to ask why would you overfeed your child?

I've seen this o er the years with in laws and other Mums. I'll talk about one, my SIL. She herself was morbidly obese, having been allowed to do what she wanted, when she wanted. She,was pregnant at age 16, same pattern and let her DC help themselves to whatever they wanted whenever. She would take multi pack of crisps up to the bedroom, 2l bottles of cola etc. All lived in the same house and her Mum looked after the grandchild as Mum would sleep all day and disappear to friends to take drugs. So of course, her daughter became morbidly obese as well, stayed off school a lot, spent her weekends sleeping bit fortunately didn't pick up other bad habits. She became pregnant at 17, so the pattern continues...All on UC, buy takeaways often, self labelled victim attitudes.

My DH is the opposite of his sister, works hard, into fitness and we both have rules about food for own own DC. No eating in bedrooms, sugary treats at weekend, takeaway once a week max at weekend, encourage fresh air and activity.

It's difficult, I know a woman who has been overweight all her life and due to her constant going on about weight her daughter is bulimic. The trouble is bigger people eat bigger portions and unfortunately dish out similar portions to their kids. Though in some cases being overweight can be genetic.

Because she has terrible parent(s) who abuse their child.

My boys are both slim but not skinny and I find people comment on them being ‘thin’ - they really aren’t, they are what very active sporty children should look like! The eldest swims 5 times a week and does other sports as well (athletics, rugby/cricket, and surfing) and eats a healthy diet. My other son is a very slightly sturdier build but still slim as again he is very sporty and trains a lot (swimming, rugby, middle distance running, and surfing) and yet he seems so much slimmer than a lot of his primary school friends. A
mum at school the other day, whose son is the same height as mine, but is clearly obese, was boasting about how she has to buy him age 15-16 trousers and take the legs up. She was saying it proudly which surprised me. My son is tall-ish so is 11, in age 12-13 shorts and shirts, but her son needs the extra waist room not leg length.

So not only does the size of a lot of children these days shock me, but also their lack of fitness. The rugby club my youngest plays at, he is the only one who can run two laps of the pitch without stopping - even I can do that as a 44 year old recovering from cancer! But these 10 and 11 year olds can’t, and I guess it’s because they are much more sedentary than my children, who even when they aren’t at sports training, tend to play outside quite a lot. I think too much screen time, not enough physical movement and a poor diet is the cause of a lot of child obesity, and the reason behind that is largely lazy parenting unfortunately. I’m not perfect by any stretch but I am not a lazy parent.

Very brave OP 🫣

I know a women that lives near me. Both of her children are obese but her youngest daughter is extremely obese. It’s actually heart breaking because she’s only 7 and has full on breasts (fat breast not actual breasts). The Mum is obese but the Dad is not. The mum in the family is the one that dominates their household (mum very loud and forceful. dad quiet and happy if he can be left alone to play Xbox after work and smoke his rollies)

I honestly think for this household (and many others) it’s a lack of knowledge on how best to feed children, especially when it’s something that the adults struggle with. It’s bizarre though because the mum goes into the school complaining everytime someone bullies her daughter because she’s overweight and I’ve heard her say ‘I was bullied all my life because of my weight and it’s not nice’ yet the Penny hasn’t dropped that the way she can stop it is by helping her daughter with her weight. Honestly the poor thing can barely run, she’s always red faced and she wants dress up clothes that she can’t have because she’s too big 😞

I wonder if health professionals should be intervening to help them out

Working in a field where I tell parents their child is overweight them make suggestions on how they can help them eat better I can honestly say a lot of parents are either in denial or they feel bad for not making the child happy and feeding them their ‘favourites’. If a parent didn’t feed their child it would be neglect but over feeding is classed as ok.

Of course there maybe medical issues or SEN but a lot of it is lazy parenting or lack of education

My only remark re pushchair is I walk my son to nursery in his pushchair 1.2 miles away, he could never walk that.

Other than that I think you’re absolutely correct and it’s appalling letting your child get that big.

This is a kind of cruelty to children - really! it is depriving them of health in their future, and not only physical health, as they will likely have food issues that cause mental distress as well, and it will affect their whole life. There must be some way to intervene in the case of a 3 year old like this!

Dd3 was in the same class as the headmistress' son at primary school. His gm used to pick him up from school and greet him with a family sized bar of chocolate, a bag of doughnuts or a bag of cookies. He was very overweight!

@MrsB74as I said, I'm a food teacher. Yes there are lessons until the end of ks3 but after that it's not compulsory and even up to that point they may only do an hour a week for one term of the year.

Food education must be prioritised.

There is still food tech though and lessons on nutrition (my dc are at secondary school).

I was horrified when they told me what their classmates ate for dinner - they had discussed it as part of the lesson. Total beige diet, processed crap, pizza, McDonalds etc. every single night. Parents should absolutely know better in this day and age. No one is saying you should never eat pizza or chips, but every night? No wonder so many children are overweight, their gut biomes are completely buggered!

It’s easy to see why OP. I got royally slated for pointing out that a size 14 in women isn’t really considered slim and if people think it’s slim then we have a really distorted view of what is healthy.

The body positivity movement is seriously damaging people’s perspectives on healthy weights.

