daughter a bit overweight, advice please

bored and tired

hi all., my daughter is 7 and 4stone 10. i measured her at weekend, and for her height and age she should be 4 stone, so she is 10lbs over.

she does eat healthy, loves fruit and veg, and is constantly winning prizes in the food dude programme in school.

breakfast consists of 2 weetabix with warm milk, (i dont believe in low fat milk)
lunch is 1 slice of bread sandwich with ham filling, banana, plus variety of fruit and veg, (apple plum nectarine grapes sweetcorn broccili cauliflower or carrots) and water,

dinner is meat 2 veg and 2 spuds, rice or pasta. snacks are glass of milk and yougurt. sunday is treat day and she gets icecream.

she is quite lazy, and has to be pushed to exercise and i know that is her downfall, plus she gets tired easily when she is runnig around. i find it hard to exercise due to back problems. my partner works long hours so is only home for a bit before she goes to bed,

she goes irish dancing and hurling one night a week. cycles her bike, plays on the swings a bit, but as an only child with no neighbours she tends to sit in front of the telly, and no amount of encouragement will shift her. if you turn the telly off she sits there reading, doing a jig saw, or colouring. i get her to do my exercises with me, but they last only about 10 mins and they arent very energetic which isnt enough for a little girl. however even before crash she was always pudgy and cute and preferred the sedentary life.

before my accident i was always on the go, i played basketball, football, ran cross country and hill walked as a teenager. later I kept up a healthy level of exercise between work and taking care of babs. tried to get in 2 mile walk, swam 3 times a week etc. but i am struggling now to do any exertion.

anyway my problem is when a child prefers reading and colouring and the goggle box to playing how do i swing it around to encourage a more active lifestyle.

all advise appreciated. j

oh well

firstly I wouldn't worry about it too much and definitely don't give her the impression that its a issue. Remember her diet seems quite good and cycling/playing hurlingdancing are all positive things and great for exercise. Also, she might just be due a growth spurt which will stretch her out and even out the height/weight ratio. does she drink plenty of water - some people with just a little weight extra could have a fluid retention problem. Mine take bottle water to school every day and have a glass first thing in the morning and another before bedtime.

Maybe if could afford it or have space, have your tried a trampoline or climbing frame in the garden. Even an indoor trampoline or maybe a dance mat. Most kids love these.

Whatever you do though, try not to make it an issue which she will become aware of.

Best of luck

dewsbury

bored and tired wrote: »

she is quite lazy, and has to be pushed to exercise and i know that is her downfall j

......lazy?.....pushed???....downfall?.....

your post sounds a bit negative.
Her happiness & self confidence will come from positivity.

Self confidence & happiness makes for a beautiful girl regardless if she does not conform to the highly questionable size 10 ideal.

Encourage her sports & wellbeing and watch her blossoming!

(lose your weighing scales!)

SarahMc

Her diet sounds good, but irish dancing and hurling once a week won't cut it for a 7 year old.

I know it is hard for an only child, but lose the DS and telly, encourage cousins and playdates over and shove them out the back door with a sliother and hurl. Get a trampoline. Walk to and from school.

"i get her to do my exercises with me, but they last only about 10 mins and they arent very energetic which isnt enough for a little girl. " these are of no use to her, you exercises are for building muscle, she needs to be burning energy and having fun.

deisemum

bored and tired wrote: »

hi all., my daughter is 7 and 4stone 10. i measured her at weekend, and for her height and age she should be 4 stone, so she is 10lbs over

I'm curious as to where you came up with the 4 stone. Have you checked weight and height on the centile charts? Weight is usually within a range and not a specific figure.

Does she look overweight?

bored and tired

[QUOTE=dewsbury;55293582
Self confidence & happiness makes for a beautiful girl regardless if she does not conform to the highly questionable size 10 ideal.

