Have you seen the Capri Sun that is flavored water? I buy thta to put in my kids lunches for school. There is also the 10 calorie Kool-AId Jammers.

Stacy - I agree totally - I give those to savannah the flavored water drinks with only like 10 calories and she loves them!!!

Thanks everyone

I just dont want my family being unhealthy.I was an overweight teen and it was NOT fun.I DO NOT want my daughter(or son if he ever has the problem) to have to go through that.She has always been thin.A cheerleader this year(6th grade).I just keep seeing her growing bigger and bigger and people laughing at her.She says her friends wouldnt do that or people wouldnt do that.I told her that next year when she goes to junior high its ALOT different than grade school.

I am going to start this at my next grocery shopping day! I am sitting them down tonight and asking them what kind of food they like besides junk(not letting on to my plan).Then once I get honest answers I am going to lay it all out there!!

I am no longer buying crap.I am buying these healthy food you have just mentioned and some others for you to try.If you dont like it that is tough.I want you to be healthy and you are not going to get that way by eating junk!

I think I am going to continue to buy koolaid just the SF kind.They can have a glass of that or something else if they chose with meals.All other times it will be water,juice,milk.

I know they will eat,graham crackers,PB,yogurt,string cheese,lean meats,lite cheeses,popcorn,pretzels.My son will eat about every veggie and he likes bananas,watermelon,apples.My daughter doesnt like any veggies but green beans.She likes all kinds fruit.I am not going to change the way they eat at school just yet.I am going to start at home first.

What do you all think of SF popsicles for the summer?

Oh and for a treat each week they can get something from the ice cream truck that passses through our subdivisionor I will make a batch of brownies or oatmeal cookies.Or is that bad?

I think I will continue to buy poptarts for my son.He eats them in the morning and for snacks some too.My daughter doesnt like them so she wont be eating them.Im just going to say that these are what he eats for breakfast cause he eats them as he walks to school.I am going to buy the lowfat kind though and make it a little better.

Are them capri sun 10 calorie drinks expensive?maybe I could have them for their meals instead of koolaid

Angelica,
I'm with Deets and Heather and all the junk food-bashers. Being skinny doesn't mean you aren't other getting negative effects from eating junk. It decreases energy and can cause mood problems to be eating so much sugar. His metabolism will catch up wtih him in adulthood anyway. I would buy the baby fruit puffs, veggie crackers, and cereal bars by Gerber (the pop tarts may ruin the baby for veggies or healthier foods eventually, they are loaded with cholesterol and sugar, plus bro and sis will steal her food).

You keep saying you feel mean, but I think it would be more unfair for you to show more concern for your health than your family. Don't let them or anyone else make you feel bad. Junk isn't a reward...it is an easy way out.

My DS (2) gets : unsweetened applesauce, nonsugared yogurt, apples, bananas, grapes, drained and rinsed mandarin orange sections, berries, cheese, raisins, and pb crackers for snack. The pb crackers are the only "fattening" thing and he gets one per day or less.

My older nephews get string cheese, dry cereal, and 100 cal packs, and sugarfree yogurt for snacking. Mostly they like to pull leftovers out, though.

my opinion is feel the skinny boy high caloric healthy foods, peanut butter., raisin snacks, pastas and white breads...and give the rest of the family healthy snacks...banana with chocolate (lite) syrup...apple w/ honey...pretzles (handful), nuts (handful), ff pudding or jello...as for really good stuff, make sunday the day they can pick a treat...a candy bar, a small bad of chips, a slice of pie, or ice cream after dinner or lunch...i wouldnt keep it in the house and per se let one boy have it and the rest not...i was raised in a house where candy was hidden and only certain ppl were allowed and it made me feel really bad, and made me want it more that i would steal lose change and buy brownies and chips when no one saw, like on the way back from school...i just say teach the whole family healthy eating, whether thin or not! plus thin doesnt mean healthy...you dont want your son to learn unhealthy habits and be unhealthy b/c he looks too thin..it will catch up...a lot of boys are thin and tall and they grow into their own bodies...make foods he likes which he might eat more of, but on a decently healthy side where everyone is allowed to have some! good luck!

I have been buying nutragrain bars for the baby lately.She loves them

Angelica -- I am feeling your "pain" -- I have a 9 year old daughter and we are going through some of the same struggles -- I mean she is so young, and I don't want her to start "dieting" but I want her to make better choices in regards to her snacks (and actually not have multiple "snacks" in an afternoon) My DD is about 5ft tall and I weighed her over the weekend and she was at 104lbs and she is starting to get a good sized belly on her, she is up to a girls size 16, and she can wear my sisters size 5 hand me downs (Oh I hate my sister somedays ) I also don't want her to grow up with the "dieting circle" I want her to learn now what I wish I would have learned at her age, like sitiing and eating a bag of chips is NOT a good idea -- So I have decided that I am goiing to only keep healthier snacks in the house and they are limited to 1 snack between after school and supper -- so they better pick something filling

I also agree wholeheartedly that your thin son does not "need" the snacks and junk food like the doctor suggested. There are healthier alternatives that your son can eat to try to keep his weight up, that are not adding trans fats, cholesterol, and sugar to his diet. Thin people have heart attacks, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cancers that could have been avioded by regular exposure throughout their lives to the natural cancer fighting properties in fruits and vegetables.

For one, have you thought of possibly getting some nutrition shakes like Boost or Ensure for him to drink once a day? Basically, just giving him a little extra nutrients and protein in a quick drink form. It would be a quick, painless way to get in about 200 extra calories each day.

