Childhood obesity

I said being poor doesn’t mean you are stupid. Can I ask what you do for work? Did you go to university? Do you have a professional job? Because you said financial and socially you’re doing well. So i assume you’re middle class if your son goes to private school? So what is stopping you from giving your son healthy food and losing weight yourself? Is it due to lack of education from you and your husband?

I have explained why in my post - time, money, accessibility. They are not stupid but they may not be aware of the impact on health.
Not dissimilar to educational attainments - when parents have time, money and are invested then the child will do well - take them to museums, discuss topics, buy work books etc.

There have been a few threads on MN recently with posters saying they don’t bother with the news, politics, does it matter if a 12 year old can’t name the prime minster because they couldn’t themselves. You could quite easily not know about UPFs, marketing ploys, balanced diets if you only listen to music radio and watch streaming services. Nothing wrong with that but it can be very difficult now to get the information out to people.

My friends son was exactly the same. She was very worried about it and ended up obviously about his knowledge weighing all of the food she gave him and turned out he was getting much bigger than needed portion sizes. She was also using a lot of butter and oil which is fine and small quantities. Basically what an adult should have been receiving. She slowly brought that down and fed him more protein and veg/fruit and it sorted out

Some kids are as skinny as rakes. They just are.
My son was very chubby. As were his older half brothers. All did sport - my son was very keen. He LOVED carbs though, cereal especially. I didn’t keep crisps or biscuits in the house, but he’d come home from school and have a bowl of cereal. At 13 he was tall and big. He was also the typical class clown. But he was trying to get more into sport and it was hindering him. I remember one heartbreaking moment when the rugby team were planning on visiting a team in the US for a week and everyone got very excited. Then someone said the itinerary would include a visit to a water park. He started making reasons why maybe it wasn’t a good idea for him to go. The trip didn’t come off but he put himself on a diet and if we got to practice early would jog around the pitch. The diet worked and seven months later he had lost 40kg! I must say that even though some of his classmates were quite cruel to him when he was heavier they all were delighted at his transformation and soon he was helping a few also trim down. He’s now a qualified personal trainer and fitness coach.
But I also remember taking him and his mates to Subway after a rugby match. Man those boys could eat! My son was defeated way before some of the others. One super skinny lad put away a foot long sub, four cookies, a large soda. My son couldn’t manage anything like that.
Even now with his daily runs, kickboxing three times a week, weightlifting and walking everywhere he has to be careful with his eating. Genetics do play a role.
I can’t answer your question about socioeconomic influences- but your son just might be an exception. Though it may catch up with him later!

And I said that pizza and nuggets were his favourite foods, not that he eats them every day. His chocolate treats are a single chocolate digestive or a couple of segments of chocolate orange, not a Krispy Kreme and a double caramel billionaire adult-sized ice cream washed down with a coke. Our bread is always wholemeal and his posh school feeds him fresh fruit and vegetables at lunch (along with his pasta with cheese). He also has multiple structured PE lessons a week

Doesn’t this partly answer your question - they just eat more of pizza, nuggets, chocolates etc and don’t have multiple structured PE lessons a week? The school do not give fresh fruit and vegetables for lunch or wholemeal foods.

School playgrounds are small. PE is limited - kids may barely break a sweat. Local playgrounds may not be fit for purpose or parents do not have the time or energy to take the kids there.

There is no denying (whatever tv chefs say) that it is easier to stick nuggets or pizza in the over for 20mins than to make anything fresh.

If you work 2 jobs, need to get the kids to and from school, perhaps they are hungry, perhaps home is cold etc then you do what it take to get through the day.
I see kids eating crisps on the way to school, toddlers with lollies on the way to nursery, a packet of biscuits on the way home. It’s cheap, quick, readily available and keeps the kids quiet when you are close to the end of your tether.

It’s not hard to imagine why they maybe more likely to be obese that those from well off communities that eat unhealthily but perhaps not as frequently.