(lose your weighing scales!)[/QUOTE]

thanks for all comments, unfortunately cant walk to school as too far and she gets bus too and from our door,

dewsbury there are heart problems and diabetes on both sides so i worry about all our health. My partner lost his father at 55 to massive heart attack over a year ago, no warning or anything just gone. Maybe i worry a bit too much that 10lbs at 7 turns into 20 or 30lbs when shes in her 20's and 40 or 50lbs when shes 55, but i dont think there is anything wrong in wanting and encouraging my daughter to be healty and active.

i dont own a scales believe it or not, trusting myself on if last years jeans still fit.

i weighed her at my parents as i wanted to check out her weight height ratio as it is her birthday in few weeks. i have encylopedia with weight height chart. she was bang in the middle of the height chart, she should weigh 55lbs for her height, 66lbs or 4 10 was the weight for her growth curve at 9-10years of age, which frightened me into posting here.

i will try getting her to drink more water, breakfast and while doing homework seem the easiest to introduce into routine,

she loves hurling and dancing, but does find it hard to keep up with other kids, but she does look a bit overweight and there are some nasty little begers who i know have siad it to her in school when they were playing chase,

she doesnt know it yet but she is getting new scooter for bday, i will look into getting small trampoline as well.

overall she is very bright and happy, with a wicked sense of humour, i just worry about the future and want to encourage the healthy 30mins to an hour of exercise a day that she should be getting from just being a child playing, and any advice on how to get a child to play is welcome.

muckety

In my experience it is harder to encourage girls to play sports - and gets even harder when they become teenagers, so you are right to be trying.

My daughters (7 and 10) don't like any ball sports, the trampoline was great fun for about 5 minutes and they soon tire of each thing we take up. Their diet is good (though with more sweets than yours!) and neither is overweight but I am concerned about their fitness levels.

What I do is to bring them to a variety of activities - so last year they played Tennis during the spring and summer, and will do again this year. We cycle locally and walk the dogs in the park at weekends. We've joined athletics (neither liked it), football (would not play but were happy to go and chat), irish dancing (1 likes it the other didn't) etc.

We will keep trying new things in the hope that they will take up something they like!

deisemum

Do you know if she's like hip hop or something like that? I've got boys and they love sport but my friends that have girls say they like hip hop.

There are summer camps that also run a camp over the easter holidays. Some of these camps offer a variety of activities (30+) and it's a great way to try out new activities.

Susannahmia

Sounds like me when I was that age. The only thing that got me moving was playing with more active and motivated friends. The minute they weren’t there however I would be back to my old lazy self. It's hard to play activly outside when there is nobody to play with. My only active alone activity was playing tennis against a wall. And playing on a mega bounce.

I know that you have stated that you don’t believe in low fat milk but when I was that age my Mother switched to super milk and I lost a load of weight. You would be surprised with how such a small change can make such a big difference.

TequilaMockingBird

+1 for the Hip Hop dancing. My dd is the same, but she loves all dancing, which helps.

ntlbell

As someone has all ready mentioned you seem very negative and seem to look for ways to not do instead of the way to do.

What do you not "believe in" about low fat/slim line milk?

It sounds a bit like something you might hear on the afternoon show.

As mentioned they're tons of classes she can do

tap dancing hip hop this also gets her meeting new people and extending her "social network"

There is no harm in taken her to park for walks in the evening times for another 30/45 minutes especially if you have a dog, everyone you included will benefit

Try and be a bit more positive in your forward thinking as this will also rub off on your child and help her become a confident bright young girl

Loopy

Is she bothered about it at all?? If it got out of control and she started to put on more weight I would be more concerned, but it dosen't sound that serious at the mo.

The low fat milk can make a big difference, full fat is absolutely loaded.. Her diet sounds very good though.. compared to other kids who survive on nuggets etc..

Khannie

bored and tired wrote: »

(i dont believe in low fat milk)

If your child is overweight it's because they're taking in more calories than they're expending. You've two ways to combat that: increase calorie expenditure, or reduce calorie intake (or a combination of both). A really easy way to reduce calorie intake that is to switch to low fat milk.

bored and tired wrote: »

lunch is 1 slice of bread sandwich with ham filling, banana, plus variety of fruit and veg, (apple plum nectarine grapes sweetcorn broccili cauliflower or carrots) and water,

dinner is meat 2 veg and 2 spuds, rice or pasta. snacks are glass of milk and yougurt. sunday is treat day and she gets icecream.

Sounds good to me really.

bored and tired wrote: »

she is quite lazy, and has to be pushed to exercise and i know that is her downfall, plus she gets tired easily when she is runnig around.

