to ask why would you overfeed your child?

My child is ‘unhealthy’… he’s underweight. He has ARFID. We pay a private dietician, have tried literally everything, but I can’t force feed him. So that’s a ‘what if’ I guess, but I genuinely don’t know what else to do. The result is still an unhealthy child.

You are being very judgemental, yes.

I do understand it though, and even as a parent who has struggled with two children who have had weight issues at times, I find myself judging other parents sometimes too - the family who go to Costa every morning before school for a hot chocolate and a chocolate pastry for example.

But I do think it's more complicated. There can be any number of reasons and they are often, in themselves, complicated. DH is an intelligent, well educated man but, for example, the first two are two that I think he is 100% guilty of and that have had an impact on our children at various stages. The third is definitely one I have had issues with.

Lack of knowledge
Food = love
Exhaustion from the constant battle when children are asking all the time
Exhaustion from life/stress/work etc
Neurodiversity
Allergies and food intolerances
Health issues
Other responsibilities removing the time/energy/inclination to deal with these issues
Lack of movement and exercise for young children due to changing norms in lifestyle
Over reliance on pre-made food due to cost/ time/ knowledge
A desire NOT to make food into a battle ground.
A desire NOT to make children thing food is "bad"

These are just a few that I can think of, off the top of my head.

For some parents it's to make things easier. There was a world War 3 in my house at 6:30 this morning because my 3 year old wanted ice cream. She didn't get it hence the tantrums, then we walked to nursery which is a 10 minutes walk but takes nearer half an hour with her stopping to smell every flower and say hello to every dog 😂.

Some people may just want the easier life or are in a rush. Not a choice I would make but I can see why sometimes.

I disagree with pp's saying it's down to poor education/deprivation. I mean yes, often - but not always.

A girl in my dc's school is morbidly obese. Her mum is very tall (6 foot) and also overweight, probably a size 16 - but she carries it well due to her height.

Her daughter is 8 years old and also very tall - a head taller than the rest of the class. But she is also incredibly overweight. She has rolls of fat, she's always red in the face, sweating and obviously struggling at the slightest exertion. She is quite literally twice the width of any other girl in her class. It's very sad to see.

Her mum is absolutely brazen and blind about it. She makes lots of comments about how all the women in her family are tall and strong and clearly dd is going the same way. She makes lighthearted comments about her and her dd wearing the same size tops nearly and it's lovely how they can bond and share some clothes now - the girl is 8! Also proudly talks about how her kids aren't fussy eaters, they're proper foodies etc.

Her mum has two degrees and works in the NHS in dermatology (clinical role). She is not uneducated or deprived. She's just fucking stupid, lazy and borderline abusive to let the kid get to the state she's in.

I have two opposing thoughts on this in that I do agree with you OP from what you've said and I also agree with OPs that a lot of people over feed their kids out of love or because they just don't know what they're doing.

I always give my 2 year old a treat (biscuit or bit of chocolate) when we pick up on the school run but it's the only sweet thing he gets all day and the rest of the time he eats fruit and veg above meals (90% homemade, low fat). People will see this though and judge me I'm sure. We are a very healthy family, all slim and active but when we are in social situations I let my kids have cakes and sweets as I would have a treat then too (at a cafe, with friends etc) so people might (probably do) assume we feed our kids rubbish but the reality is at home we are very strict with diet.

as I said "whatifs"

Doesn't change the output, the result is an unhealthy child.

Culture? I know couple of families who believe fat/overweight child is a sign of rich family....

Sometimes people just don't realise.

I worked with a woman who was overweight by quite a degree. She ate constantly and most of it was junk - chicken shop lunch, big slushy drink an hour later, cake after that etc. Her 15 month old was also overweight.

She came in very upset one morning as her daughter had been sick and her partner had said it was because she was feeding her too much food. She listed everything she'd given her daughter that morning and it was eye watering. She just couldn't see it or understand why her partner had said it.

She was an intelligent woman but just seemed to have a real blind spot to food and weight.

Don’t buy the ‘cheap’ thing remotely, such a cop out.

Give her a fucking carrot - it’s ignorance and laziness. Also, skinny kids eat biscuits, you can be underweight eating only biscuits. This is OVERFEEDING not even just what she is being fed.

What if the mother has issues? We don't know these things.

My DH was overweight as a child, but lost a lot of weight as a teenager when he started to take more of an interest in how he looked and health/fitness. My MIL appears to genuinely not believe that he was ever a fat child. Even when we are looking at photos of DH as an overweight child she claims that it was in fact just a 'little bit of puppy fat' and wearing clothes that were too tight because 'that was he fashion'.

