How to make my child healthy and fat

Underweight children aged 6 to 12

Children aged 6 to 12 are still growing, which means they need the energy (calories) and nutrients that come from a varied and balanced diet. If your child is underweight, they may not be getting enough calories.

If you're concerned that your child is underweight or not growing normally, see a GP. Low weight can occur for a number of reasons.

How can I tell if my child is underweight?

As a parent, it can be difficult to tell if your child is underweight.

If you already know your child's height and weight, and want to know if they're a healthy weight, you can check using our healthy weight calculator.

If your child is in Year 6 (ages 10 and 11), they may have already been weighed and their height measured as part of the National Child Measurement Programme.

In some areas you may be sent the results for your child. In other areas you will have to contact your local authority to find out your child's measurements.

If results show that your child is underweight, consult a GP, who can talk to you about the possible causes.

If there is a problem with your child's diet, the GP can give advice that will help bring your child up to a healthy weight, or refer them to a dietitian.

Your child's diet

All children need the energy (calories) and nutrients that come from a varied and balanced diet.

If your child is underweight, it may be tempting to fill them up with high-calorie but unhealthy foods, such as sweets, cake, chocolate and sugary and fatty foods and drinks. However, it's important that your child gains weight in a healthy way, and this means eating a balanced diet.

Once your child is 5, they should be eating a healthy, low-fat diet like the one recommended for adults. Find out more in What to feed young children.

What is a balanced diet?

The government advises that children aged 5 and over follow the Eatwell Guide. This guide shows the proportions in which different types of foods are needed to have a balanced diet:

Eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day.
Base meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates. Choose wholegrain where possible.
Have some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks and yoghurts). Choose lower-fat and lower-sugar options.
Eat some beans and pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other protein. Aim for 2 portions of fish every week – 1 of which should be oily, such as salmon or mackerel.
Choose unsaturated oils and spreads and eat in small amounts.
Drink plenty of fluids – the government recommends 6 to 8 glasses a day.

Try to choose a variety of different foods from the 5 main food groups.

Consume foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt and sugar less often and in small amounts.

Most people in the UK eat and drink too many calories, too much fat, sugar and salt, and not enough fruit, vegetables, oily fish or fibre.

Learn more about the different food groups and how they form part of a healthy, balanced diet.

Children's meals at home

Do you find it difficult to make time to prepare healthy balanced meals for the whole family? If so, that might be part of the reason your child is not consuming enough calories.

Try to make time for breakfast and dinner, and eat together as a family. Make mealtime a fun part of the day.

Children's lunches

During the week, your child will eat lunch at school. It's impossible to monitor exactly what your child eats away from home, but you can help your child make healthy choices.

Talk to your child about the importance of a healthy and balanced diet.
Give your child prepaid school lunches, or a healthy packed lunch, instead of giving money that your child can spend on food.
Find out what the school's healthy eating policy is.

These days, school lunches are more likely to meet a child's nutritional requirements compared with the average packed lunch.

If you would prefer to make your child a packed lunch, make sure it is nutritionally balanced.

A healthier packed lunch should:

be based on starchy carbohydrates (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta)
include fresh fruit and vegetables/salad
include protein such as beans and pulses, eggs, fish, meat, cheese (or dairy alternative)
include a side dish, such as a low-fat and lower-sugar yoghurt (or dairy alternative), tea cake, fruit bread, plain rice/corn cakes, homemade plain popcorn, sugar-free jelly
include a drink, such as water, skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, sugar-free or no-added sugar drink

Get ideas from Change4Life for what to put in your child's school packed lunch.

How to increase your child's calorie intake

To help your child gain weight, try increasing their portion sizes at mealtimes, especially for starchy foods such as bread, rice, pasta and potatoes.

Alternatively, if your child finds it hard to eat larger portions, try increasing the energy density of your child's meals, until they have reached a healthy weight.

Energy density is the amount of energy (calories) per gram of food. Higher energy density foods tend to be higher in fat, such as cheese, nuts, whole milk and nut butters.

Try:

a jacket potato with baked beans topped with grated cheese
tuna pasta bake
mashed avocado topped with chopped hardboiled egg on wholemeal toast

You can also boost your child's daily calorie intake by providing healthier snacks.

Great snack ideas include:

small sandwiches with a protein filling, such as cheese or eggs
cheese and crackers or cheese on wholemeal or brown bread
yoghurt, which contains protein and calcium
breadsticks and vegetable dips such as hummus

Keep your child active

Even if your child is underweight, it's still important that they're physically active.

