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.

Also people not realising what overweight /slim looks like. Should be able to see a childs ribs basically imo

I agree that the snacking has gotten out of control. My DD is 3, I don’t normally pack a snack when we go out unless it’s for a full day trip. But every time we meet up with other kids at the park or soft play for an hour or two, their parents start wheeling out an endless parade of “healthy” snacks- those weird dried fruit roll ups, or organic crisps- and of course as soon as DD sees them, she wants them too and the other parent will share with her. So now I have to pack a snack every time as well so we’re not always sponging food off other people. It’s nuts!

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03336/
The difference is stark between affluent and deprived areas so it will be much more noticeable depending where you live.
It shocks me when I go back to deprived former mill town. Things like toddlers with bottles of juice and sausage rolls in their pram you don’t see where I live now. This sort of thing.

Statistic is twice as likely for child to be obese in reception in deprived area 13% v 6.7%.

I kind of agree with this, DS eats so much crap by my measure but is a stick. I honestly don't know how much he'd have to eat to be overweight.

www.statista.com/statistics/929809/share-of-children-aged-4-5-overweight-and-obese-in-england/
These stats show a big pandemic jump from a steady ish 22% for many years to 27.7% overweight 4 and 5 year olds in 20/21.

That is noticeable.

It might be a controversial view, but sometimes it's the measure that's wrong. For some kids, "overweight" according to the definition doesn't mean they're eating more/worse than they should be - they're just big kids!

My DD has always eaten as if there's no food due tomorrow. She will eat anything anytime and then ask what's for the next meal. She was born small, sat on the 50% line until about 2.5 years and then became "overweight" pretty fast. She was padded all over and even though she was tall she ticked all the "overweight" boxes.

She's now 11 and getting taller and taller. She still eats whatever food she can get her hands on but is absolutely using it to get taller and slimmer. I have no doubt she'll be a very strong and solid shape when she's 16, but I doubt she'll be overweight by then.

My Mum cooked from scratch, and we had dessert (pudding!) every single lunch and dinner. Apple pies, steamed pud , treacle tart, ‘table cream’ which was a bit like blancmange, or if she was pushed for time a banana and a saucer of brown sugar to dip it in. We did also eat loads of veg and fruit.

But almost NONE of our play was sedentary. We skipped, climbed, skated, chased, scooted, cycled, walked miles to unsuitable play locations (railway, brook, derelict house etc). There wasn’t a big choice on TV: 2 programmes a night in ‘children’s hour’ which was just that, and half of that you didn’t want to watch (the dreary Tales From Europe).

As girls we didn’t adopt adult so-called ‘girly’ interests until much later. I was 12 or13 when my friend had a significant accident on our ‘show jumping course’ that we would leap as if we were horses.

Everything is different.

Amidst our sugary starch puddings, there was no ‘hot chocolate’ slathered with squirty cream, flavoured syrup and marshmallows. We had cocoa. Adults drank cups of tea, not mocha latte with hazelnut syrup.

Also we were cold. When we got out of the bath (it was NORMAL to shiver, we danced about naked like loons while Mum ran enough cold in)got dressed, got undressed for bed. Heating your body uses calories.

Everything is different.

Graph showing big change 2020/2021

Mine got tubby over lockdown, and she came up as overweight.

However overnight she had the following removed from her life:
Ballet
Gym
Swimming
Parkrun
Playing at playtime
PE

And all she was allowed to do was stay at home. It’s taking us some time to redress this. The Covid cohort are all going to have the same issues.

But…she is overweight now. And you’re burying your head in the sand because she’s ‘always been a big eater’. Padded is a less loaded way of saying ‘fat’. I’m sorry if that’s upsetting - but this thread touches on that multiple times; parents who won’t/can’t see that their child is overweight and think up excuses, and have completely lost sight of what a normal sized child is.

That was to @HappyAsASandboy

We had a "show jumping course" in the back yard. So funny when I think about it 😂 kids playing on a council estate , but the Horse of the Year show was big on TV and I read all the pony stories from the library.
We moved onto pogoing and pretending to be Debby Harry but it was all quite energetic!

Not enough exercise. 5 year olds that can’t even walk 3-4 miles. Driven in cars everywhere. Where 20 minutes on the playground is considered exercise. Kids need a lot of actual exercise, much more than most parents think.
And loads of food on top of that.

I know something I need to cut back on, and that’s ‘treat’ snacks. When we sit down to watch a film together and we’ve got a variety of snacks and nice drinks. When I was a kid we had maybe a share bag of crisps and a bottle of pop and that was it. Now, I always make sure we have loads.

Sure that’s not a problem now they’re slim and fit, but knowing my own overeating habits I should cut back on it.

@Triffid1

As a parent of two children who at that age were/are overweight, I think the underlying issues are complex but the reasons are very simple - a diet that is not correctly balanced combined with insufficient exercise.

