to ask why would you overfeed your child?

I'd say it's likely that the parents have disordered eating and a terrible relationship with food, themselves.

I disagree it's about cheapness- own brand cereal is cheaper than chocolate.

I completely agree with you @ineedtoknowwhy. And I say that as an obese parent myself.

I have been extremely overweight since I was a young child. My parents are both also extremely overweight and definitely have a food=love attitude. They do not show affection in other ways. I never remember being cuddled or told I was loved as a child for example, but they’d buy me constant sweets etc. And they would remove these things as punishment which always led to me binging on everything I had for fear of losing it. We also didn’t eat as a family round a table or whatever, we ate watching tv or ate in our bedrooms.

Obviously I am an adult and responsible for my own wellness now. We do eat healthily, eat as a family and home cook all our meals. I have been a healthy weight in the past but am now overweight due mainly to an autoimmune disorder which makes it very hard for me to lose weight. And I very much admit to still falling into cycles of disordered eating when im feeling stressed etc.

I don’t think it’s fair to assume that obese parents mean the kids will be obese or that they eat necessarily unhealthily at home. You don’t know everyone’s circumstances.

I now have a DC of my own (4yo) and I am very conscious of how he is raised around food. I home cook our meals, we eat as a family at the table as much as possible, DS didn’t eat any sugary foods until he was old enough to ask for them. I don’t buy much in the way of prepackaged snacks. He loves to help cook too so we make a lot of meals together and he also picks some of our family meals each week.

I do also try and not restrict his foods (to an extent). I do believe it’s important not to label foods as “good” or “bad”. We talk about how food is like petrol for our bodies (he’s obsessed with cars 😅) and some foods are “supercharged” petrol and give us energy for longer and that’s what is better for our bodies to have most of the time. Other food still gives us energy but not as much. If we’re on a day out and he asks for a cake/ice cream etc then I’m absolutely fine with that - I never label it as being a “treat”.

I don’t drive so we walk everywhere. We live a 25 min walk from nursery, so walk there then I walk a further 20 mins to work. Then the same in reverse. It’s a 20 min walk to town or 25 mins to the supermarket. DS has been regularly walking these distances since was around 2/2.5.
He’s 75th centile for both height and weight, which he has been since birth. He’s 4.5 currently and wears age 4-5 clothing (occasionally a 5-6 in jumpers as he likes them baggy).

I know people will look at me as a plus sized parent when we’re out and about and judge the fact that my kid has sweets or an ice cream in his hand and thing that’s what he gets all the time but that’s far from the reality.
I do believe that half the time it must be lazy parenting or taking the easy way out and avoiding tantrums etc. But try not to judge other families that I see as I have no idea what their day to day looks like. There could be SEN in the family (both parents and children), allergies, lack of education around nutrition etc.

What world do you live in. There are many many single parents out there struggling.

My dd has a friend who is lovely and a great mother, but is obese with an unhealthy relationship with food and feeds her children tons of junk food. As someone said I think food represents love

Would you be similarly judgemental about my son though? He frequently has chocolate cereal, or toast with biscuit spread, for breakfast, yet just happens to be very slim. Some kids are.
As an overweight person, I’ve certainly been judged as having an unhealthy diet when I don’t actually enjoy crisps, chocolate, cake very much. My thing is good home cooked food and meals out, just too much of them. Yet that doesn’t make you immune to the ‘eating five mars bars in a row’ sort of comments. As a fat person, you don’t even order a cake in a cafe or take a biscuit from the office tin because you know someone is going to look and say ‘oh that’s why then, look at her, no self control’. Which again can lead to disordered eating.

I may be simplifying things a but here but my understanding is that 1 kg of weight is equivalent to 7000 calories and this would be the same for an adult or a child. So 35 days at eating an excess of 200 calories would put on a kilo. It’s not hard to eat an extra 200 calories a day. An extra snack and a juice box. It’s not necessarily ‘bad’ food just extra food which adds up over time.