Physical activity helps them develop strong, healthy bones and muscles. It's an important part of how they learn about themselves and the world. And, best of all, it's great fun.

Children over 5 should do a minimum of 60 minutes of activity each day. But the amount of physical activity your child should do may be different if they're underweight. A GP, practice nurse or school nurse can advise you on this.

Find ideas on how to get active with your child.

Monitor your child's progress

If you provide a healthy diet using these guidelines, you should see your child's weight and growth improve.

Keep regular records of your child's height and weight, and take your child back to the GP to check that their weight gain is happening as it should.

Once your child has reached a healthy weight, their diet may need adjusting so that they do not become overweight.

Safe Weight Gain Tips for Underweight Kids

Contributors: Katherine Serbinski, MS, RD

Published: August 28, 2018

Reviewed: April 23, 2021

Wavebreakmedia/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

Many children and teens in the U.S. are underweight. Being underweight is not the same as being thin or slender. Some children have a naturally slight build and maintain it with a well-balanced diet and physical activity. However, true underweight may be a sign of dietary, health or emotional problems.

If you are concerned that your child may be underweight, consult your child’s physician. Assuming your child has no underlying medical concerns, the strategy will then be to encourage weight gain in a healthful way, with food. Empty calories from foods high in fat and added sugars might add a few pounds, but they will not provide the nutrients a child needs to build strong bones and a healthy body.

If your child is underweight, start by ensuring that most meals and snacks are nutrient-rich. Good sources of protein for weight gain include eggs, peanut butter and other nut butters, bean soups, hummus and reduced-fat or full-fat milk, yogurt and cheese. Whole-wheat bread and pasta; mashed, baked or oven-roasted potatoes; sweet potatoes; corn; and hot cereal are excellent carbohydrate choices. Prepare hot cereal with milk or soy milk instead of water for added calories and nutrients. Nuts, seeds and avocados are healthy fat sources to help your child gain weight. Try adding nuts and seeds to cereal, salads, pasta and vegetables. Add avocado slices to sandwiches, burgers and salads or as a topper for scrambled eggs. Sauté or stir-fry vegetables, meat, chicken and fish in olive or canola oil. When planning snacks, be sure they provide additional calories and great taste. Consider these nutritious, higher-calorie foods:

Make guacamole with fresh avocados, onions and tomatoes, or mix avocado into a fruit smoothie.
Make a smoothie for an on-the-go breakfast or snack. Smoothies are an easy way to get nutrients plus calories. Get creative with your favorite fruit, full-fat yogurt, nut butters and seeds.
Granola or trail mix made with nuts, seeds, dried fruit and chocolate chips also can be mixed with full-fat yogurt.
Hummus and other bean dips not only make good snacks, they can provide both protein and fat, in addition to concentrated calories.

Along with eating these foods, work to make mealtimes pleasant and not rushed. Involve your children in meal planning, shopping and food preparation to encourage their interest in food and eating. Doctors may recommend a high-calorie supplement drink for picky eaters who refuse to add new foods to their diet. Make sure, though, that your child isn't filling up on beverages, including juices or even milk, so that she's hungry at meal-time.

If your child is getting enough calories but still does not seem to be gaining weight appropriately, continue to work with her doctor to discover any underlying conditions. Chances are good, though, that with some patience and conscientious meal and snack plans, your child will strike a healthy height and weight balance.

Find a Nutrition Expert

Looking for credible nutrition information and recommendations? The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' network of credentialed food and nutrition practitioners are ready to help!

See Directory

How to talk to a child about weight so as not to grow complexes

August 14, 2019 Life

Obsession with thinness can be more dangerous than obesity.

Why obesity hysteria is harmful

The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm about the increase in childhood obesity and even created a commission to eliminate it. According to its data for 2016, overweight is found in 41 million children under the age of five years and in more than 340 million children and adolescents 5-19years. Obesity threatens with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and emotional problems.

But there is a huge and frightening but here. Obesity is a medical diagnosis. And overweight is not so easy, especially when it comes to children. In addition, even a healthy body weight has little to do with glossy standards.

Girls are at particular risk, as the requirements for a woman's appearance are generally higher than for a man's.

Research shows that even at preschool age, children are dissatisfied with their bodies. Girls begin to perceive thinness as something good even before the age of three, and at five, a third of them refuse food to be slimmer.

