DD was pretty chubby in 2nd grade but she always ate very healthy and exercised a lot. It was just her growth pattern that had not caught up. But I think because of the chubbiness comments by friends (neither DH not I ever made a comment to her about weight or what she ate), she started not just eating healthy but obsessing and reducing how much she ate. By 6th grade she was 5'2' and weighed 67 lbs. Though counseling, she is now in 9th grade an no anorexia. My point is, kids grow differently. If DD is eating healthy do not do anything to make them obsess about diet. Please, it is totally scary if they take dieting to the extreme. My daughter looked like a skeleton.

My DD is a year round high energy dancer and the 1st year she started I noticed she was getting slim (too slim in my opinion), so to balance things out I started feeding her extra food (nutritious and calorie dense). She eventually was able to maintain her weight.

Yes, I think in kids exercise will help them lose or not gain weight. This is due to higher metabolism in many kids and being active and burning calories. You can't compare a kid with adults at all. Everything is different, and the reason doctors say that is because they see kids, a lot of kids, they see active kids who are slim or fine in weight and they see non active kids who tend to be heavier. These sedentary kids are a relative novelty a few decades old, otherwise kids would've walked, biked, worked in the fields non stop. If your kid needs to lose weight then your kid needs to start moving.

Anonymous wrote:My doctor always tells my kid to avoid sugars, junk food, and juices and to be active.

what does that have anything to do with a kid losing weight?

My doctor always tells my kid to avoid sugars, junk food, and juices and to be active.

My son's friend did this. Realized he was fat because he was sedentary. After a loooong effort, he is neither.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD definitely slims down during sports season, dropping a pant size or two. Not sure if there is actual weight loss but assume so. Makes us want to do what we can to encourage DD to continue in sports year-round.

What sport does she play and how old is she?

Soccer and cross-country

Anonymous wrote:My DD definitely slims down during sports season, dropping a pant size or two. Not sure if there is actual weight loss but assume so. Makes us want to do what we can to encourage DD to continue in sports year-round.

What sport does she play and how old is she?

OP why did you ask? are you trying to help your child/ren lose or maintain weight? or just out out curiosity?

anyway, from the experience of my own child, to maintain, exercise is good enough, to lose weight, it's all about eating (assuming normal activity level).

Is the child generally eating healthfully? If so I wouldn't worry much. They go through so many physical changes in puberty. I know so many pudgy kids who completely thinned out by the end of high school.

My DD definitely slims down during sports season, dropping a pant size or two. Not sure if there is actual weight loss but assume so. Makes us want to do what we can to encourage DD to continue in sports year-round.

What 7:16 said.

OP here. When I say lose weight I don't mean that they actually need to go down in pounds. I would consider maintaining weight until their height catches up to be the same thing.

It's also because grow vertically and can lose some girth while maintaining weight. So getting a kid to move their body will hopefully create life long healthy adults with a good relationship with food. Obviously if an overweight kid is drinking sodas all day and eating nothing but lucky charms then adding in healthier foods and taking out the empty calories will be as helpful as signing them up for soccer. But putting a kid on a "diet" like a stereotypical 40 year old mom with low metabolism is on (carrot sticks and cottage cheese), then you're setting your kid up for failure.

All of the advice I read regarding kids and weight loss says to emphasize increasing physical activity instead of diet, but in my own experience, exercise does nothing to help me lose weight, it's all diet. Is it really different for kids? My suspicion is that doctors are more likely to emphasize exercise, because they're afraid that if the parents emphasize diet and weight loss too much the kids could develop an eating disorder. I understand this fear, but I can't help thinking that simply adding exercise and not doing much to cut down on calories isn't enough to help a kid lose weight.