22% of 4-5 year olds are overweight? How?!

[changing221]

Can someone explain to me how we are living in a society of overweight 4 year olds? I'm not trying to be goady or holier than thou, I'm genuinely interested.

What is the cause of these fat 4-5 year olds??
Where is it all going wrong for these children who are now likely to be overweight or obese well in to adulthood.

FWIW I have a 4 year old. We have McDonald's takeaway regularly, sweet treats (danish, cinnamon bun, chocolate, biscuits, cake) daily. Lots of cheese and yogurt, healthy fats, jacket potatoes etc. And she's still on the 25th percentile and a string bean.

@MsTSwift

I think it’s portion size. Am amazed by the huge portions other peoples (over weight) kids can eat.

I have been utterly lambasted on here but I never graduated my young teens onto our large dinner plates. The 3 of us have smaller dinner plates. Keeps all our portion sizes down. Two lovely slim healthy teens.

I also agree with this.

That definitely comes from parents.

Lockdown. Sitting in front of screens, bored rigid and comfort eating biscuits with parents unable to leave the house due to WFH, school closure, quarantine etc.

When I was a child we were out playing on the streets every single evening. We used to be called in for tea. We walked to and from school, walked to and from any after school clubs, swimming, the library, church, shopping etc. Everything was on foot. The level of activity has nosedived. even tiny things like getting up to switch TV channels or running downstairs to answer the phone in the hall don't exist any more. Everything is designed to make us immobile.

Processed calories are cheap. Adli 300g of ginger nuts costs 25p for 1,392 calories.

@Ozanj

This is something that has been a huge focus in ey childcare. We model healthy eating, provide portion guides, but no parent wants to listen when we warn them that a 90 percentile toddler of average sized parents may need their parents to keep a closer eye on portions.

If anything parents are applauded for having a child on the 90th centile in my experience, and are often told their child needs to be watched carefully if there're on a centile lower than about 25, despite parents being smaller and the fact that 25% of the population should be 'below the 25th centile'.

@MsTSwift

I think it’s portion size. Am amazed by the huge portions other peoples (over weight) kids can eat.

I have been utterly lambasted on here but I never graduated my young teens onto our large dinner plates. The 3 of us have smaller dinner plates. Keeps all our portion sizes down. Two lovely slim healthy teens.

Same here. My dds eat like sparrows but are still healthy. We'll often share meals when at a restaurant or having a takeaway as we just find them too much. Some of us just don't have huge appetites. I'm amazed sometimes by how much food other people can put away.

I was a child in the 1970s and there weren't many fat kids then.

We ate few 'snacks'. We had meals at a table. If we were hungry we could eat fruit from the fruit bowl.

We walked or cycled everywhere. Sweets were an occasional treat.
A snack would be something like half a 2-finger kitkat.
We drank water not energy drinks.
Meals were usually meat and two veg not wheat based.
We seldom had takeaways or ready meals

Both my parents worked so it wasn't a time thing.

In Ireland, have never seen snacks at the school gate. This seems strange to me. Only one noticeably overweight child in dc (6) class, McDonald's is a regular and he brought in a large share size Cadbury nar on treat day He was 5 at the time. Not a coincidence. And now those habits are set it is hard to change them.

Kids increasingly eat out/have takeaways too. Children's menus are often 2 or 3 courses and higher in calories than at home eg fried rather than baked, ice cream rather than yoghurt

The snack while walking out of

school has became more normal too.

Repeating a simple message convinces people.
Advertising works.
The global food industry spends billions each year on advertising.
It also spends heavily on govt lobbying.

www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j4677

What is a 'healthy snack' and how did children live without them before the proliferation of advertising methods?

Is a 'healthy snack' still healthy if you double or triple the portion? Even natural fruits and vegetables have become comparatively lacking in nutrients and grown for sugar content.
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-207652/Why-apple-today-good.html

Vast sums of money are spent ensuring that children and parents are guided toward purchasing processed foods which by design do not satiate. Advertising works.