I could spend hours typing up how we got here. And I could spend hours telling you how we've successfully dealt with it for DS and the efforts we are making for DD (that do seem to be making a difference although it's early days), but I'll simplify it to say it's lifestyle and circumstance. There is no doubt that in our case, if I was a traditional stay at home mother, the chances that either of our children were overweight would have been pretty low. In other cases of overweight children I see on the school run, there are all kinds of reasons. I've seen families who I suspect have a knowledge deficit re healthy eating/cooking. I've seen some who I think use food to compensate for things. I've seen some for whom finances might be the issue. That's what I mean by the underlying issues are complex.

This was heartwarming to read. I hope this doesn't sound patronising but really well done you for noticing and rectifying the problem Your DC are lucky to have you.

@CottonSock

My 5 yo eats loads of crap, but I suspect it would be free access to snacks that would make her overweight. Sweet tooth! Especially things like chocolate. Limited to once a day.

When I was a kid we had pocket money on a Saturday morning, straight to the sweetie shop, a bag of penny sweets, all eaten by lunchtime and that was it for sweets, for the week. Didn’t have crisps in the house, there weren’t any other “ snack” foods available, and the crisps were in small individual bags, no family size bags or multi packs stuffed in the cupboard. Even if we had wanted to eat between meals there wasn’t anything to snack on, it just didn’t exist.

In the case of my family member: eating far too much highly processed food. Never being allowed to run or climb as a toddler. Obese parents who just don't see their child is obese and are far too sensitive about everything for us to tell them. Parents who move at snails pace and aren't prepared to give up their junk food. Poor kid has no chance in hell.

@PurpleDaisies

I volunteered for the foodbank and it was evident,with more knowledge of nutrition and how to cook a healthy meal on low budget, there would be less food poverty.

You must have realised that food budget is more complicated than not knowing how to cook lentils. It’s not being able to afford the electric to run the oven, not having a big freezer for cheap frozen veg, not having any space or equipment in the kitchen, being totally exhausted from the mental load of being poor…

All the gadgets you mention,you dont need.you dont need a freezer,you dont need an oven,unless you eat expensive crap like chips and fatty stuff.I am not saying there are no financial issues.overweight children eat a poor diet and poor diet is expensive!

@Marmite27

Mine got tubby over lockdown, and she came up as overweight.

However overnight she had the following removed from her life:
Ballet
Gym
Swimming
Parkrun
Playing at playtime
PE

And all she was allowed to do was stay at home. It’s taking us some time to redress this. The Covid cohort are all going to have the same issues.

But she could have walked, hula hooped, skipped, played hopscotch, played twosie ball, done somersaults, and handstands, set up an obstacle course and been a pony, danced,...........

You used to see mums walking with small children holding pram - they had to walk quickly to keep up. Now you see families on social walks or wandering around town but it’s very different to proper walking. Children would have routinely walked miles a day.
So 4 year old would walk mile to play school or nursery. Mum would pick up at midday. 4 year old walks a mile home. Then sibling needed picking up from school at 3.30 so another 2 mile round trip. Then mum walks to butchers. 4 year old is already on 5 miles of fast walking without play. Now 4 year old is driven everywhere does 30 minutes activity class and has snack after.

@whenwillthemadnessend

It's obvious isn't it

Lock down. Kids can't walk to school. Can't run around and play

Mins working from home freight t o juggle life Quick food etc

And I can't blame them.

Hopefully as thing normalise it will get back to the old figures.

And also healthy food is time consuming and expensive

And please dont lecture me on a chicken can last a week and lentils etc.

No one in real
Life has time for that.

The data the OP linked to was obtained two years before lockdowns started.

I expect the data looks worse now, but Covid can't be blamed for anything happening between 2014 and 2018.

Children helping themselves to snacks like crisps, biscuits and cereal bars.

Poor diet in general

Over-reliance on carbohydrate-loaded foods

Not enough veg

Veg isn't necessarily expensive. A bag of carrots is about the same price as a standard bag of crisps
Frozen veg is about £1 and cooks in minutes etc

I think the low fat push in the 1980s has a lot to answer for

Traffic lights on packets are misleading as portion sizes are not likely to be what people actually eat

Understanding of nutrition and food costs is probably not good.

Things thought of as healthy options probably aren't - hidden sugars, artificial sweeteners etc

But she could have walked, hula hooped, skipped, played hopscotch, played twosie ball, done somersaults, and handstands, set up an obstacle course and been a pony, danced,...........
IF you have a biggish garden and are a SAHP, yes. Otherwise it was 1h exercise per day during lockdown, and no playing with other kids.
Leaving a (for example) 5 year old to set up an obstacle course on a 5th floor balcony while you were walking wouldn’t be a great idea….
If you do however have a big garden, a nanny (or are a SAHP) its a different story