Eating Habits for Kids

Both children should be eating properly portioned balanced meals. You do not feed a child more because he is underweight, you have to feed him better. The same goes for an overweight child, 7 servings of fruits and vegatables everyday will not leave anyone feeling hungry or deprived.

If you need more specific help feel free to contact me, I have helped a few families make this difficult change.

Give you children more protein, less sugars. Anything that is natural with adder sugar is out(mostly). If it is sweeten with fruit sugar then it is ok, because fruit sugar does the same in your body as when you eat fruit. Added sugars make you gain wieght. Also cut back on noodles, rice, corn, potatoes thay are high in startches thay make you gain weight or keep you the same. The son that is underwieght, just make sure he gets the protein he needs and don't worry, the one that is overweight same thing but make sure to cut out a lot of the sugary things.Eat more proteins and vegs. God Bless B.

It is not how much you eat, but more importantly what you eat. If your house is filled with healthy food and the entire family is eating healthy food, then your 11 yr old can eat alot more food. It is a sacrifice because everyone has to give up the chip and cookies and ice cream, but if the snack options are fruit, veg, etc... of course he can have a snack. If everyone is workign to improve thier diet, then your 11 yr old wont feel singled out.

Don't make the smaller child, eat more. One day in my office a bunch of us went out to eat lunch together and some of us had a fair amount of food on our plates left over at the end of the meal and others plates were totally wiped clean. One of the friends whose plates was very clean said she was curious and asked if our moms made us clean our plates when we were young. All of us who were smaller in size and who had food left over said no, we just ate until we were full and then quit. The others who sometimes struggled with their size said their parents made them clean their plates thus making us all think this maybe caused a pattern of over-eating. It had an impact on how we all do our children. If your smaller child is full, he should be allowed to stop eating at that point. The larger child can not be hungry or it will cause him to want to gorge on anything he can find to feel full. Try to have filling things for the more hungry child to maybe eat in addition (something like carrot sticks or low-fat choc. milk is good and filling.) Help them both get plenty of exercise after school and drink water while doing so which is also filling.

Try not having one eat more and one eat less. They are two different people with two different metabolisms. Put only healthy choices in the house and on the dinner table. Try the Deceptively Delicious cook book by Jessica Seinfield. Make sure they are each getting a good multi-vitamin (Shaklee makes a good one). Try adding a family "outing" every couple of days where you all get out and ride bikes or go walking. There are lots of ways to help the one lose weight while the other builds some muscle. The biggest point is to let them know that you love them how they are and only want them to be healthy. Their bodies will change a lot over the next 5 or 10 years. A healthy foundation will help those changes be for the better.

J.

Healthy weight is not a matter of how much you eat so much as what you eat.

Make sure you're feeding the whole family healthy meals, and start sneaking ground nuts, seeds, avocados and, easiest of all, just some olive oil, into your underweight son's meals. So, just before you serve the soup, drizzle a tablespoon or so of olive oil into his bowl. Same for pasta or whatever. That way your overweight son doesn't notice that his brother is getting something that he, himself, is not.

Make sure that whatever snacks are available to your kids are healthy ones. Don't think in terms of healthy foods/snacks and unhealthy treats. Make even the treats healthy. This isn't as boring as it sounds. Just start switching out. Instead of regular chips, start buying pretzels. Instead of ice cream, get So Delicious (4 grams of fat, I think, per serving instead of 11 or 17 or whatever). Instead of sugary soda, start buying E-mergen-C vitamin C drinks (just one per day - kids' version) and fruit juices, and adding to seltzer water or club soda. As for meals, start replacing your fattiest meat meal with, say, a pasta salad or something with no meat in it (even if you want your younger son to have more fat, fat from meat isn't good for anyone). Etc. It will take some adjusting on everyone's part, but it only takes a few weeks to change a habit.

Also, maybe the underweight son is more active than your overweight son? Get your 11-year old involved in some sport, a martial art, or other activity that keeps him moving. Don't be afraid of getting your younger son involved in active play, as well. This can build his appetite.

Just feed them both healthy. Frozen blackberries, raspberries, etc, make a wonderful sweet snack right out of the freezer. They can have as much of that type of food as they want (within reason - they can't fill up and have no room for healthy meals from other food groups). You can feed them both high fiber meals from their cereal down to multi grain bread for their sandwiches. I think if you just watch WHAT they are eating, you really won't have to feed either differently.

Also, kids grow up with different body types. I have one daughter (age 20), that is very tall and skinny, and my other daughter (age 19), is fairly short, and curvaceous. It's just however the genes work out - both of my girls are beautiful.

I would not try to distinguish 'more' for one and 'less' for another. Instead why don't you just alter your meals alittle bit? Give the older son skim milk and the younger one whole. Give the older one low fat cheese on his food and the younger one full fat. Also, give your younger one foods fuller with fat (maybe Pediasure or something) and explain to his brother that he doesn't need it. I would not make it a huge issue or you are setting them both up to have emotional eating issues when they are older. Good luck!