And once the insulin response is damaged they're on the path to medicalisation. Another industry that advertises and lobbies hard.

www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/new-stats-people-living-with-diabetes

We are a highly consumerist society, with all that entails.

Because kids don't play out any more. They sit inside on their tablets/watching TV etc.

Kids are walking less. Getting in a car is seen as easier for most activities and school runs.

@Kookookachuu

DH & I are in a healthy BMI range and are active. 3 year old DD is chubby. We eat healthy food made from scratch but DD is unbelievably lazy, barely moves, doesn’t even run with peers. Every bit of exercise is met with tantrums and meltdowns honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

Is she keen on the playground? Soft play?

Those saying about the kids constant snacking these days. When I grew up in the 70s/80s we were always up the corner shop buying sweets/chocolate/crisps even fizzy panda pop drinks/lilt etc but we spent all day out on our bikes or walking around, climbing trees etc so burnt it all off.
Thinking of it, my mum used to make me walk miles when I was a just a toddler because we never had a car. I think the lack of exercise now is a main part of the problem.

@KrispyKale

The snack while walking out of school has became more normal too.

Ime y6 are served the same portion size as reception for school dinners. Don't year 6s need more or does the learning through play nature of Reception mean that they are burning more calories? I know that many kids don't eat all of their school dinners out of fussiness but in y6 my kids were the size of a small adult.

@Dozer

Why the incredulity?

How else do you start a goady thread?

Obesity creates lack of exercise - this was known in the past even when we didn't understand the science. The creators of the Seven Deadly Sins knew that Sloth went with Gluttony.

When you are obese, even though clearly you are not on the verge of starvation at all, you become insulin resistant - if you become even slightly hungry your body thinks you are starving hungry and need to preserve energy and EAT. So similarly you will do anything to preserve energy and avoiding exercise like the plague goes with it.

Anyone who has successfully dieted will have noticed this - you cut to 1200 calories and after a week or two of feeling like death, suddenly you have masses of energy, can run up and down the stairs all the time despite the fact you are eating half the calories you were a month ago when you thought it was exhausting to walk to the car.

It's not that you didn't have willpower, it's the hormones in your body combining to tell you eat more and keep still. It takes a huge amount of work to break free of this which is why so many diets fail, and preventing children from being fat in the first place is so important.

I used to go get sweets at early primary age once or twice a week, tiny portions 2 ounces at a time anyone remember that? As I grew up a pack of crisps was more sustaining during the hours before tea. It wasn't a lot if you are running around a lot and it still wasn't everyday.

My dcs finished swimming lessons just before lockdown and I remember noticing how at least 25% of their class was overweight. So I don't think this is a covid thing.

@PestoPlum

Those saying about the kids constant snacking these days. When I grew up in the 70s/80s we were always up the corner shop buying sweets/chocolate/crisps even fizzy panda pop drinks/lilt etc but we spent all day out on our bikes or walking around, climbing trees etc so burnt it all off. Thinking of it, my mum used to make me walk miles when I was a just a toddler because we never had a car. I think the lack of exercise now is a main part of the problem.

Weren't you school aged then? My children were born in the early 2000s and kids snacking in buggies was not a common sight. They drank from a cup or bottle sometimes but weren't eating food.

In my child’s class of 5 year olds there are zero overweight kids. In my nine years old’s class I can think of maybe one or two who are overweight. Across both those kids year groups I can still only think of one or two who are plump. So I think you’re generalising when actually it may be more prevalent in some areas and less prevalent in others.

I was a fat child and that was because I was regularly eating adult sized portions.

Really not good for a child, it affects you all your life.

Children do not get fat by magic.

They are fat because they eat far too much and exercise far too little.

Our primary school gives the kids desert every single day. Proper ice-cream and jelly, cake and custard type stuff. And that’s following on from chips and nuggets. No wonder kids are fat. That stuff is barely food. Certainly not what any healthy adult would be eating daily.

Why is it goady? These threads always get shut down because people don’t like being told the truth. It’s a huge problem and unless we talk about it we will never solve it.