What does your elementary schooler eat on an avg day?

[Anonymous]

OP, what I see here is lots of sugar in a variety of forms. Cereal, breaded nuggets or bread with chocolate, packaged bar, chips, fruit, rice/noodles, more fruit. And if his extended day snacks are anything like those at my DD's school, then they are mostly empty carbs.

DD's daily diet:
Breakfast: Usually either cereal with skim milk, or toast with peanut butter. Water

Lunch: Sometimes leftover soup in a thermos, or leftover taco fixings turned into a salad. The fall-back lunch is two slices of turkey in roll-up form since she doesn't like turkey sandwiches, carrots, low fat yogurt or string cheese, fruit of some kind, and often a little treat like a Hershey's kiss. Water. She also buys lunch about 1 day per week.

Dinner: Totally varies. Weekends are usually some sort of grilled meat, side salad, and a second veg. Sometimes with French fries. Weeknights are all over the map. Soups are big in our house, as are taco salads. About once a week based on schedules she ends up with a pb&j on multigrain bread plus veg and cheese. Water.

Snack: For school, it's almost always a pre-packaged goldfish or pirate's booty since it has to be non-messy, not need a spoon, etc per classroom rules. At home a snack needs to have a second healthy component if she wants goldfish, like a handful of carrots or grapes. Water.

DD is 7.

[Anonymous]

My son is 7 and very active. Plays soccer for 1-3 hours every day.

Typical school day:

Breakfast would be either: leftovers from dinner; mac n cheese; a sandwich; chicken nuggets in a bread roll; plus also yogurt (plain, full fat, no sugar, with a teaspoon of honey) and fruit.

Then school lunch, then aftercare snack.

Then a granola bar or a banana for an after school snack.

Dinner -- whatever we are eating for dinner. Last night we had potatoes au gratin with crunchy veggies. Occasional dessert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the suggestions. A few things to answer prior questions above.

1) He only drinks juice or chocolate milk 1 or 2x each week when we're actually out at a restaurant to eat. Usually it's water/milk only.

2) I try to cook and eat most meals at home, but he does get a snack at school at extended day which I can't really control. He'll sometimes eat nothing or eat 3 packages (100 calorie packs) of goldfish if they have it! I know self control also needs to be learned. I'll try to have more conversations about portion control in general.

4) lunch wise, whenever I ask about leftover lunch, he always tells me he just ran out of time. I know it's prob because he was playing around at lunch. If he asks for a snack before dinner, I'll just have him eat the left over fruit or whatever is in his pack.

4) We eat a dessert 3-4x a week. Usually a small pack of the halloween candies and maybe 1x a week a slice of cake/ice cream. Otherwise, each night for dinner, we're having protein, veg, and carb.

5) activity wise he normally plays a couple sports during the spring and fall season but as most boys now, they love their video game time.

I will say that some of the easier pack options he's not keen on. He's not a fan of lunch meats, hummus, or cheese! He likes vanilla yogurt but not the plain one. He'll also only eat 3-4 kinds of cooked veggies and not the raw veggie types like carrot sticks. I guess all those things I could get him use to eating eventually but slow moving there.

Sample daily foods. I would estimate he eats about 1600-1700 calories a day. He's 62 percentile in height at 83% in weight.

Breakfast:
2 scrambled eggs or bowl of wheaties with milk

Lunch/snack
- 4 dino nuggets or sandwich bread with nutella (not a fan of peanut butter), but I only give a light covering on 1 slide of whole wheat bread.
- 1 fruit (clementine, apples, banana)
- snack bar like fiber one bar
- 1 -1.5oz of chips (pita, potato, potato sticks, tortilla)
- water

Extended day - guessing nothing or up to 400 calories of junk food.

Dinner
- broiled chicken/dumplings/meatballs/hotdog
- bowl of rice/noodles
- broccoli/spinach/beans

Snack after dinner
- apples/watermelon/clementines or another fruit
- sometimes yogurt if he's still hungry

And to top it off, my 4yo is 30% in BMI who just doesn't like food as much as my older.

Huh. This seems pretty healthy to me. My DD7 eats more than this, I think. But she's really tall, so maybe she needs more calories?

[Anonymous]

Op seems like you are heavy on the sugar and carbs. Nutella isn't a lunch sandwich it is a treat.