The tiring easily is from either lack of fitness or poor diet (high sugar levels) or both. Increased exercise will definitely help improve the amount of time she can run around for. It's a bit of a vicious circle at the start, but it can be overcome.

bored and tired wrote: »

no amount of encouragement will shift her.

Our youngfella is very active, but when he's spending too long in front of the TV (god knows....they all do), it's not encouragement that we use, it's "It's time to go out now". You give an option to sit in the house and it'll be taken.

Shove her out the door.

Khannie

bored and tired wrote: »

thanks for all comments, unfortunately cant walk to school as too far and she gets bus too and from our door,

Is cycling an option? I cycled with the youngfella to school for ages (we now live closer to the school so he walks). Good exercise for everyone and wont put any pressure on your back if you take it nice and handy.

bored and tired wrote: »

overall she is very bright and happy, with a wicked sense of humour, i just worry about the future and want to encourage the healthy 30mins to an hour of exercise a day that she should be getting from just being a child playing, and any advice on how to get a child to play is welcome.

Just wanted to commend your attitude btw. Really healthy outlook. Keep it up and good luck!

bored and tired

khannie cycling isnt an option as we live in back end of now where, plus nowwhere is half way up a mountain on other side of a valley, so she would either kill herself going down hill, crash into the bridge or pass out going back up, with me not far behind. however weekend cycling trips could be the answer, and she might learn how to use breaks instead of her shoes to stop!

i am going to keep trying introducing new activities, there isnt really that much around here and karate which she is mad to do is for over 10s for some insurance reason??. any way we will be having more play dates when weather gets better and she is going to cul camp and soccer this summer, so thats two weeks sorted.

She is conscious of it, she loves her fashion and we cant get boots to fit as they dont make the legs big enough which she gets upset over and skirts fall under her belly which she then tries to suck in. i deliberately pick items off the shelf which have elasticated waists etc so as to make shopping enjoyable, (we have had tears when the blue jeans with the green sparkly flowers and matching belt wouldnt even zip up)

i do hope im not coming accross as negative or overly weight conscious, i can be blunt in my honesty at times, I dont make an issue out of it at home at all, we just have healty eating in school and healty eating at home, we are all very proud food dudes but Daddy isnt very good so he gets bullied by the two of us to eat fruit when he comes home, which she thinks is plain hilarious. she fed him a nectarine tonight!

ps the reason i say i dont believe in low fat milk is because there is approx 3.5g of fat per 100ml in full fat milk, and in most other foods this would be considered low fat. Im not worried about her diet, i think its pretty good so im not going to pressure her as she grows up with low fat this and fat free that in the cupboard. but i am going to work hard to encourage my little book worm, jig saw addict of a daughter to be more active,

greenkittie

Don't give your daughter low fat milk! A certain amount of fat is required for a healthy diet, especially with children. Recent studies have showen that giving children low fat milk and other low fat "diet" type foods during childhood can actually lead to childhood obesity.
The one thing i noticed about your daily food plan is that she seems to having an awfully large dinner. It sounds bigger than i would have at dinner and im a fully grown 22 year old. My little brother is 12 and he would eat half a normal sized potato, a half potion of meat and some vegetables and say hes full..

Hotblack Desiato

greenkittie wrote: »

Don't give your daughter low fat milk! A certain amount of fat is required for a healthy diet, especially with children.

Isn't it only kids under 5 who have to have full fat milk?

greenkittie

Couldn't be 100% i'm just remembering an artricle i read in the sunday times

deisemum

I've done a number of courses on nutrition and each time we've been told it's ok to give low fat milk to children once they're 5 years old.

Enii

Could you maybe think about parking the car about a mile or so from the school and walking the rest of the way. I always think that exercise in the morning really wakes you up and makes you more active for the day. Plus you are burning up calories from early in the day.

I'd also consider swopping to Super milk or even better swopping the weetabix for porridge made on milk.

Crea

If she gets tired easily have you had her checked out medically given the family history? There is no point in increasing her exercise if her system can't take it.
Also, watch the portion sizes. The food might be healthy but they still have calories.

angelfalling

Consider changing from white breads and pasta to wholegrains. Try taking out the potatos and swapping in some sweet potatoes (super foods). Also, I agree on portion size.
Try to do activities together. Evening walks or weekend hikes to talk about how things are going with her-- way to bond.

