Why is it not OK to feel hunger?

[Anonymous]

This is one of the most bizarre threads. OP by focusing on specific percentages and measurements you are missing out on teaching your kids about healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. How do you expect them to make good choices when they're on their own? As they enter the tween/teen years they WILL find ways to get more food. If your home is not accommodating they will be the kids that eat everything and anything when they go to friends houses or at the mall and will be more likely to gain that freshman 15 when they get to college. They are more likely to stay active and make healthy choices if they are taught about them rather than feeling deprived and controlled regarding food.

[Anonymous]

70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

Perhaps your understanding of percentiles is incomplete? Percentiles are not grades. The only thing the 70th percentile for weight means is that 70% of kids weigh less and 30% weigh more. A kid could be at the 20th percentile for weight (i.e., 20% of kids weigh less, 80% weigh more) and still be fat, depending on height and muscle mass. Likewise, a kid could be at the 70th percentile for weight and still be too thin, again depending on height and muscle mass..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

Perhaps your understanding of percentiles is incomplete? Percentiles are not grades. The only thing the 70th percentile for weight means is that 70% of kids weigh less and 30% weigh more. A kid could be at the 20th percentile for weight (i.e., 20% of kids weigh less, 80% weigh more) and still be fat, depending on height and muscle mass. Likewise, a kid could be at the 70th percentile for weight and still be too thin, again depending on height and muscle mass..

I get that. My point is that ideal body weight is different. The ideal weight for a child in the 95th%ile for height very well might be the 70th%ile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

Perhaps your understanding of percentiles is incomplete? Percentiles are not grades. The only thing the 70th percentile for weight means is that 70% of kids weigh less and 30% weigh more. A kid could be at the 20th percentile for weight (i.e., 20% of kids weigh less, 80% weigh more) and still be fat, depending on height and muscle mass. Likewise, a kid could be at the 70th percentile for weight and still be too thin, again depending on height and muscle mass..

I get that. My point is that ideal body weight is different. The ideal weight for a child in the 95th%ile for height very well might be the 70th%ile.

Or it might not. There is no way to know, just looking at the numbers. There is also no way for OP to know what the ideal weight is for OP's son, especially since OP's definition of "ideal weight" is "the weight that I think my son should have, so I'm going to control how much he eats".

[Anonymous]

I grew up with a mom similar to OP. She was obsessed with being thin and having thin kids. She weighed our food, restricted what we ate, gave us food plans, etc. I remember being so hungry all the time that I obsessed about food. I'm not talking the good hungry "ie not being full" but that gnawing hunger that preoccupies your thoughts. When I was 15, I started babysitting and would binge on food at their houses. Then I started hiding food in my room. I put on 10 extra pounds when I was 16 and you would have thought I had killed someone by the way my mom reacted. By the tIme I was 17 I had developed bulimia. I couldn't stop wanting to eat all the foods I was denied but the guilt and self hatred that developed after eating led me to purging. Im 40 and stilL struggle.

There is nothing wrong with being hungry at certain times of the day. DD knows we don't snack an hour before meal time. If she's hungrY after school she knows that a protein and fruit or veggie is her option for a snack. At random times if she's hungry she waits 10 min before asking for a snack and most of the time that hunger is gone.

We also don't believe in denying food. I think teaching kids moderation and portion control is The only way to set them up for a future of healthy eating.

And yes, dd is a healthy thin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

Perhaps your understanding of percentiles is incomplete? Percentiles are not grades. The only thing the 70th percentile for weight means is that 70% of kids weigh less and 30% weigh more. A kid could be at the 20th percentile for weight (i.e., 20% of kids weigh less, 80% weigh more) and still be fat, depending on height and muscle mass. Likewise, a kid could be at the 70th percentile for weight and still be too thin, again depending on height and muscle mass..

I get that. My point is that ideal body weight is different. The ideal weight for a child in the 95th%ile for height very well might be the 70th%ile.

Or it might not. There is no way to know, just looking at the numbers. There is also no way for OP to know what the ideal weight is for OP's son, especially since OP's definition of "ideal weight" is "the weight that I think my son should have, so I'm going to control how much he eats".

Yes, this misreading of percentiles is odd to me. I know tiny petite kids who are in the teens for both height and weight and are definitely skinny looking kids! I know tall lanky kids who are in the 80s and 90s (so not some big 25 percentile point spread that OP think is the way to indicate thinness).

Its just off. And weird.

But I think OP is a troll anyway, so there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a completely bizarre post on many levels. Why is OP posting--what kind of feedback was she expecting when she uses a title like why is it not OK to feel hunger? Her closest friends are telling her what she is doing is not ok and then she comes here to what? Get validation it is okay?

I also don't get this snacking is purely an American thing. It is pretty universal that in nonimpoverished households all over the world that kids have a snack when they come home from school. The stretch between lunch and dinner is typically much longer than the stretch between breakfast and lunch.

