Is your child obese - really? Are you doing anything about it?

[Tinker]

Just curious after all the news reports today. No-one ever seems to describe their own child as obese and yet some must be.

[Tinker]

\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3476939.stm| BBC link)

Here it is - about 9% in pre-school children

[Tinker]

Bugger, didn't preview.

Here

[GeorginaA]

Did anyone hear Ann Widdicombe on the Today programme this morning - she sounded so sensible.

It worries me that when you hear reports like this, it's just going to get the wrong people feeling neurotic about weight. You hear of preschoolers getting put on low fat restrictive diets which is just wrong wrong wrong.

You wait, next week there'll be a big report about how anorexia and bullimia are on the rise and then they'll wonder why...

[motherinferior]

Spot on, Georgina. I reckon that eating disorders of both kinds - fat-making and thin-making - are all linked in with an idea of a 'norm' that's actually quite abnormally thin; we (women particularly) don't have a healthy idea of the right size to be, and so all self-esteem/self-control goes awry.

Sorry, I'm probably not expressing myself very clearly, I just get very angry about it all.

[Coddy]

girl over the road is but then her MUm is too

the queen of black lycra

[FairyMum]

I think it's really important that this is being high-lighted. My DD is hassling me to give her chocolate and crisps in her lunchbox. She gets a sandwich (brown bread), fruit and yoghurt and that's it. I can't believe people send their kids to school with biscuits and crisps. Also, people eat far too much ready-meals, sausage-rolls etc...The other day I saw a baby drinking coke in her pram mid-week. Hello! Wake up! It just isn't healthy and I am not suprised children get obesed on a diet of sausage rolls and 6 hours of telly a day.

[Tinker]

I agree that kids on low-fat diets is not good but there are, undoubtedly, more "large" children today than there were when I was a child - and that can't be good either.

My daughter is a skinny so perhaps I shouldn't have started this thread

[handlemecarefully]

DD is fine at moment (but only 18 months). I am trying to raise her without food 'hang ups' (i.e. I will be low key about food and will allow her the occasional bit of chocolate etc - because totally denying these things might make her a bit obsessive about wanting them)...but have never had cakes, biscuits and chocolate readily to hand in the house. I don't routinely buy this stuff

My BMI pre pregnancy put me in the slightly overweight category (although not obese)- which is odd since I was size 12, running 3 times a week, and didn't look at all slightly overweight. I just weigh heavy! So, even the scientific measures like BMI are not wholly reliable

[Copper]

My ds1 was technically obese for a while (9/10/11)according to the BMI indexes. I used to console myself that as he got taller he would thin out - which he has to some extent. He is just off 12 and wears size 8 shoes, and is now nearly 5'5" so I think he is just big. Funnily enough, he seems to eat less now than he did before he grew taller. But he is still too big round the body. He is a bit tubby, but not what I would call obese. But he is far too much of a couch potato ... a couch sweet potato in his case because he is lovely

[GeorginaA]

My BMI (when not pregnant) makes me underweight - despite my doctor telling me that I was perfectly healthy it's amazing how many people think that it's perfectly acceptable to comment or make judgements on your diet/eating habits/whether you are anorexic (for the record, I'm not and never have been - I'm just naturally very slight).

I just can't help feeling that these reports don't target the right people. The people who feed their kids constant junk food (and I don't mean most parents who do their best to give a balanced diet and limit visits to MacDonalds to sensible treats etc) are just going to ignore any "scientific" advice. The people who are already neurotic about every morsel their child puts in their mouth are going to get more neurotic and be putting the poor kids on the weighing scales every night and giving their children a complex. The rest of us in the middle road are just going to be more anxious and yet again feeling that we can't do anything right! Sod that.

Left alone with moderate exercise and a moderately healthy diet, we all find our own perfectly natural and healthy shape. For gods sake don't give children another reason to yearn after looking like an airbrushed model in a glossy mag.

[GeorginaA]

Oh, and I'm just waiting for the HVs to get hold of this and give all the mums whose babies are at the top of the centile charts a hard time ... sigh

[Cam]

I think its lack of exercise that is causing so many children to be overweight. For example, when I walk my dd to Brownies (5 minutes walk max) we are always overtaken there and back by a car containing another Brownie who lives nearer than we do (3 minutes walk max). Yes, the child is obese. Seriously, it must take her parent longer to get their car out of the garage than to walk there.

[Pancake]

Having done a huge amount of work on the reasons for obesity two interesting thoughts:

1. One of the key reasons for obesity (later in life) is lack of love. People are overcompensating for lack of physical contact and friendship with food. It's become an emotional crutch.
   
2. Everyone is judged from birth with regards to size ie when someone announces a birth it's "what size was it and what was it" so from birth we're being judged by size. We then categorise children into "good eaters"/"fussy eaters" etc and so food is become and discriminator at that age (and even beforehand ie "how much milk does your child drink". All of which is natural but shows that size and food is a categorisation even in childhood!
   
   Not sure if I'm making any point but just wanted to get those facts down!

[handlemecarefully]

My dd will be okay then because she is lavished in love

[handlemecarefully]

Oh - have just re-read...you mean this only applies as an adult if you are lacking in love!

[Mummysurfer]

My children aren't obese but I will be soon.
today I've had
1 hot cross bun with an inch of butter
1 creme egg
2 pasties

and now I can't find any chocolate but I've found Ds's choc spread and i've got a big spoonful.

[Angeliz]

Dp's family are all overweight so this does make me think about dd. My family are all tiny so hopefully she'll follow suit.
I was reading yesterday in a baby mag that if you are short and your partner is overweight then you have more chance of a low birthweight baby who will be obese in later life!!!
I then remembered why i stopped reading all the baby mags last time!!

[Browbeaten]

Of the all children in my dd's nursery class only two are noticeably overweight imho. One of them is a bundle of energy but has what I call baby fat and will probably become leaner as he grows. The other is driven everywhere and always has chocolate in her hand. I think at 3 or 4 it is too early to say who will be an overweight adult but the habits formed in the early years will have a bearing. My dh's friend's daughter eats nothing but McD's and is now really overweight to the point that the teachers have said something to them. They are insulted but to be honest we see her only now and then and were shocked at how large she is becoming however as I am spineless I wouldn't say anything about to them

[Jimjams]

I don;t think the diet is a problem per se. The British diet 50 years aog was far higher in fat (although portions were smaller) but people walked a lot more than they do today.

I sued to get laughed at for walking into town from my old house (just over a mile). hello? it was far easier to walk than load a pushchair into the car and drive and then have to park!

Crisps are one of the more nutritious things ds1 eats! SO I wish people would stop harping on about them (heard "crisps" shock horror ever 10 mins on the radio today). He's not overwieght anf the last time we went to McDonalds was last June in France on the way to catch the Roscoff ferry.

[Jimjams]

Anyone read DH Lawrence Sons a Lovers- the main character walks miles each day.

[suedonim]

It's a hard one, isn't it? I think there's no doubt some children are overweight. Some of my 16yo dd's friends are very fat, to the extent that I thought one 14 yo was pg! I was talking to my neighbour today and her dd is a dietician. She said that the standard of school food is so appalling, with chips often being the cheapest thing on the menu, and vending machines that sell choc and fizz that it's hardly surprising some children end up paying a price for their diet. Having lost weight myself while we were abroad, I have no doubt at all that it was the lack of choc biccies, crisps and other snacks that benefited me. But how you tread the line between healthy diet and eating disorders, I don't know.

Jimjams, I read S&L for O Level! I can't recall much about it now, though.