Also, I wouldn't be pushy over her weight-- don't call her overweight. Say you want to get "healthy" and change lifestyles together. You don't want to bomb her self confidence at 7.

Semele

I agree with some of the others who said your daughters dinner seems quite big. 2 potatoes, meat & veg is what a lot of adults eat. My younger sister
(10 now) sounds very similar. Shes always been heavy for her age and carries most of the weight on her stomach, which she's always been self-conscious about. She's a "lazy" child- would lie in front of the tv all day if allowed and when she's forced to turn it off will just sit around doing nothing. We used to be able to get her to exercise a bit when she was younger but she's become less gullible with age and can detect the word exercise behind whatever "fun" activity is suggested!

Her weight baffled everyone for a while since she doesn't eat junk at all but after monitoring her more carefully we realised that she packs away as much food at dinner times as the adults, if not more. Its the high calorie stuff she likes too- meat & carbs and gravy, etc. Our mother realised she's slipped into a habit of giving her bigger and bigger portions over the years cos she never leaves food on her plate regardless of how much she's given and she'll often ask for more.

We are now trying to cut back but its difficult as she's so used to it that she complains about being given far less food than anyone else- despite us explaining that everyone else is twice her size, and she's caught on that crying that shes hungry will usually guilt our mother into letting her have more!

If you're going to make dietary changes, do it now while your daughter is young enough not to feel an issue is being made of it.

Also I would recommend switching to low-fat milk now. Your daughter is past the age where full-fat is recommended and considering milk is something she has everyday its the easiest way to make a significant change. There might not seem to be much difference in fat content but over time it becomes significant. Keep in mind an 100 calories a day (150mls of full fat milk) over what you burn off with exercise would lead to a stone in weight gain over 3years.

lauratkd

I think the diet sounds really good and I wouldn't worry terribly about low fat vs full fat milk. I would agree that whole milk is better. Really the key is exercise. I don't think you're going to get a young girl to enjoy doing little exercises at home with her mum if she's "lazy" anyway!! You need to find an exercise that she will enjoy without really realising that she is exercising.

I teach Taekwon-do and it can be great for young kids if they enjoy it. I would try to find out about as many different activities that are in your area and see what your daughter would like to try out. I know I set myself up for some serious bashing here but so many Irish kids seem to be put into GAA and if they don't enjoy it, it seems to taint their opinion of sport and exercise. Let her pick something she think sounds like fun. Hip hop as mentioned earlier is brilliant.

One more piece of advice: look into the teacher/instructor of any new sport as much as possible. I think there are a lot of cowboys out there!! Especially within martial arts.

Annatar

bored and tired wrote: »

khannie cycling isnt an option as we live in back end of now where, plus nowwhere is half way up a mountain on other side of a valley, so she would either kill herself going down hill, crash into the bridge or pass out going back up, with me not far behind. ,

I wouldnt get paranoid about such things. Unless the school is more than 2 miles away, let the child walk (unless its a danergous road with alot of traffic)Dont worry so much about crashing into bridges etc.... otherwise she will never go out cycling on her own.Teach her to either use the brakes down hill or walk downhill with the bike, as well as walking backup hill with it too later.Itll be hard for the first week, but after that she should be flying it!

bored and tired

thanks for advice, I DONT CALL my daughter overweight, i dont make an issue out of it at home., as i have said before we have healthy eating at school and healthy eating at home. I might have sounded abrupt but i dont talk to my doughter the same as i do on a forum.

i dont know if i am right or not here, but i go on a her fist being the portion size, but i have noticed lately that she does try and ask for more towards the end of dinner and i didnt realise how often i give in, however we have settled on having a glass of water and the wait and see what your belly says approach.

We live in the country, there isnt much to offer other than gaa and soccer down in the village, to get involved in tennis kirate or anything else is a 30 mile round trip. we went cycling during the week which was an endurance test to say the least as she lost control forgot how to break and went across the road into ditch,. great fun really.

