AIBU to blame mum of obese child?

[proudnsad]

Was at soft play place earlier with the dc (obviously!). No Wifi, forgot me book, no papers, so feck all to do except nose at everyone else.

There was one mum with her dd, about 7 I'd guess. DD was seriously overweight. When she squeezed past my table, she was panting and wheezing like an old woman. She looked awful too. Sorry.

I felt really judgemental towards her mum. How and why did she let her dd get so big? It's so unfair on the kid.

OK then, the fat/thin parents with the fat kid!

I'm obsese although the rest of my family are fine. I hope when someone sees me with my kids they think 'thank goodness she's not passed on her issues about food to her children' but more likely they are thinking 'I wonder when the baby's due'

YABU she was taking her to soft play to get some exercise.What about giving her some credit for that?

if I see fat kids & parents I think yuk & shame on you. I just don't get why they could be so oblivious & allow it to happen.

I remember a girl at my junior school who was fat, she was teased & called Fudge. She hated it, wouldn't do sports. It's unhealthy & it's not fair to the kid.

katiestar, well soft play doesn't necessarily equate exercise. For some it seems to equate hanging round mum for 2 hours and eating turkey twizzlers and chips!

I'm a bit old fashioned and think 'running around outdoors/playing football in the fresh air' is 'proper' exercise. Shit, am turning into my mother.

But point taken.

an obese mum at school gives her obese child 2 flakes when she picks her up from school every day.

I got bored of all the self-righteous people on here so haven't read all the posts. Sorry if I am repeating what someone else has said.

It is very naive to blame the parents. DS was podgy when he was little. He grew and grew and grew right from birth: I remember one spectacular occasion, when he was less than a week old, he guzzled a days' milk supply in one sitting. I tried to help him with his weight but, unfortunately, he liked his food a little too much. I know some kids are fussy and don't eat enough so his junior school had a blanket policy for cooked lunch of 'you don't leave the lunch table until you have eaten all your food'. How crazy is that: to force a fat kid to eat! I did speak to them but they said that they couldn't have different rules for different kids.

DS is now much older and is very slim (30" waist) because he decided to stop eating. Since his being overweight was my fault, I would love to take credit for his slimness but, in reality, it had nothing to do with me.

YABU

I think you are being a little bit unreasonable.

Of course being overweight isn't healthy and some blame may lie with the parents, but you know nothing about this family's situation.

Sorry to be dark/cynical, but many people end up inflicting some kind of damage on their children, emotional as well as physical - but fortunately you can't see emotional damage in a soft play centre, but imagine if you could. This overweight child could be in other ways very happy and have a brilliant relationship with her parents, could be in the process of losing weight, and the skinny child next to her could be the victim of the most awful emotional abuse.

So don't be too quick to judge, is all I'm saying.

My friends dd is very overweight.....she was 4 stone at just 2 years! She stands out a mile at school and is constantly red, has sore patches from chaffing....esp between her thighs. She has asthma too. Her mum thinks flapjacks are a healthy snack and allows her to trough her way through half a big box of those mini ones.....she sends dairylea dunkers and mini cheddars as a 'healthy snaCk' for school instead of fruit. She gives her sweets and choc to shut her up as she is a demanding child and also milkshake and strong cordial!! She claims its not her childs diet but come on....... she never encourages her to finish a meal so that she isnt hungry two minutes later and instead gives her biscuits at the end of a meal......in this situation YES my friend is to blamE.....and YES I HAVE TRIED TO OFFER SUPPORT AND POINT HER IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. SHE HAS SEEN A DIETICIAN WHO ASKED HER TO DO A FOOD DIARY..... SO OF COURSE MY FRIEND WAS GOOD AND FED HER GOOD STUFF AND LITTLE OR NO SNACKS!!! BUT ONLY FOR THE WEEK SHE WAS DOING THE FOOD DIARY.

Some people just shy away from obesity being an issue until it gets out of hand.

A family i know (2 adults and 4 children) were all very overwieght, morbidly obese.

It took the school where the 4yr old little boy went to notice his thighs were bleeding and sore from chaffing and he had really bad sores in the folds of his stomach before they involed the social services.

The Mum and Dad apparently said they knew it was a problem but it was such and over whelmingly big problem they felt embarrased to seek help and it just got worse.

However with the upport of a good gp, dietician and school and social services support the whole family are now healthy and eating well and are average sizes.

Riven I don't think that's true.
The human body is designedfor times of scarcity.If you start reducing your food intake your body recognises this as a famine.Even a weight loss of 1lb a week triggers this response.Raising your metabolic rate through exercise is a far more effective way to lose weight.