I went to a French high school and they even served snack (goutee) at the school in the afternoon. As I recall we had a choice between an apple and a wedge of la Vache Qui Rit or--horrors--a baguette and squares of chocolate. The bread came straight from the bakery and was warm; we stuck the chocolate squares inside and they melted. This is what bread and chocolate means and it is quite yummy.

The British have always had afternoon tea with a scone or two.

The Spanish have light tapas to tide them through to their very late dinners.

A snack in the afternoon is not evil, It is pretty much a world wide thing even among the thinner and of course much superior Europeans.

A mid-afternoon snack, especially for children, is really, really common all over the world. Even adults take a break for coffee or tea and a light snack in many places. Snacking constantly isn't great, but that doesn't mean that snacking is per se bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's okay to feel hungry and to be ready for the meal, rather than eat just because food's in front of you, but if your kids are still hungry after eating dinner, then I think you need to adjust your sense of what's normal and healthy for growing teenage boys.

Also, just a note for the posters above, which your ped can confirm for your OP - being 95th for weight would not be overweight if paired with 95th (or something in that ballpark) for height. Your son may indeed be healthy, but being 70th for for weight doesn't mean he's heavy - you have a tall kid, OP. He's also growing. Now is not the time to restrict healthy foods.

Please speak to a medical professional and get some well-informed advice, so that your family's food policy can be well informed and not a misfired backlash against lax parenting trends.

This. Hunger before a meal = good! Hunger after a meal because you were arbitrarily not allowed to eat enough = not good!

I am personally stunned at how much teenagers can eat. Their bodies and brains are going through enormous changes and while they need healthy food, they need food!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am thin, and my kids are healthy. They play sports and they do so very well.
No one has explained why the people like myself and the war survivors that I know, who were food "deprived" as kids are not obese now. Now one. I know tons of holocaust survivors in my family. They saw starvation as kids. I know others from my country who are my age who did not get fed the quality of food we see, and they are not fat. I guess they aren't food insecure.

People born after the Dutch "hunger winter" (1944) have been subject to multiple health problems throughout life; they have been dying early. The latest surprising findings are that their children may also be affected. Audrey Hepburn survived the Hunger Winter and looked slim and elegant all her life, but she had multiple health problems and finally died at 63.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. I am not on a diet. I look closely at his growth and he is gaining weight. I hope to keep him at the 70th%ile for weight as long as his vertical growth continues. He does not know that I am watching him closely as I do my other kids. He eats a ton of protein since I do want him to max out on height. He says he wants to play basketball or something like that.

A tween/teen boy should be adding muscle mass as well as height; that means adding weight. If he is underfed, his bone density may also be affected adversely. Muscle and bone weigh a lot, and it's better for a kid's health to be strong than to be particularly thin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's okay to feel hungry and to be ready for the meal, rather than eat just because food's in front of you, but if your kids are still hungry after eating dinner, then I think you need to adjust your sense of what's normal and healthy for growing teenage boys.

Also, just a note for the posters above, which your ped can confirm for your OP - being 95th for weight would not be overweight if paired with 95th (or something in that ballpark) for height. Your son may indeed be healthy, but being 70th for for weight doesn't mean he's heavy - you have a tall kid, OP. He's also growing. Now is not the time to restrict healthy foods.

Please speak to a medical professional and get some well-informed advice, so that your family's food policy can be well informed and not a misfired backlash against lax parenting trends.

This. Hunger before a meal = good! Hunger after a meal because you were arbitrarily not allowed to eat enough = not good!

I am personally stunned at how much teenagers can eat. Their bodies and brains are going through enormous changes and while they need healthy food, they need food!

+1000

[Anonymous]

I noticed that the tween boys got chunky before they grew up in DD's circle of friends. They get this fat roll on their tummies and their faces get full. But a year or two later they have shot up a foot and don't have that roll any more.

[Anonymous]

It's okay to feel hunger from time to time. It's not ok for one's mother to impose hunger on her children so that they stay at a predetermined percentile. See the difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:70th %ile in the US is actually quite good, not too thin. This is not what the weight should be, it is the weight relative to other American kids.

Perhaps your understanding of percentiles is incomplete? Percentiles are not grades. The only thing the 70th percentile for weight means is that 70% of kids weigh less and 30% weigh more. A kid could be at the 20th percentile for weight (i.e., 20% of kids weigh less, 80% weigh more) and still be fat, depending on height and muscle mass. Likewise, a kid could be at the 70th percentile for weight and still be too thin, again depending on height and muscle mass..

The kid is at the 95th for height, and the chart is not conditional, so this is thin.
i don't believe the chart is a straight "average of kids in. America" but rather some normalized scale. I used to know the details but have forgotten.