The imposition of unnatural thinness increases the risk of erratic and malnutrition, provokes body dissatisfaction and depression, and these disorders begin already at the age of 7–11 years.

Childhood obesity is dangerous, but more children suffer from eating disorders than type 2 diabetes. In every third high school student and sixth high school student, these disorders are quite serious and require the intervention of doctors.

Why kilograms are not superfluous at all

The problem of obesity is so widely spread that parents are ready to fight for the physical health of their children to the detriment of the psychological. But thinness is not synonymous with health, and excessive weight does not necessarily mean illness. Moreover, it is not always so superfluous.

To determine the norm of weight in adults, use the body mass index, which is calculated by the formula:

BMI = weight (kg) / height² (m)

Ideally, it should be equal to 18. 5–24.9. This means that for a person with a height of 170 centimeters and 54 kilograms, and 71 kilograms is the norm. True, there are nuances that Lifehacker has already talked about.

It's even more difficult with children. In addition to BMI, weight standards for height and gender, the history of the development of the child and the physique of family members are important.

In some cases, we can talk about the age distribution of fat, which remains within the normal range. Or the child may be larger than their peers, simply because they develop at a different pace.

So don't build complexes for children from scratch, if you just can't cope with anxiety. And even if there is a problem, still don't do it, because replacing potential obesity-related diseases with real-life disorders is so-so a concern.

Better think about this: research shows that not obsessing over weight prevents weight gain. This is because people give up diets and unhealthy eating habits that lead to relapses and other problems that contribute to weight gain.

How to discuss weight with your child

Don't comment on your children's weight

Even if your child really needs to lose weight, it's not constructive to talk about it directly. If someone notes how you got better, you hardly take it as relevant advice filled with care. Children are not some special kind of people to whom you can say whatever you want.

The child already knows that harmony is an important ideal. Television, books, films, environment repeat this. The constant imposition of the importance of thinness can make even thin children shy, lower self-esteem, and increase the risk of depression. Criticism of weight and encouragement of its reduction provoke negative self-image and lead to malnutrition.

If you are worried about your child's health, it is not necessary to build a conversation around weight and even more so arrange a gastronomic ghetto for him while his relatives eat fatty and high-calorie foods.

Do not shift the responsibility to the children, it is all on the parents. To normalize weight, think over a balanced menu for the whole family, take care of the presence of vegetables in the house, arrange general walks. If all this is done for the sake of health, then say so. And good health does not hurt any of you.

Pay more attention to the functionality of the body, rather than appearance

The constant enumeration of the child's external qualities conveys that these qualities are the most valuable. This leads to obsession with preserving such an important asset. But it’s not possible to completely avoid talking about appearance. The body exists, and it can do a lot of useful things: run fast, dance, draw. In general, a person has a lot of value, everything is not limited to appearance.

For example, your daughter dreams of becoming a model. You can discuss this in the context of thinness and beauty. And we can talk about the importance of knowledge of foreign languages, endurance and communication skills.

Be kind to your body

You can be gentle with your child, but constantly turn around in front of the mirror and scold yourself for curvy hips, insufficiently thin waist, hanging belly. Only, you will probably use more harsh vocabulary. Children hear this and learn that there may be something wrong with their bodies.

Maria Yelets

Clinical psychologist-consultant.

The atmosphere in which children grow up is very important. If you tell your daughter that she is beautiful in any weight and this is not the main thing, but you yourself are constantly on diets and worry that you cannot fit into a “pre-pregnant” dress, then the child will read the duality in this matter and focus on your actions, and not words. Work with the feeling of your body, accept it. If you can do this in relation to yourself, then for the younger generation it will be the best example to follow.

Talk about the diversity of bodies

Not discussing the problem of physique with children is like sticking your head in the sand when a lion approaches. Not the best tactic. Much depends on what position you take in the conversation.

Explain that bodies are different and this is normal. That society overestimates thinness, and manipulations on this topic are often aimed at enriching organizations that promise to solve a non-existent problem. Of course, be guided by the age of the interlocutor and dose the information so that everything is clear.

Such conversations are also useful for children who do not have any problems with weight. It will be easier for them to evaluate a person not by the shape of his body.

