Childhood obesity

How do you know he won’t become obese?

So your question is why is obesity and poor diet and lifestyle normalised in some communities?

perhaps because they have other things to worry about, they don’t want to live to 90 in poverty so don’t see the point in living what they might see as a poorer life for not much return?

I think there is a rather short sighted view for some of the benefits of being healthy. It’s not amount of living long it’s about living well for as many years as you can. Health will give you opportunities to keep doing what you enjoy.

perhaps there is a large mental health component and lack of incentive to avoid the hyper palatable, cheap and easily available food and drinks?

I'm wondering what the "right" answer is that OP was hoping her carefully laid trap would lead us to, also.
That the great unwashed are clearly weaker and susceptible to ill health and there should be some program in place to stop them reproducing so much?
OP, the reason obesity is a concern is that it is associated with various poor health outcomes. Those poor health outcomes can also result from malnourishment even where obesity is not evident. I now suspect you were exaggerating for effect in your initial descriptions of your son's diet and activity levels, because you are completely unworried for him in all follow ups. But if it was as you described he would be living with the effects of poor diet, even if this didn't cause him to be obese.
Fat isn't bad or evil: in and of itself there is nothing wrong with being obese. Overweight /obesity is simply a very obvious indicator of likely ill health and probable poor outcomes. Associations. It's a necessary, but not sufficient, indicator of (probable) ill health (present or future). You seem to be fixated on obesity as a phenomenon of badness in and of itself. And ignorant of the effects of malnourismnent in the absence of overweight.

Your son is also an anecdote, seeing as you insist no one else can talk about their own "anecdotes" guess what I was also a scrawny whippersnapper at 8 despite eating loads of junk food, unlike yourself my parents were not rich either.
Being thin at 8 is nothing special.

I've read all your comments btw and it seems like you're absolutely gagging for people to make "excuses" like healthy food being expensive etc so you can scoff at them and say people with less money than you are just too stupid to know they shouldn't eat the entire multi bag of haribos.

It’s also a class thing. Middle class children of higher income parents are rarely overweight. It’s because of a combination of things. Middle class parents are more academically educated, not just in their field of work but also about what it means to have a healthy, balance diet and good nutrition. They have more money to pay for sports and physical activities, not just for their children but also themselves. They are way more strict about what their children eat. Sweet treats are only occasional, no fizzy drinks, lots of vegetables, fish etc. These children usually have nannies who are also strictly instructed about what to feed/not to feed the children, and they often have child nutrition qualifications. They go to private schools where the lunch menu and all the snacks are healthy and nutritious.
Just walk down the streets of any city in the afternoon. The children of lower income parents who go to state schools come through the school gates in large groups, pile into cornershops and come out with tons of fizzy drinks, boxes of Pringles, packets of crisps, marshmallows, those awful pick’mix sweets and watch them stuff themselves. You see them in McDonalds, KFC or other burger joints and fast food restaurants. Why? Because they are hungry. Why? Because the lunch in their school is low quality and not very appetising. They are given a couple of quids by their parents and of course they will head to the nearest place where they sell junk. Nobody supervises what they buy and eat in those places.

The question is not why your son is not overweight, but more like why are you and your husband overweight? You said both of you were slim when young, so what went wrong? The fact is that if both parents are overweight, their children have a much higher chance of becoming overweight themselves either in childhood or later in adulthood. These are statistics and also plain common sense. So at present moment your son is not overweight yet, but might become fatter later if you are teaching him your own eating - and lifestyle habits.

Ok. He won't be fat or unhealthy, so carry on as you are. Job done.

Beams and motes come to mind.
You might be interested in finding out about normal weight obesity. If your child's diet is as you describe (I don't know if you're exaggerating for effect or not) he may be metabolically obese normal weight, i.e. be living with the same pre-diabetes changes as obese children, and with the same stressors on his cardiovasular system leading to increased risk of hypertension and premature coronary heart disease.

I didn't realise I had to read all your posts to comment on the first. Let me know when you are finished posting and I'll catch up and comment then. My bad.

I dont think that is uncommon, certainly not on this website, the threads about Iceland and the like and how people look down their nose at some processed foods but then eat other processed foods show this to be a typical mindset.