Always the usual drivel.. he is big boned like me, puppy fat, big for his age, he is a solid child, was born big, will grow into himself, I have no idea why he is so big, he eats the same as the rest of us, it's in his genes, he is predisposed to gain weight etc etc etc.

No Love, you feed him shit and too much of it and yes he is fat and also yes, it is child abuse.

How a mother can sit back and make every excuse in the world for why their child is fat and do nothing or worse still, deny that their child is fat and do nothing is beyond me. Have you not got eyes? Can you not see they are 3 times bigger than their peers? How can you sit and watch them waddle into school with their shit lunch and set them up for a life of obesity? It's bloody abuse, plain and simple.

Obviously this does not include children with medical issues like PWS.

I agree with Op, there was a really overweight girl in my son's year and I would see her being given a family bar of chocolate after school every night.

There's a mum at school like this. Her youngest daughter is huge, only 3 years old but in clothes for an 8 year old. Her legs are very big. She gets out of breath easily.My dd used to work with her mum who goes on and on about the doctors testing little one for diabetes.
The school is by a shop. I park outside the shop.Every single day, she comes out of the shop with handfuls of sweets. The other day it was a big bag of Squashums, a candy pizza and a bag of Haribo. Plus a small bottle of pop.
I may be being judgemental, but I grew up in a sweet shop- I'm nearly 57- and my whole life has been ruled by my weight.

You see it on here all the time. Any time a poster starts a thread raising what sounds like a reasonable concern re their child’s weight you get 10 posters asking them never to mention it to the kid as it’s puppy fat and they’ll grow out of it. It’s pure fantasy, even if the kid has a growth spurt then having a sedentary lifestyle or too big portions will catch up with them. There are ways of talking about food and health without calling your kid a fatso but there seems to be a real aversion to even talk about food intake.

I wish they would

I'm nc with my whole family now but at the time I was so worried,I rang them

Not out of spite but out of sheer worry about his health

They spoke to the parents and his school and then left it in the hands of them

The school tried to help and put them in touch with a dietician at our local hospital

The parents didn't engage,my mother laughed,my father pointed out that its not healthy (he's fine with food,but was shouted down) and they carried on as they are

My brother has type 2 diabetes,is at risk of a stroke and has been told he will die if he doesn't change his ways

He just laughs and carries on,his wife (my sil) thinks its no problem and her ds is 'fine as he is' and my mother carries on overfeeding him

All are unbelievably big and in denial-my brother cannot walk more than a few yards without having to sit down and my nephew is going the same way-hes unbelievably unfit as well as fat (his parents drive him everywhere so he doesn't really get any exercise)

I remember some petition (I'm going back a few years ago) online to stop p.e and games lessons at schools

Both these idiots signed it (as 'we hated pe and games so why should we put our child through it?')

without it,my nephew would be even bigger

Would social services step in in a case like this? The parents are building terrible ill-health into that poor child, which will have lifelong repercussions if not turned round now.

judgy pants?? Ooooo, offensive.

is this how you treat your children, to set them up for a life of bullying, rancid teeth, a shorter life span and chronic health problems?

I remember a family my lot went to school with

The whole family where massive-mum,dad,grandparents,auntie and the kids

The mother and aunt where dinner ladies at the school and I had to complain more than once because they would stand over the kids,barking at them to finish their lunches and refusing to allow the kids to leave the table until every scrap was eaten-even when the kids said they where full

Their kids where so fat,they had rolls for arms,legs and necks and I heard both mum and aunt moaning they where struggling to find uniform to fit and laughing because the kids where all in the widest fitting shoes (because their feet and ankles where so big)

You never saw those kids without some sort of food in their hands

Fast forward a few years and adult dd and I had gone to cosmos (an all you can eat) for a treat (this was a massive one off,it had just opened at the time and id taken her to celebrate her first job)

We happened to sit next to the youngest dd of the family above

As dd and I where finishing off our first plate,the young lady next to us was finishing her 7th

She'd piled each plate really high and ate so fast,there's no way she could have even tasted the food

Sadly,she was even bigger than I remembered

Ones just had a baby and the cycle will continue-they've already nicknamed her 'butterball' (she's a year old and they are struggling to find clothes to fit her)

Its a form of abuse-I've had days when it would have been easier to shove a bag of buttons in their hands to shut them up and we used to have 'picnic dinners' every Monday (sandwich,babybel,crisps and yogurt) as a once a week treat (the kids loved it) but the rest of the time it was home cooked meals and they where active,fit and healthy

"They want you fat and sick so their friends in Big pharma can peddle their medications to you."
Actually I don't believe this bit. There is no conspiracy between sectors. They just want you to buy more of their products so they make more money. So they make it addictive (which is reprehensible enough without looking for further evil plans)

Yes. I do . I simply said that it ‘SHOULD’ be something that the social services teams can deal with. It is abuse and neglect. That child will end up with cavities as well as already being obese - childhood obesity is a predictor of adult obesity and all the heart and health issues that flow from it. It is as serious a parental failing as not feeding them at all.

No need to patronise and admonish me over a system that will fail this child. Target your acid elsewhere.

This.

Sugar is incredibly addictive as are many UPFs, as long as Big Food has vast marketing budgets and is allowed to essentially ring fence the UK food industry those who have an inability to avoid or control their intake of UPFs will always be on the back foot. They want you fat and sick so their friends in Big pharma can peddle their medications to you.

oh bugger off judgy pants