You can! How faith in a child helps to raise him/her happy

According to statistics, parents correct their child's behavior every 6–9 minutes. But how effective is this way of communication and does it motivate the child to learn new skills? The experience and observations of specialists show that in order to raise a successful and happy person, you need to pay attention to the strengths of the child and praise him

Everyone wants their child to be the best, or at least develop as well as their peers. But what if the lessons seem boring to your child? How to interest him in studies and is it necessary to do it at all? Blogger Dmitry Chernyshev, relying on the work of experts in the field of psychology and pedagogy, answers these questions in his book Vertical Progress: How to Make Children Love School, and also explains why the modern education system is outdated and does not work. The book is published in June by Alpina. Children". Forbes Woman publishes an excerpt about what parenting methods existed at different times and why you should always believe in your child.

Finished reading here

In 1934, the German physician Johanna Haarer published the book The German Mother and Her First Child. The recommendations in this book have been incorporated into the Reich mothers' education program to instill proper infant care skills in all German women. By 1943, three million German women had completed this program. More than 1.2 million copies were sold, almost half of them after the end of the war.

In this book, Haarer recommended raising children with as few "attachments" as possible. If the child was crying, it was his own problem, not the mother's problem. Excessive tenderness was to be avoided at all costs. Emotional contact was ordered to be kept to a minimum. "The child must be fed, washed and dried, and then left alone." Instead of using the “children's” language (“aha”, “who is so sweet with us”, “u-tu-tu”), it was proposed to use the correct German.

If the child began to cry, in no case should you take him in your arms, hug him and calm him down, and also put the child on your knees and breastfeed - this, according to the author, would only lead to the fact that the child quickly learned to achieve everything by crying. And the next book by Johanna Haarer was the book "Mom, tell me about Adolf Hitler. "

Haarer's ideas can still harm the emotional health of Germans. Renate Flens, a German woman in her 60s who suffers from depression, told her therapist that she wants to love her children but cannot. It soon became clear that Flens' problems stemmed from her inability to let others get close to her. She grew up on Haarer's book, and this book shaped her picture of the world.

One of the psychotherapist's patients told him that one day he found his mother's thick book in which she wrote down all kinds of information about the first year of his life: weight, height, frequency of bowel movements. But there was not a single word in it about her feelings for her son.

I never understood this strict advice to parents - if a small child is crying, don't go near him. You need to educate him, he manipulates you. Of course he manipulates. And you wanted him to be silent all the time? In a small child, crying is one of the very few channels of communication with the world and connection with the parent. It cannot be cut off. Emily Oster's book "Baby Statistics" tells of orphans in Romania: "At 19In the 1980s, Romanian shelters were overcrowded. Many of the children who went there faced violence and other problems. They had not been in contact with benevolent adults for years, which had a negative impact on their psyche. Visitors noted that there was an ominous silence in the shelter. The children did not cry because they knew that no one would come for them.” It seems to me that such silence is a hundred times worse than the bitterest cry of a child. One of the biggest problems in raising children is related to parents misunderstanding the possessive pronoun MY - my child. “Here you give birth to your own, then bring up, and this is my child. Don't interfere, it's my baby. I gave birth to you, I will kill you, and so on.

Of course, this is your child. But he is yours - not like your chest of drawers or even like your dog, but like your friend. From the fact that you gave birth to him, fed him, did not sleep at night, tore off the last piece from yourself ... it does not follow that this is your property.

Imagine you see a big man beating a small man. It's a completely wild situation. You intervene, and they tell you: this is MY child. And what has changed at this moment? Nothing. The situation has only gotten worse and meaner - the little man is doomed to live with the big man who beats him.

This is a very serious and controversial topic: how far does a parent's power over his child extend. What can a parent do and what can't? Does a parent have the right to refuse to vaccinate their child? Forbid to transfuse blood to a sick child? Give up schooling? Cut off body parts from him for religious reasons? Get tattoos on it? Pierce his ears? Train him in ritual cannibalism? And Protestantism? Baptize a child? Ban him from TV? And the computer?

No need for arguments: I only wish my child well. All parents say that no matter what they do with their child. Even those who raise martyrs from children.

The worst way to control a child is through a guilt complex. “Because of you, we didn’t sleep at night, we tore the last piece from ourselves, and you, such rubbish, don’t want to wash the dishes.” Guilt is a very rotten tool. The child doesn't owe you anything. It was your decision to give birth, not his. Perhaps, if he had a choice, he would prefer not to you at all. In the same way, they tried to manipulate students in Soviet schools: yes, the state educates you for free, but you parasites ... Adults were reproached with free housing and healthcare. And especially the war - how many people died so that you could live.