I work in a preschool that operates for 3 hours only. We have a snack half way through and children bring their own lunchbox. We have a healthy food policy so no sweets biscuits chocolate etc. It always shocks me how much food the children are given. Some have a piece of fruit, crackers, a yoghurt and some cheese, for example. I'd say that's about average. Some have a full sandwich/ bagel/wrap, plus yoghurt or a smoothie. These are 3 and 4 yr olds who have already had breakfast and are going home for lunch and are eating almost an adults lunch portion for a mid morning snack. The parents often show concern that a child isnt eating all their snack and query this with us, like they have a fear something terrible would happen if the child ate less. The parents are mostly slim and healthy weights and for some kids the food is healthy with lots of home made stuff or chopped up veg and protein etc, but the quantities are totally disproportionate.

I agree OP, it's not fair on the poor child.

At a soft play recently, my DM pointed out an obese boy of about 9, who was eating the biggest plate of chips. He then proceeded to drink a huge cup of Coke, and some crisps. 😖😳 OK, his food was probably a treat during the half term at the soft play, but it does make me really worry about the fact that theree are some children whose parents are very much feeding them junk almost every meal time.

The dad just sat on his phone most of the time, and the poor boy looked quite red in the face and out of breath running around after.😪

My mother enjoyed feeding me. She was seriously weird about it. Even when I was an adult, she would watch me eating, as if she was eating every mouthful with me. She didn’t eat much herself but she was always forcing food on other people.

I’m 44 and learned absolutely nothing of use or relevance for cooking at school (which was a very good comprehensive). We did have some classes, but they were few and far between, and were things like “design a meal for a diabetic”, or making cakes. I didn’t learn any relevant food skills that have stayed with me. All my cooking skills have come from my mum and self-interest, and now - with kids - a desire to ensure they eat a well balanced and healthy diet.

You asked how they knew what they were missing out on. Well, that's how.

Any sensible strategy for healthy eating cannot in most cases be based on keeping children entirely ignorant of the existence of sugary or highly processed foods. It's just not practical in the majority of cases. And no, that doesn't necessitate feeding anyone chocolate for breakfast 🙄.

I genuinely had puppy fat aged 8_12 but soon slimmed off. I wasn't huge. I went dancing and horseriding and played outside actively. I was also only really chubby and wasn't over fed. We had healthy, home cooked meals. At school I can remember 2/3 girls in secondary who were significantly overweight. A couple a bit chubby. No boys were overweight as i remember . I went to a huge comprehensive in the leafy suburbs.

SEN children are morbidly obese and live off convenience foods because “they live in the real world as opposed to being kept in some artificially sealed bubble with no nursery, school, busy working parents, older siblings, relatives doing childcare, meals out, playdates, parties etc. to disturb their perfect ignorance”?

I went to nursery, school, play dates, had parents with their own businesses, had no other childcare support, siblings, meals out and most certainly attended parties, wedding, etc.

I was not obese. Neither were my siblings! In fact, one of my siblings has ADHD and is not and never has been obese. My cousin has autism, again, not obese. Every child is different, and I’m sure everyone with autism/ ADHD/ SEN has different needs etc but it cannot be used as an excuse for dangerous morbid obesity?

It was a genuine question. Call it ignorance if you want to but that achieves nothing. I just simply cannot understand how any parent, regardless of SEN or not, can feed their child chocolate for breakfast.

Largely (no pun intended), 99% of the time , if a child is overweight, it's ultimately neglect which amounts to abuse. Sorry. If your kid is fat, it's normally your fault.

I'm sure nursery would have something to say if she was going in every morning with a face full of chocolate and clothes that don't fit!!

Because they live in the real world as opposed to being kept in some artificially sealed bubble with no nursery, school, busy working parents, older siblings, relatives doing childcare, meals out, playdates, parties etc. to disturb their perfect ignorance?

