From Holly, Child's Age 6 - 09/06/01 - IP#: 205.188.200.xxx  Click here to reply  
My 6-year-old weighs 62 pounds and is just under 4 feet tall, which puts her in the overweight category on the BMI site I checked out.
We watch no television at all during the school year and only the occasional video over the summer (maybe once a week). We are vegetarian and eat no fast food, as it's too hard to find anything we can eat.
Activity-wise, my daughter tends to like quiet, imaginative sorts of play... she can sit for hours constructing block stables for her model horses or "zoos" for her stuffed anumals. We are working on increasing the activity. She has started playing soccer and is excited about that, but it's only once a week, and parents bring THE WORST SNACKS to share at games. (Every parent takes a turn bringing snack.) She was also on our neighborhood swim team this summer, which she also liked. (Again, on the downside, the meets feature a LOT of food, and that became part of what she ended up liking about swim meets.) She likes to ride her bike, but there's not a lot of safe places to do that nearby. I should take her bicycling more, but I also have a 7-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, so it gets complicated. (I plan to put a baby bike seat on my bike this fall, and I'm hoping we'll be able to go ride bikes all together.)
She has a BIG appetite, especially at dinner time, so she often goes to bed with a lot of food in her tummy. She is also an emotional eater, which we're aware of and trying to work on. She doesn't like many vegetables, though I can get her to eat some with dips or dressings (celery and cream cheese; carrots and peanut butter, etc.) She likes salad, as long as it has cheese on it. She likes fruit to a point, but has to be convinced to eat it for a snack.
Food seems to be a constant source of stress for me, whether it's in relation to my kids or just myself. (I struggle with the same 10-15 pounds every few years... just don't feel good emotionally, physically or mentally when I'm at the upper end of my range.) With regard to the children, if I stick to my guns about healthy eating (for instance insisting on a second portion of salad or veggies if they want more pasta), everybody gets frustrated and upset and mealtimes are quite unpleasant. My two girls are EXTREMELY picky eaters, so it's hard enough to find anything they like at all, then I feel like I have to fight them not to pig out on it. Sometimes it seems that my 6-year-old would eat the entire serving bowl of spaghetti if I let her.
Sue -- I'm really excited to hear from someone who has met with success with this issue. I am not yet to the point of approaching this problem WITH my daughter and am wondering if/when I ought to. She has been upset by the size of her tummy before, and I've tried to tell her that she is beautiful and I love her no matter how big her tummy is, while also letting her know that there are things she can do to make it smaller if she wants to. I think she's just been too young to truly grasp that stuff so far. She just started first grade, and her best friend is this skinny little thing who can eat whatever she wants, so when the two of them are together at the friend's house, I think my daughter overeats. The friend's little sister told my daughter she was fat and had "fat nipples" and it still makes me tear up to think about that. She's only 6!!! She deserves to just be "normal" like everybody else.
I see this problem getting continually worse if I don't do something, but I don't know what else to do. I know we're coming into the age of teasing in a big way -- it started just a little bit toward the end of kindergarten, and I don't expect it will stop, since she's bigger now than she was last year, and a sensitive child by nature. Should I sit down and talk with my daughter about all of this, and try to get some sort of "program" going? She is a gorgeous girl, with long, thick blonde hair and sea-green eyes. She has a brilliant imagination and is the most kind, sweet, compassionate person you could imagine. I don't want to make her feel bad, but I also don't want her to feel bad because of her size. I'm sorry to ramble hear, but I've been actively searching for help on this issue and reading whatever I can get my hands on, and haven't found anything to be too helpful yet. I am hopeful that someone here (Sue?) might have some words of wisdom for me! Thanks for wading through all this.