Anyway i really wanted advice on how to get a happy child in her own right to go outside and play., i was thinking back to my own childhood and i loved climbing trees, i had an imaginary spaceship in a field behind the house, and a den in another field that years later i used to go too for a sneaky fag- off topic i know,
but my point is i used to run outside and get up to stuff, but my daughter doesnt, and im lucky that we dont live in an area where i have to worry about traffic or abductors pulling up to the foot path, i worry about different things like getting a kick from a cow or a horse or getting your welly stuck in a pile of muck and having to leave it there and walk home in your sock, but thats what we wanted for our child.
Getting involved in orgainised activities is one thing, but getting a child to just go out and play and enjoy it, and to have to call her in for lunch, to get exercise from just mucking about is something that i am at a loss over how to encourage., its like its something we have all lost,

Loopy

bored and tired wrote: »

Anyway i really wanted advice on how to get a happy child in her own right to go outside and play., i was thinking back to my own childhood and i loved climbing trees, i had an imaginary spaceship in a field behind the house, and a den in another field that years later i used to go too for a sneaky fag- off topic i know,
but my point is i used to run outside and get up to stuff, but my daughter doesnt, and im lucky that we dont live in an area where i have to worry about traffic or abductors pulling up to the foot path, i worry about different things like getting a kick from a cow or a horse or getting your welly stuck in a pile of muck and having to leave it there and walk home in your sock, but thats what we wanted for our child.
Getting involved in orgainised activities is one thing, but getting a child to just go out and play and enjoy it, and to have to call her in for lunch, to get exercise from just mucking about is something that i am at a loss over how to encourage., its like its something we have all lost,

I empathise with you there, yrs ago we disappeared in the morning and got up to all sorts of adventurous stuff, got home absolutely shattered and filthy dirty that evening and slept like babies. Nowadays, I have to shove my 6 yr old out the door to get some fresh air whilst prizing her beloved bloody nintendo DS out of her arms (it was a present).

It seems to be the way kids are now, entertain me, IM BORED!

bored and tired

looptheloop wrote: »

I empathise with you there, yrs ago we disappeared in the morning and got up to all sorts of adventurous stuff, got home absolutely shattered and filthy dirty that evening and slept like babies. Nowadays, I have to shove my 6 yr old out the door to get some fresh air whilst prizing her beloved bloody nintendo DS out of her arms (it was a present).

It seems to be the way kids are now, entertain me, IM BORED!

i was completely the same, and when i got older it was just the norm to disappear if i was upset about something or stressed with exams, i used to love walking through the grain when it was taller than me and feeling like the world was disappearing, Everything around us was magic as kids, the trees were monsters in the dark, a strawny tree was the steering joy-stick for my spaceship!, and the muckier you got the more fun you had had,

we've moved to my partners area, and he can remember a bad fall of snow in the 70's where they actually got snowed in for a few days, and well he can remember "borrowing!" his mams ironing board and using it to ski down the valley, god only knows how he didnt kill himself or end up in the river, but children were all the same, out the door as soon as your jobs were done and come back in when it was feeding time at the zoo, and if the kids from up or down the road arrived with you there was always enough to go around,

thank god we dont have nintendo or the like or we wouldnt see her face at all, its hard enough to get her nose out of a book,

Good news though for easter break, Got a new helmet from lidl and she is cycling like a demon at mo, strange the little things that get them up, hopefully she will keep it up, and hannah montana was on telly yesterday playing tennins so as soon as rain stopped she was out beating a tennis ball of the shed, it was so good to see her out without having to fight with her for once, please god she will keep it up, however she begged me for 2 new books to read during the holiday, so there might be a little encouragement needed next week esp considering the ridiculous amount of easter eggs the grannys and aunts have bought.

thanks again for all the advice,
loop the loop best of luck, leave me know if you find anything that your daughter loves as much as her ds,

Loopy

bored and tired wrote: »

loop the loop best of luck, leave me know if you find anything that your daughter loves as much as her ds,

I accidentially 'misplaced' it last week and now like your daughter she is out on her bike all week, I bring her round the park and she cycles and I walk, Long may it last..

lauratkd

Buy a Wii!!! I sweated a lot playing tennis on it last night ;):D

The Phantom

the child is 10 lbs overweight!!!!..... you make me sick.

For Gods sake she is only 7. no doubt she will spend most of her life thinking about her weight and appearance in a society that demands unrealistic perfection, you could at least give her a flippin childhood.

Cop on you frickin nazi