It's abuse plain and simple, lazy parenting as adults we are the ones that decide what our children eat we buy it we feed them it's completely on us and I would be judging aswell .
The child may have a medical issue but feeding junk is just irresponsible when your child is already obese

Once, years ago, I was living in my great-grandparent’s house out at our ranch when they hired a new man to help my dad. His family moved into the little house not far from the back of mine.
I wanted to be a good neighbour, so I bought a lovely fresh strawberry pie that was heaped high and beautifully glazed and walked back to say welcome to the neighborhood.
An older woman answered the door and invited me inside and there at the kitchen table sat an obese little girl - maybe 4 or 5, but terribly overweight. Grandma was fixing her afternoon snack - a tray full of chicken nuggets.
It was 4:30pm.
That little girl weighed as much as a girl twice her age, I’m sure of it. Even her forehead was fat, I’ll never forget it.
And I’ll bet grandma fed her out of love.
From that day on I took flowers as gifts everywhere I went.

It feels as if you want to bitch about this child and the family and this is the way to do it, with faux wide-eyed naïveté.

Sounds like defence of completely anonymous people disguised under "be kind". Although of course, not kind to OP who you're accusing of bitching.

The child isn't necessarily being "overfed". Even chubby kids need to eat. But it certainly sounds as if she's being given the wrong foods. That might be a lack of education in why the right nutrition is so important for young children - it might be a case of replicating what they were always given and what they eat now.

You accuse me of selectively choosing a couple of sentences out of context but apparently you ignoring what OP has said about this person; Her face is always covered in chocolate (at 8 in the morning!) and she is always holding some sort of biscuit or chocolate, is ok? "Sounds as if" and "isn't necessarily 'overfed'" also sounds a bit different from "clearly being fed the wrong things".

As PP said, it might be a misplaced way of showing love - that's really common.
As she gets older, the buggy won't be an option so presumably she'll be more active which might help

Yeah it might be, but the end result is the same - the child is overweight and unhealthy. Not to mention - "presumably" she'll be more active? Yeah maybe, who knows? Not really relevant is it, the conversation is about this child now and why her parent allows her to stuff her face with chocolate every morning.

As she's wearing clothing that is visibly too tight/too small, are there issues around money? Crap food is unfortunately often cheaper than nutritious options.

Ditto my comment above.

I'm going to ignore the obvious questions about SEN, but it is worth considering whether this may be a factor.

Why? You've pulled out every other possible reason this kid is fat and covered in chocolate everyday, why not offer up that one as well?

Better? I didn't address every single point in your previous post because I couldn't be arsed, but it's annoyed me that you've come back to your carefully crafted post that IMO hits every single reason for why this couldn't possibly be anyone's fault. At the end of the day, the parents have eyes, they can see their child is fat even if it's only in comparison with other children. And to not change habits like chocolate at breakfast time is obscene. IMO of course.

YANBU

Who goes to a petrol station for fresh fruit and veg and meat or is it very rural where you are?

Some people have reference potential SEN as a reason for being morbidly obese with the connection being they may only eat certain foods.

Genuine question, how does this issue arise? I was never allowed “beige” food as a child. I never knew what I was missing out on because it was just never an option. Similarly, I know parents who do not allow their children any sugary drinks/ chocolates or sweets to save their teeth. Again, they won’t know what they are missing out on.

So how do some children with SEN end up only eating beige/ convenience foods?

My son is overweight and on the 99th centile. He looks absolutely fine with his clothes on but not so much without. He is obese so I do look afresh at 8 year olds waddling around in men's clothes.

They are all obese. It's scary.

Ds has severe SEN and his stomach doesn't talk to his brain. It's a real issue but I want him alive still at 30 so he isn't going to mens clothes at 13. He's being monitored.

Mention diet and people around us get very upset so I can see how it is totally fine to let your 8 year old weigh ten stone

Because the parent is too lazy to parent so just feeds her to shut her up