Fatness may be normal for your child. Your child may have inherited a somewhat fat, or just stocky, body type. Or your child may be getting ready for a growth spurt by plumping up. Also, you may not realize that babies and toddlers naturally have pot bellies and chubby little bottoms. It is important not to overreact to fatness by trying to change the way your child is growing.
Children naturally slim down as they get older.
If you try to get a child to eat less or exercise more, you could disrupt the normal slimming and make matters worse. The only way to tell if your child is too fat is by checking her growth chart. Your child's fatness is likely to be normal if she is consistently following a particular growth curve. Some professionals say children are too fat if the growth curve of their weight for height is at or above the 90th to 95th percentile. That guideline doesn't make sense if your child's growth has always been at that level.