Because UFP food is often cheaper and because people living in poverty are living under stress which impacts on your bandwidth for this type of thing.

There is also multifaceted reasons around food culture that grows over time in families. Poverty makes healthy living harder.

i would say buy better quality chocolate -not stuff filled with upfs
I cycled to school everyday -that helped but sadly roads not safe now.

Because they eat rubbish. Your child eats slightly better rubbish. All the same in the end. For whatever reason.

(Oh and to the person who recommended a book about French kids’ diets, they all have hot chocolate for breakfast and Nutella on white baguette after school, I know, I was an au pair in a very posh Parisian family.)

Healthy eating isn’t about one meal or one ingredient. The food culture in France is healthier. They appreciate quality ingredients and tend to eat less processed foods overall. They tend to snack less. They have smaller portion sizes. They value slow eating around a table, you can see this even in their crèche’s and schools. So despite the Nutella and the chocolate, they have healthier diets overall.

Too many snacks amongst other things. Kids do not need as many snacks as they are given nowadays. Frankly, it’s important that kids learn and understand what hunger actually feels like. It’s an important part of health maintenance and helps to avoid developing a mindless eating habit or eating when its not actually needed by the body.

There is something really weirdly judgmental around this post. Like I feed my child expensive crap food so at least I’m not as bad as the proletariat.

I mean, well done. If your bar is comparing yourself to people who are surviving on less money, have less options and are living under stress.

This is a good point, I overlooked that part of the comment, as if an entire nation of 68 million people are all drinking hot chocolate for breakfast.😂 It's like when people say all Brits drink tea (I hate tea!!)

Parents over feeding kids portions they believe are correct. I have encountered this a couple of times. Just recently a morbidly obese women turned up to eat with her child who was so overweight she could barely walk. She piled the child’s plate with food from the carvery that would have fed 2 adults. The child was forced to eat the lot while looking like she wanted to throw up. She then proceeded to ask her if she wanted an ice cream. The child said so no. She went ahead and got the kid an ice cream and insisted she finish it. The mum had no idea on portion size. She seemed genuinely concerned she had not eaten enough.

I agree with you. I think OP wants to feel like her son’s diet is ok because any concerns around it are “middle class hysteria” and it’s not as bad as what some people with low incomes eat.

As is your “I was an au pair for a posh French family so know what they “all” eat”

Such an odd thread. OP, your child will be unhealthy at least on that diet in a few years. Being slim as a child is easy.

Maybe it's anecdotal but it's real life, you said you're rich and your child is at private school forgive me for assuming you probably don't mix much with broke people or even average people?

That's an assumption on my part so sorry if I'm wrong I do most of my socialising with people that live around me or other parents at my children's school so assuming you're similar.

But you can't just be pulling some statistics out the guardians ass to imply your child is magically safe from being fat because you have a lot in your bank account. Or implying the peasantry have a normalised culture of vats of popcorn and hostiley beating anyone who trys to give them healthy eating tips.

Idk maybe you mean well but it just feels a little insulting like poor people are too stupid to know eating a mound of sweets and gallons of cola will make them fat. Like I said I lived in a a house share basically a homeless shelter for families you don't get broker than that and everyone there knew eating too much junk food makes you fat. What people choose to do with that information is on them.
Your child is young I ate mounds of sweets at that age and was still scrawny some kids have really fast metabolisms and he is not protected from filling out in a couple of years just because of your bank account

Id assume because they grew up eating and learning how to cook cheap nutritional meals by their wider family/community. Having a community there where is normally someone around to keep an eye on the kids and getting them to help with basic daily chores, helps them learn basic everyday life skills.

If you have always been fed quick and easy shove in an oven/microwave food by parents who are rarely around due to having work all the time to keep a roof over your head and they cannot afford to make something different because you may not eat it. That doesn't really give you a good basis for learning how to cook or any other life skill.