yr old "overweight"

Gigglepig

Personally I do not think it is to give kids chocolate, biscuits, sweets, sugary drinks, junk food, deep fried stuff, foods with lots of added sugar every day.... and I would not recommend some of the menus posted above :-(

If you look up the nutritional content of those foods you'll see that they have lots of calories and not enough nutrients. Look for good quality not processed foods will give them what they need; quality meat, fish, and dairy, vegetables, fruit....

Also, many kids do not move enough. Does she go outside and run around play every day?

I'd also think a bit about whether the kid has good role models as far as eating and exercise habits are concerned. It may be uncomfortable but useful to ask oneself those questions. Some times there are difficult emotions involved, for example if one is brought up to show love by feeding people, or using food as rewards.

somethingsgottogive

How long ago were these height Vs weight guidelines drawn up? They could be referencing information collected decades ago to find a 'norm' and if you think about how the shape and size of adults had changed dramatically, it makes sense that children have too! If she's eating healthily, getting exercise and doesn't look, well, fat, then just stop worrying about it - and definitely DON'T say anything to her about it!

MrsBartolozzi

When you say your daughter was on the 94th centile = overweight, where is her height in the centile chart? Is it over 90 too?

A health visitor told me that my son was overweight as his weight was about the 95th centile. There was no way my skinny kid was overweight so I suggested that maybe she should measure his height too - surprise, he was 98th centile for height so technically underweight. My boys must have heavy bones or something as they are still skinny as teens but much heavier than they look.

diable

Puppy Fat.....

What activities does she do? if it's sat in front of the TV doing nothing then I'd worry if she is in the park every other day running around then I wouldn't worry.

jetta_wales

A typical day for my girls (they're 5 and nearly 7).

Breakfast - Cereal in kids bowls or a slice of toast with honey or just marge.

Packet lunch - Half a sandwich each (tuna, cheese and cucumber. Ham and lettuce etc), half a good sized raw carrot, apple or tangerine, frube yoghurt, raisins and a biscuit. Some days they'll have pasta salad instead of the sandwich and maybe no raisins and frube because the pasta's a lot.

Dinner would be a smaller portion of whatever we have usually about half to two thirds at most. Maybe spaghetti bolognese or chicken dinner, sausage casserole and veg, fish salad (one of their favourites) general good home cooked family meals with at least two types of veg.

Drinks are weak squash, milk, water or green tea.

LittleMissMPB

Is she also around the same centile on height? According to those charts my daughter is also overweight, but, she doesn't look it, and she is in 3-4yr clothing, with her 4th birthday coming up in 4months. She actually looks quite skinny so I don't believe them tbh.... a typical example of what she eats:

Breakfast : Bowl of cereal with semi skimmed milk and drink of water (cereal being something like corn flakes or weetabix)
Snack: banana, handful of blueberries or a cereal bar
Lunch: Sandwhich (1 slice of bread) with some salad bits
Dinner: whatever we eat, usually something like cottage pie, spaghetti bolognase, chicken curry, just smaller amounts
She also has a biscuit and milk drink before bed.

However my daughter is also very active, can't sit still for 10minutes, goes to tumble tots once a week, pre-school twice a week where she is always running around, and we go to the park once a week weather permitting.

I would say just make sure she has a healthy range of foods, restrict how much chocolate and sweets and even juice she drinks (water and milk are best), and encourage her to get moving (hide and seek is great) if you are worried.

mrs_marty

Hi,

Mind she will seem chunky, when she is due a growth spurt my girls do where as my son is a walking muscle.

DS is now 5 but has 1 bowl of cereal, then a piece of fruit or two; then at lunch a sandwich, soup or similar, then a hm cake or yoghurt, comes home from pre-school and has more fruit, then at dinner has a side plate portion of dinner which is full of veg, after this his treat a custard cream biscuit.

hope that helps

x

patchwork_cat

Is she on the same centile for height and weight or nearly? If she is on the 94 centile for both height and weight then she is fine. If she is on 25 th for height and 94 th for weight then she may need an eye keeping on her, but little ones often gain weight and then grow catching up with their weight.

GobbledyGook

What centile is her height? My elder daughter is on the 92nd centile for weight, but she's on the 98th for height so the weight centile doesn't mean she's overweight.


I don't give mine chocolate every day, but they have a nice things box that they can help themselves to whenever they want. They have 7 treats a week and maybe 3 or 4 are sweets or chocolate, some crisps, some carton juice. They know that when they are gone they are gone so choose when to eat them themselves. I've done that since my younger daughter was 3 and the 2 girls and I all have a box and it works amazingly well. We don't do any foodstuffs as a reward here and the reason I use for it being a treat is because it is expensive, not because it's bad or anything like that.

Portion wise I tend to do meals where we help ourselves at the table out of serving dishes as much as possible. I find my younger daughter will always want "the same" as my elder daughter despite being smaller and not needing it so helping ourselves a wee bit at a time takes that away.

Also my girls both get very chunky before taking a stretch so don't panic too quickly. Check her height centile and have a look at what she's eating compared to how active she is before you think about making drastic changes.

KiKi

Doesn't mean she is overweight as in 'fat' necessarily - but only you can really judge that, depends on her height, too.

However, I would never give a child chocolate every day. This isn't aimed at you, OP, but I am always amazed how many people think that crisps or chocolate or sweets are every day foods or snacks. They're not - they're a treat for a reason.

There was a fascinating programme on some years ago with that Super Nanny woman and she did a food special where she asked parents to gauge what was acceptable for a 7 year old (6 or 7, something like that). Most said that when talking about pizza, for example, two large slices was enough for a child. In fact, it was half of one slice, in terms of what they need to eat, from the point of view of calories, stomach size and nutrition. It's easy to feed children adult portions but they don't need it.

If she is a little overweight I would examine portion size, and I would most definitely stop giving her chocolate as an everyday food. She doesn't need to be treated every day. Her teeth must be screaming out for you to stop!

My youngest goddaughter's allowed to help herself to food whenever she likes, and she chooses crisps every single day as a snack - an adult sized packet (she's 4 years old). She is overweight, no doubt about it. She's a large build, but she's still overweight, and I cannot believe they let her eat a whole packet of hula hoops every single day, just so so bad for her, poor kid.

KiKi