I regularly bring out the link to a Tesco basic lasagne ready meal. Not a UPF.

More EXPENSIVE rubbish, in fact. The OP seems to think fat,carbs and sugar are better if you pay a lot more for them.

No, people in poverty weren’t always fat, it was the opposite. If you’re so bothered about poor obese children, what are your suggestions? Because on this entire thread you haven’t mentioned a single one. Are you saying that it’s only poor people that are obese? Because based on you and your husband that isn’t the case. Maybe stay in your lane and suggest what can be done about the increasing number of middle class women who are alcoholics.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/25/oh-well-wine-oclock-what-midlife-women-say-about-drinking-and-why-its-hard-to-stop

And as a person who has publicly announced they are overweight you should know better and do better to help your child, no?

But op is saying what should be done about these “communities”… meaning poor people and those in poverty. If poor people can’t even afford basic food, I very much doubt they can afford houses with gardens or cars or after school activities. Plus it’s usually just one parent in the household, so all the looking after and cooking is solely on that one parent. In poor areas they don’t have the same resource as nice middle class places such as parks and what parent would want their child running around an unsafe street. If you live in London and you’re rich you’re very lucky to even have a garden so I doubt these poor people have an outdoor space to play in.

I wonder what the ops excuse is for being overweight? I mean being she said she’s rich and educated, her and her husband. Maybe society needs to do something about all the fat, rich parents out there who use their cars for short journeys instead of walking.

The world has changed. More houses being built with small gardens which don’t give a lot of space for children to run around in. The pressure on school places means that children often have to travel to and from school by car. We are more time poor than ever. This means that children are more likely to be driven to and from school as parents have to go straight to work. If families are not getting in from after school club until gone 6pm (compared to 3.30pm) this means more exhausted kids and parents who are likely to whip up something quick (and unhealthy) like a UPF based dinner as they haven’t had time to make a meal from scratch. Much less time also to be going to the park after school or even the garden. People don’t want the big gardens either as they take time to maintain.

I agree with the previous poster who said there is so much onus on body positivity. There is one influencer who has posted a lot recently about this, and her young children who are clearly very overweight. People have lost sight of what constitutes a reasonable meal for a child. My friend’s 6yo is starting to become overweight but my friend insists she eats an adult sized portion every single meal so it’s not surprising. My 10yo DS went to his friend’s house once and him and his friend were given a whole adult sized pizza each plus offered piles of biscuits. People think it’s terribly unhealthy if kids’ ribs are showing but actually that’s normal pre puberty. They don’t realise that prepubescent kids shouldn’t have much visible fat on them, not like adults who can have noticeable fat and still be a healthy weight or even underweight.

Society favours extra curriculars aka adult led activities more than ever, often under the guise of it being good for kids. But most of them don’t involve much cardiovascular activity. Kids will burn off more energy running around the park. A lot of parents seem to hate taking their kids to the park though.

Children are allowed less independence which means they are more likely to be at home on screens.

My children are underweight. I think it is partially genetics (their dad was the same) and also because they just do not stop running around!

I don't care for the statistics I don't see that many obese kids out and about certainty not as many as these statistics claim. Like I said though I lived in a room in a house share with my kids until recently on a street full of other house shares, by your logic my kids should be obese and the whole street should of been teeming with fatties and their vats of popcorn but that wasn't the case.

Come down from your guardian statistics to the real world some time also try and get the little man into a sport or he might not stay thin forever.

99% of people know eating too much junk food makes you fat what they choose to do with that information is on them. People aren't stupid just because they have less money than you.

I think it all starts with the parents… so what I would do is enforce mandatory educational classes based around nutrition to all potential parents, if they fail the class they can’t have kids until they pass the class, to show that they are a responsible adult. After the child is born all parents must face a mandatory weigh in, if the parents are over the desirable healthy weight they pay a £10,000 fine for every pound over. The money will go towards all the NHS services that are used for obese patients. Anyone that can’t pay fine will be forced to live in a workhouse until they get down to their healthy weight and have paid off their fine 👍🏼

😂