This thread is good for me. I'm really wondering what to do about my child. She is 5 years old, she is in gymnastics and she is a very strong child... but she is getting a little bit fat. She gets tired easily with activity and defaults to inaction if not entertained, and her little thighs are starting to get chubby... she has a size 5/6 top half and size 8 butt. She doesn't come off as fat when you meet her, I mean it isn't that developed yet, but of course I know her, and I know she has gained a lot and not just in the baby-fat-growing way. This is entirely my fault, as after her father and I separated, I've been a workaholic, we have almost lived on fast or packaged food for the time/convenience reason. I am extremely overweight (though I was not so until adulthood), and I'm very concerned that I not let her body develop so many fat cells... I'm worried about her.

I'm about to begin a low-carb eating plan, and I'm intending to revise her diet as dramatically as mine. She actually loves meat and dairy and fruits and veggies! -- but of course like most people, also loves carbs. I figure she can have lots of fruit and some grains (like maybe whole wheat for sandwiches) as her carbs, plus what the school feeds her for snacks which I cannot do anything about. Otherwise, I think just eating "real" foods, combined with her ongoing child-life, will slim her down over time. She is sensitive to the issue of fat, as I am so fat and she's now at the age where the children are becoming aware of such things. I've told her I want her to help mommy eat more healthily (which she wants to do), so I'm not presenting any of it of as related to her weight, only to mine.

She does seem to like it when I occasionally make her a lunch with roast beef, carrot sticks, broccoli crowns and some iceberg lettuce pieces, and one of those little single-serving ranch dressing containers you can find in the grocery store. She dips everything in the ranch. Not as good for her as seasoned mayo I suppose, but overall a much better lunch than things like "Lunchables", oy!

PJ in Miami