Would anyone care if a kid was ultra skinny as long as she was healthy? (as this kid seems to be?)

I think this girl's diet is much more worrisome than her weight. Eating mostly fries and drinking Coke can't be healthy. (Assuming, of course, that the article is accurately reporting her diet.)

I thought she ate other stuff too, just wasn't into fruits and veg.

But, my theory is: none of my business as long as the kid is more or less happy and healthy. (no reports of actual unhealthiness were contained in the article, right? Just the OMG OBESITY thing?) None of my fucking business. Also, I don't care. She's not being ABUSED, for crying out loud, no matter what the obesity "experts" might try to tell us otherwise.

That little girl could not possibly look more normal and regular if she tried. Really.

One of the Brazelton books I read while prepping for Matilda said that toddlers can actually get by nutritionally on a mind-bogglingly limited diet--you should try to get them to at least take a bite of something different at every meal just to keep them used to the idea of trying, but they'll do okay on not much at all.

And, bless Google, here's the exact page in the exact book I was remembering.

That toddler could still stand to expand a bit past chips, but she's so very seriously not obese, and control is a huge, huge issue at that stage and the more her parents make a giant thing out of it the more invested she'll be in that little bit of control, and that can lead to huge food issues later on.

Hec and juliana, thank you!! We do have a TJ's and our friend who has lived in Seattle for the past 5 years or so just moved back to be a manager of the local store, so woohoo! I can also get some spanikopita.

juliana - if you could email me some stirfry recipes, I'd love them. It hink we're going to be doing a lot of it this summer.

One of the Brazelton books I read while prepping for Matilda said that toddlers can actually get by nutritionally on a mind-bogglingly limited diet

Yeah, I thought I'd heard something to that extent too, but didn't bring it up because I knew I couldn't cite a source. Bless you, JZ!

If a stone is 14 pounds, that baby weighs 30 pounds. Which is not particularly big for 18 months; I know an exclusively breastfed baby who is 24 pounds at 4 months, and Peter was 27 pounds at his 18 month checkup and dead average (50-60%ile). I mean, seriously? Picky toddlers of normal weight: not news.

I read the story and it says the baby is half a stone - 7 pounds - heavier than most babies her age. um ... that qualifies as "obese"?

And Junkfood Science has an item about Save the Children starting a campaign against childhood obesity. So an organization started to save children in danger of death from disease (or starvation) is now switching over to fighting children eating too much. And, of course, it all depends on how you define "obese" ... sigh ... I really can't wait (weight?) for this insanity to blow over.

I have no pickiness. My youngest sister,not many issues..the middle one,picky. but not really compared to others,just to the rest of the family

The article says that that girl is going to be featured on a program called "Britain's Biggest Babies." I've seen plenty of toddlers who looked much bigger than her. Also odd that the article focuses a lot on her mother, and just mentions her father once in passing.

Stir Fry Rice wine vinegar can be your friend: Unflavored rice wine vinegar, sweetener of your choice (but molasses is really good in stir fry) and soy sauce. The combo I use for two fairly often is 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 2 teaspoons molasses, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, a quarter teaspoon sesame oil and two teaspoons bland oil (like safflower), two table spoons wine or beer. Spicing: garlic, chinese five spice and ginger. If you are not watching sodium you add more soy sauce. If you are not watching calories you can add more oil and more molasses (but not a lot more molasses unless you like really sweet stir fry). Scale up for number of people you are cooking for.

The bottled sauces are also good, but very hard to control sodium or sugar with them. Mixing your own is easy, and gives you more control.