As far as getting kids to eat healthy, I really do think that part of it is in the "presentation" of the healthy snacks. A bag of celery down in the crisper doesn't really look so good-but if you have them already washed and cut into sticks, and served with a spoonful of peanut butter-it looks a little better.

The same goes with fruit. I often cut up an apple into pretty slices on a plate, and give it to my kids with a spoonful of peanut butter, or fruit dip, as an after school snack. It is much more kid friendly than the whole apple hidden in the fridge bottom.

Also-I understand that small children need softer foods-but there are healthier alternatives to Newtons. My son when he was 1-2 years old loved small slices of banana cut up. In the health food section, there are also the natural and organic snacks meant for preschoolers-cereal bars, crackers, etc.

Another important thing, besides the food, is to encourage family activity for everyone. My husband and I take short walks around the neighborhood with the children when it is nice. Maybe your daughter would go on a walk with you a couple of times a week?

At this point in the children's lives-it is best to promote "health" in general, rather than stressing that one child needs this and this to gain weight, and the other child should not have this and this because they need to "lose" weight.

If your kids have portion control issues, my sister buys those snack size ziplocs and fills them herself. One of my nephews thinks a bowl should be filled to be a serving...as long as it is something he likes

one other thing is, when we reached a certain age my mom stopped preparing for us, and thats how we began to prepare unhealthy stuff...maybe if you still tried to prepare healthy stuff for them, the snacks that is, they might actually like some of them and do it on their own..pb and carrots and others i listed above...
i wish my mom was concerned like you are now, i guess we'd be in antoher place right now...so its great what you are doing...i wish you great luck implementing some new rules!

I agree. I think that kids need to learn that a serving of something isn't "half the bag".

Love the Boost idea! He could drink it on the way to school, too.

The organic section does have really good toddler snacks...whole wheat, fruit sweetened kind of stuff. I bought these awesome cereal bars that were being discontinued for a SONG. DS LOVED them, but of course they were discontinued at that point

MY DH is a lot like a kid when it comes to trying new foods. His parents never exposed him to many fruits or whole grain kind of stuff. It was basically meats, cooked to death veggies, junk food, and white carbs. I fed him yogurt for the first time this year...and he LOVES it.

My husband was raised the exact same way.

I literally hate to stay over there, because I have to bring my own bottled water, fruit if I want any, etc. The only time my MIL EVER buys fresh fruit noone is allowed to eat it-because the bananas are cooked into muffins, the strawberries/apples and such are for making pies for the church dinner...they NEVER have fresh fruit just to eat. They also have the canned "cooked to death" vegetables. A salad is not a salad unless it is loaded with high fat ranch and a boatload of cheese.
All the meats are usually fried as well. She has an extra fridge in her garage, where she keeps all sorts of sodas for company. Anyone who is over is welcome to go out and graba Pepsi/Mountain Dew/Coke/Sierra Mist/whatever...it literally took me over 6 years of badgering before she started having a Diet Coke or two out there for me...and I think the only reason then was being pregnant with our second, and DH telling them I was a gestational diabetic and could not have the straight shot of sugar while I was expecting.
My MIL thinks I am "mean" because I don't give the kids junk 24 hours a day. My kids LIKE carrots, sliced fruits, and grilled, lean meats. They LIKE 1% milk, and 100% fruit juice instead of Kool-Aid. You would think I was torturing them or something.
I have had to treat my husband like a kid with new foods as well. I told him he came to me with the palate of a 4 year old. Believe it or not, he was eating dried dates the other night for a snack...and last night he had an organic Cameo apple...

Oh...btw...My friend's daughter was starting to gain weight and her 2.5 year old was having 20 oz of oj a day! She cut it back (I let mine only have 4 oz like the doctor reccommended) and her daughter was back to normal (no tummy poking out) in a month. Juice can be healthy, but it is just like an all natural soda in relation to sugar. That's why juice glasses from back in the day or incredibly tiny (like 6 oz). I'd keep a hawkeye on the juice if you keep it around.

I probably sound militant (like Deets' bootcamp), but I feel really strongly about this. I picked out healthy snacks when I was younger but I remember my dad making me put back juice and buy soda and chips instead...do not begin to ask me his reasoning, but I suspect it was because the juice was the same cost as both the other items and he thought it was a better deal. I started putting on weight like that at age 7 or 8 and had a lot of painful experiences as a result. I just cringe to think about my child going through that. I even have had to measure out his lowfat milk per day becausethe dr. said his BMI was getting too high and said he should get no more than 24 oz lowfat milk per day, but just doing that has thrown him into the 78th percentile (vs 90th) and now he is "healthy weight" again. It is great that you are worried about your kids. At her age, I bet 15 or 20 lbs would come off really quickly just by eliminating all the sugar, and that would make a huge difference in her frame.

Off the soapbox...for now.

My inlaws have the garage fridge loaded with sodas, too! Are you sure you're not my sister-in-law? Mine have flavored water, at least. I guess that's a step above. I finally have started asking to make unsweetened tea because I can't take the soda.

When we go to my MIL and FIL, I bring 2 cases of water (plain, not sparkly or flavored) and a suitcase of fruit, pb, sometimes wheat bread. They maythink I am a kook, but I don't care. Last time when we came on emergency, I asked for some fruit for DS...I got like 5 bananas. Much better than the visit prior when she got globe grapes for DS. I ended up having to halve and seed every grape DS ate (and since it was the only fruit besides what I brought, that was a lot of grapes). She saw me and said "I didn't know those had seeds." I guess she has never eaten them...