[Anonymous]

It varies so i won't post what my kids eat, but i have an 10yr old who is prone to weight gain. Im a runner. When he puts on weight, i start asking him to run with me when i get home from work. With no changebin diet, he drops added pounds and slims back doen in a matter of 2 weeks. He aldo plays 2 sports, 4 practices/games a week. Hes just a boy that can pack on the pounds if he doesnt move ebough.

You mention recess..is this his only activity? My kid would be obese if that was all he did.

[Anonymous]

His lunches and snacks are absolute junk. Plus why so much dessert? Are you and your spouse overweight as well?

[Anonymous]

6.5 year old:

Breakfast: 1 egg with cheese, fruit
(Breakfast at school bc it is Title one): cereal, milk, fruit cup

Lunch: PBJ, banana, water

Snack: rice and seaweed

Dinner: noodles, meatballs, carrot sticks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:His lunches and snacks are absolute junk. Plus why so much dessert? Are you and your spouse overweight as well?

Maybe you misread the question. It was: "What does your elementary schooler eat on an avg day?" not "Make judgmental comments about what my elementary schooler eats on an avg day."

[Anonymous]

OP tour kid's diet looks okay. Ignore people who recommend low carb, kids need carbs for energy.

You say he's got high BMI but BMI alone isn't an indicator of health. What is his growth trend? Does he actually have a big belly or is it evenly distributed all over?

[Anonymous]

My boys are both at the very end of the weight AND height scales.

DS is 5:
Breakfast - a bread item, a protein, fruit (small apple, half a banana, small orange, cup of grapes, etc.), and milk (about 3/4 cup or so). Yesterday's breakfast was yoplait yogurt, Kashi cereal bar, apple, and milk.

Typical lunch - half a sandwich, about 1/2 - 3/4 Goldfish, pretzels, or similar, 3/4-1 cup fruit, 1/2-3/4 veggies, and milk. Occasionally, there is a small treat in the lunch, like 4-5 jellybeans or a peppermint, depending upon behavior.

Snack varies from a snack-type item to fruit to nuts and raisins. We try to keep the snack to around 100 calories or so and try to buy more healthy snack items like Kashi products, or things with lower sugar content, or things with minimal dyes and unnatural ingredients.

Dinner is similar to lunch, but more veggies and less bread. My older son usually asks for seconds, which we try to keep an eye on.

Small pre-bedtime snack.

Typically, my kids drink water and milk. They occasionally get juice and hot cocoa.

I've got two boys, who typically like to eat and love to talk. They have come home with uneaten food. I've warned them that their main focus during lunch is supposed to be eating and that if lunch is not eaten because they chose to talk and goof around during lunch, then I would pack less food. It has seriously cut down on the amount of uneaten food.

[Anonymous]

I suspect the child needs to be more active. Limit video games to weekends only and find a physical activity he can do most days of the week. I also agree that you are feeding him too much processed food.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. Thanks for the advice and suggestions.

Over the last year my boy's BMI ranged from low of 75% and high of 87%, although ups and downs, looks like he's back up again. He was a big kid at birth and never a skinny kid. He's stalky and strong @62lbs and picks up and walks around with his 37lb sister with ease. He does loves sports and running, although harder to get out to playgrounds the chillier days of Winter. During Spring/Fall season, he's doing some sort of sports activity 3-4x a week. I think his chubbiness is more noticeable to me recently as his face has gotten a lot rounder, otherwise, pretty distributed over all, no love handles or anything.

I'm going to try to cut out more of the sugary snacks, encourage thoughtful portion control and also reduce late night eating and see how that goes.

[Anonymous]

Stalky?

How tall is he?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stalky?

How tall is he?

49.5" the last time I checked.

[Anonymous]

9 year old:

Breakfast: not a big eater. Milk and maybe some oatmeal.
Morning snack: cheese stick and a few pretzels.
Lunch: tortellini with pesto, steamed broccoli, v8 juice (small can), some sort of yogurt or kefir.
Pm snack: goldfish or pretzels (after care) doesn't always eat this.
Dinner: chicken, steamed veggie, rice maybe. Milk
After dinner snack: toast with sunbutter and jelly or a yogurt or a cheese stick.

Always has something after dinner.