According to statistics, parents correct their child's behavior every 6–9 minutes(!). Therefore, it is better to teach children about values than to set rules for them.

Shalva Amonashvili once said that when communicating with a child it is useful to imagine that the future Mozart is in front of you. Or Einstein. Will you yell at Einstein and humiliate Mozart? Or help your child discover his abilities? You need to believe in your child, even if it seems to you that nothing comes of it and that other children are much more talented. There is such an interesting effect, which is called the Rosenthal effect. At 19In 1965, the American psychologist Robert Rosenthal conducted an experiment in different schools: teachers were told that a certain test had been developed by which it was possible to identify students who were on the verge of an intellectual leap (promising or geeks). For this, 20% of the students were randomly selected.

A year later it turned out that the level of intellectual development of the "child prodigies" became much higher than that of all the others. Teachers unknowingly paid more attention to the alleged "wunderkinds", which affected the success of their education. Teachers were so fascinated by the prospect of having brilliant students that, as the facts show, they began not only to consider them the best in their studies, but also to attribute to them positive qualities of character.

Another story from America. The day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., schoolteacher Jane Eliot in a small town in Iowa conducted a daring experiment in her class. She wanted to show students what prejudice and discrimination are. She divided all the children into two groups - with blue eyes and brown eyes - and explained that children with blue eyes have a much higher social status and are significantly superior in intelligence to their peers.

Once in a privileged position, blue-eyed children immediately began to dominate their brown-eyed classmates and even abused them, verbally and physically. In addition, the acquired high status led to an improvement in their intellectual abilities. After receiving it, blue-eyed children began to do better in math and spelling (these data turned out to be statistically significant, according to Eliot's initial data).

Just as impressive was the drop in academic achievement for brown-eyed children who received low status. But the most interesting thing happened later. Mrs Eliot told her third graders that she was wrong. And asked for their forgiveness. In fact, she explained, the exact opposite is true: brown eyes are better than blue eyes! The new test results showed a decline in the performance of blue-eyed students and an increase in the performance of brown-eyed students.

Brown-eyed children who have already experienced what discrimination is, got the opportunity to show compassion - now that their status has turned out to be higher. After all, they themselves learned what a low social status is. But there was no compassion. The brown-eyed children paid back in kind. They commanded and offended their former blue-eyed offenders.

Do not be afraid to praise your child. Praise in front of everyone, and scold only in private. And you can never question his identity. You should not tell the child “you are bad”, it’s better to say that he is very good, but now he acted badly.

American writer Ken Robinson tells a wonderful story about Gillian Lynn, who staged the musicals "Cats" and "The Phantom of the Opera":

"Once at dinner I asked Gillian how she became a dancer. She said that at school she was considered hopeless. Someone from the school wrote a note to her parents saying that the girl had learning disabilities. She couldn't concentrate, she was always fidgeting. Now they would say that she has attention deficit disorder. But at 19In the 30s, no one knew about this syndrome, there was simply no such problem.

She was taken to the doctor. She went there with her mother and was placed in a chair at the far end of the room, where she sat with her hands under her feet for twenty minutes while the doctor talked about her problems at school. She interfered with everyone, handed in homework at the wrong time, and so on. In the end, the doctor sat down next to Gillian and told her that he had listened to her mother, realized all of Gillian's problems, but now he would like to talk to her mother in private. He asked Gillian to wait a bit and followed his mother out of the room. Before leaving, he turned on the radio on the table. As soon as the adults left, the doctor asked Jillian's mother to take a look at what her daughter was doing. She immediately jumped to her feet and began to move to the beat of the music. The doctor and Jillian's mother looked at it for a couple of minutes, then the doctor turned and said, "Mrs. Lynn, Jillian is not sick. She is a dancer. Give her to a choreographic school.

I asked what happened next. She said that her mother followed the doctor's advice and that it was wonderful. They entered a room where there were people who looked like Gillian, fidgets, people who had to move in order to think. They studied ballet, tap dance, jazz style, modern dance. Then she was accepted into the Royal Ballet School, she became a soloist, had a wonderful career in the Royal Ballet Company. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and started her own company, the Gillian Lynn Dance Company, and met Andrew Lloyd Webber. Jillian created some of the most famous musical productions in history, brought joy to millions of people and became a multimillionaire. But another doctor could put her on pills and make her calm down.