My 7 yr old dd is 4 ft 5 inches and 79 lbs. She is considered overweight. I am starting to get concerned because she is sneaking food upstairs and is hungry all day long. I'm not sure if this is a growth spurt or a new problem. She went from not eating hardly anything to eating all the time.

At first I was making her regular snacks...I make nearly all of her snacks, but recently I decdied that if I am going to make her snacks, I need to provide healthy snacks for her. So though I still have some frozen cupcakes that I recently made, I also made some Banana Oatmeal muffins for her and will be making some Strawberry Banana Bread for her...I also got some fresh fruits. Dd is not low carb, but I am and so I don't want to rely too much on breads with her, even though their healthy choices for normal eaters.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is this normal or is this something I should be concerned with? I don't want to put dd on a low carb diet, but she does eat most of the same meals as me...it's her snacks I'm worried about and her constant hunger and her sneaking of foods lately that worries me.

She may be getting ready for a serious growth spurt

All three of my kids went through this and would get chubby, then shoot up 4 inches in three months and be normal weight again. I'd talk to the pediatrician about it though, just to make sure.
Maybe try some vegetables and dip instead of bread? Most kids really love that, and if she's not low carbing the rest of the day, it'll at least keep the sugar portion of her diet down.
My kids have always been big eaters, and all of them ended up near normal weight. Lucky them.

Good luck

I share the same experience as Rosie -- my kids would eat big-time before growth spurts, go up in weight to the point where they were probably overweight on the charts, and then grow several inches without gaining any weight, which would put them at a normal weight. At ages 14 and 18, neither has a weight problem.

On the other hand, I'd be concerned if your daughter is truly sneaking food. Why does she feel the need to sneak? It sounds like it could be the beginning of an eating disorder and I'd address that behavior right away. If I were you (and I realize everyone does this differently), I'd make sure that she understands she is allowed to eat as much as she wants when she wants, as long as she gets a somewhat balanced diet that includes healthy foods. If she is sneaking, something has given her the idea that she doesn't have that right. I always enforced the rule that all eating had to be done in the kitchen at the table. The kids could eat when they want, and they could have snacks between meals when they were hungry, but I didn't want to clean up crumbs all over the house and I didn't want them mindlessly snacking when they were doing other things. Making them eat only at the kitchen table prevented all sorts of bad habits, like eating in front of the television set (since we don't have a tv in our kitchen).

Also, check to make sure that your daughter is getting enough of the types of foods that fill her up. It sounds like her snacks are very carb heavy. While she doesn't need to go lowcarb, snacking on cheese and other high protein snacks would probably be good for her.

Great ideals!!! Yes, the carb heavy thing bothers me...probably more now because I'm lowcarb than it would before. I don't want her eating too much of them. I have fruit, I have some veggies and cheeses. Being overweight-(but lowcarbing)-makes me more sensitive to this too...I don't want to her to end up like me but I don't want to put any negative attitudes towards eating and her body on her either.

4'5" and 79# is considered overweight? It sounded as if you were describing my daughter until you said that. The title of your thread hit home like a bag of rocks. lol But To me my daughter looks like a bean pole. Everyone calls her skinny-minnie. She's off the charts for her AGE but it's porportional. I would recommend clarification from a pediatrition (kid dr, however you spell it) on the weight. I hate to hear kids say "I'm on a diet."

My son does the same thing unless I ease up on his carb intake majorly. If I keep the high carbed foods he likes, here at the house, he's constantly eating. I have hypoglycemia, chronic low blood sugar, and wanting to much every hour to two hours (if not sooner) is a side effect of the sudden blood sugar drop.

If you stable her out with more protein laden snacks and ease up on the major carbs, then you'll probably see less want to snack all the time.

There are some wonderful snack cakes, and bars, you can make using homemade Almond flour. You can grind your own Almonds to do this. Food processors work great. And you can make it diabetic style so that after she eats it, there will be no sudden sugar drop.

ditto what everyone else said. One of my daughters NEVER eats.. I am serious when I say that. She MIGHT eat a totaly of 300 calories a day some days, but when she is fixin' to have a growth spurt.. WATCH OUT 'cause she does some serious grubbin'. It sounds bad that she think she needs to hide her food and sneak it into her room. Maybe just keeping healthy foods around and that is it will keep her eating good stuff. Also when my daughter is eating like that, I always let her eat whenever she wants not just at meal time.

A thought here. Does your daughter like cheese? Here's a wonderful, and easy to make, recipe for cheese crackers, but all you're using is just the cheese. She could even help you make them. There are even step by step pictures there.

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/cheezits.html

Also, scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see some wonderful, and low carb, recipes. One in the snack area has a recipe for the almond bars.
http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/menus.html

My son is almost 11 and weighs 80 pounds and suddenly just wants to eat all the time too. I just make sure that what he eats isn't carby and I let him eat what he wants. So he gets lots of fruits in like apples, strawberries and pears. Though I let him have his small junk food too it's so little that I'm not worried about it.

I figure if it's not in the house, he can't it eat and it can't harm him by causing him to gain weight.

He's also active, to the point he even likes using my stepper. Maybe you can find an activity for her that will be fun but also incorporates some jumping around to burn excess weight, like playing volleyball or roller blading. Make it fun so she doesn't see it as exercising and join her, that way you get exercise too and it becomes a family fun thing. You know!