He was a very much doted on only child who enjoyed food so I think she just wanted to give him what she thought made him happy. She herself is very slim, but does not eat healthily, just in very small amounts and never if she is not hungry so I don't think it occurred to her that anyone would eat if they were not hungry or that other types of food would be better. She's still the same with us and our DC. If we visit she offers food almost constantly and if we say no to something she'll offer other things even if we say we're not hungry. When we leave we will be given a bag with 'a few things for the journey' (usually crisps, biscuit bars, sweets and cans of pop), which is only just over an hour.

There are a whole lot of socio-economic reasons, and it is very sad for the child who will likely repeat the parental cycle.

Judge all you want if it makes you feel superior to other, more likely than not, disadvantaged parents.

But a child isn't obese just because the mum feeds it mindlessly.

I thought as a highly educated parent, you might have fathomed this.

Well it can be exhausting fighting your child, clearly the parents aren't just doing it as a practical joke!
We have 2 kids one you have to drag to the table and wouldn't eat for a couple of days if you didn't twist his arm, and the other literally eats sand and sometimes soil, and searches through the cupboards to get any food that's available.
Luckily both are still healthy weights (somehow!) but they are still small ages.
Once you've had a couple of kids you judge what you see in others relative to your own experiences, but actually if you look around you'll definitely find a family with lots of challenges!

My nephew wad massively overweight. When my sister was alive, she was extremely morbidly obsese.

When we were kids, my sister was extremely skinny (we all were). We were very poor, food was extremely basic just enough to keep us alive and functioning. We didn't have money for treats.

When she moved out with her ex-husband at 16yo (married at 17yo) I think the freedom to eat whatever she now wanted was too appealing and the weight gain began..

Once she had kids, she lost her way in what was a good diet and meal size. As she got bigger, she got more tired and less inclined to cook. So then began takeaways every single meal.

She has two sons. Eldest has SEN so ate very very little, he was and still is very skinny. Her second son ate like mum did and ended up very obese. He started to lose weight once he lived on his own and couldn't afford takeaways all the time.

So, I do think parents are to blame for the bad decision making but often there is more to it than just laziness..

It's disgusting. If you let a child get skinny, that would be child abuse. Let them get fat, and it's something that gets brushed under the carpet.
Parents giving in to faddy diets, requests for junk, convenience food, not enough exercise. And in a nursery age child, that is unforgivable - YOU and YOU alone are responsible for what goes into their mouths. When they are teens it is different.

But if you are from a background with low food and health literacy and little access to cook books etc and ingredients you can see why people turn to convenience food and junk. I’m not condoning it, just offering reasons why people in their 20s and early 39s might struggle more than those in their 40s.

I didn’t learn to cook at school… we made a pineapple upside down cake once, and that was as far as our practical food tech lessons went. I am a competent cook now. It’s really easy to follow recipes from books/online.

Lazy parenting, everything comes out of a packet, biscuits, chocolate, etc. Poor education of the parents, not understanding about food, thinking fat is good because maybe they were poor and underfed as children. You could befriend the mum and try to help.

Agreed. We travelled to nursery via a train and then a bus. We used a buggy, not everyone has a car and those that don't will no doubt walk far more than those that do.

My SEN child is hugely underweight as I just can’t get enough calories down him. He’s probably as unhealthy as an overweight child. I wonder if I’n judged as harshly at the parents of overweight SEN kids?

We have close family friends whose children are morbidly obese. Their 8 year old won't be far off my weight at a BMI of 24. They are the same ages as my children but they must be double their weight.

If we go for a day out, our children have homemade sandwiches with fruits, veggies with a small pack of crisps and maybe they would share a brownie in the cafe.

Their children will have 2 pre packed sandwiches, a sharing packet of crisps, 2 breakfast bars, can of coke, they will each have a brownie, and then a whole punnet of strawberries each.

It is so noticeable how much more food they eat, that I just do not understand how their parents continue doing so.

Blame the tories for slashing education funding so that kids don’t learn home economics/ food tech any more. How are people supposed to learn how to cook if there is no opportunity at school? There is no way to break a cycle of poor food education this way.

Same reason sometimes people scream at their dc and hit them every time they're being a bit awkward or whatever - they have poor parenting skills and this is the method they've landed on for getting the child to do as it's told. Only, unlike being hit, the kids like this response, and learn to never do anything until they've been bribed with food. Like, they won't put on their shoes and get out the door for school unless they get the chocolate.

I think its very unreasonable to judge a parent on a small snapshot of their life you see. You see them for 10 mins probably out of 24 hours 5 days a week.

You had no idea of the child's life and that their weight may not be to do with their unhealthy eating every day. That may be their only treat of the day or the only way they can get their child to nursery.

To me, a buggy wouldn't suggest they live close enough for the child to walk but more that its too far for the child to walk and the parent does not have access to a car. Or the parent is trying to improve their own lifestyle by walking instead of driving a longer distance.