A pound of fat is 3000 calories so to shift a pound through exercise alone a 10st woman needs to run a marathon.

I know it's more complicated than that but unless you're a hardcore athlete, you're not going to exercise enough to make a big difference especially if your mobility is being limited by your size.

You have to attack it from both sides I think. Eat healthily, exercise portion control and get moving.

The point is that exercise is not just what you burn off actually doing the exerxise( an hours slowish jog (5.5mph)for a 10 st woman burns off 800 calories).It is the fact that exercise raises resting metabolism.

the faliling point of using exercise alone to lose weight is you eat more. You eat because 'it won't hurt' & because you're hungry.

Time magazine did a study into this. People would do an hr at the gym, & then have a full fat latte & a blueberry muffin & wonder why they were gaining (oh it must be muscle)

Where are you getting those figures from Katiestar ?

Eat less & move more = weight loss. Or else do one of the eat significantly-less-carbs (cereal/potatoes/crisps/'low fat' cereal bars (which are riddled with sugar & will raise your blood sugar) + low fat protein, veggies & good fats. Or eat smaller portions & cut out the crap.

It's true. If your young child is fat (medical conditions not included) it is your fault. You put the food in front of them, you have the control, the buck stops with you.

A parent of a fat child (who does not have a medical condition) does not want to be blamed for this, so they go on the attack when it is pointed out.

But allowing your child to get fat is wrong. It's short-sighted and it's cruel. It is potentially life shortening and it is socially isolating because kids are cruel!!

And I feel this way because I was a fat child, who grew up into a fat adult - as most fat kids do. And my life has been ruined. It is far harder for a fat child to grow into a slim adult and while I as an adult am responsible for my adult body, my parents handed me - because my childhood was THEIR responsibility - a fat body, very poor eating habits, no idea of healthy eating, a totally screwed up idea of portion size, no self-confidence and a comfort eating habit.

I feel very angry with parents who through their failure to ensure their child has the diet they need, allow that child to become fat and instill in that child poor eating habits that will cause them real problems their whole life, and just hand over the problem to the child and well, they're an adult now, they can sort it out.

Don't let it happen in the first place, then you won't be handing the child a fat body, a lifetime food fight and low self-esteem.

well said.

(sorry to hear your experience)

Me too Hecate, I was only thinking the other day how my life has been ruined by my mother's idiocy - she bottle fed me from birth on carnation milk FFS and apparently I was on baby rice by 6 weeks. She says she was told to do this by the HV as I was 6 weeks prem but surely common sense should have prevailed. . .

I have never been able to control my weight properly and I starved myself from the age of about 12 because I wanted to be like my friends, and then got so hungry I binged, and was bulimic by 13. I've had a few years in my late teens and twenties looking amazing but then there were days when I didn't eat at all and that clearly is unsustainable. I stopped making myself sick at about 29.

Now my endocrine system is shot and despite my diet being passed as near perfect by several dieticians I still remain huge and I reckon to lose weight now I'd have to look at a really low cal diet or a band. The endocrinologist I see has finally now realised I don't spend all day eating pizza and chocolate and is trying to work out exactly what damage I've done to myself but I also teach food tech and I feel so hypocritical waxing on about obesity in my size 20 suit.

All it would have taken was not being fed shed loads of sugar practically from weaning.
People just don't realise the long term damage that can occur with a weight problem.
I suspect Riven, that I could now go into Belsen or wherever and still be a size 16 when I starved to death.

It will not happen to my boys, not while I have breath in my body. . .

i think YABU to judge, yes.

you dont know the family of the child you were judging-looking down your nose and 'feeling sorry' for the child is IMO judging the child alongside the parents no matter how you rationalise it.

i am overweight and have been since my late teens. my parents all but starved me and my siblings when we were younger and when i started to buy my own food and eat more my slow metabolism couldnt cope and i rapidly gain weight it is VERY hard for me to lose weight now and it is extremely hard work just to shift a single pound!! i was the skinny child you think must be healthy as she isnt fat... being thin can sometimes be just as unhealthy and cause lifelong battles with weight!!

fwiw my DD is top centile for both height and weight and has been from birth despite a varied and healthy diet and we have tried (and still are trying) to bring her weight down- or at least slow the gain. my DH was really large as a child and is still overweight now. his siblings were of a normal weight and are pretty much healthy weights ( maybe slightly overweight) now with the exact same diet and exercise opportunities as children so sometimes it IS just a predisposition.

"And like poeple say, you never saw a fat person come out of a prison camp."

When I was a teenager I read a book by someone who had been in Auschwitz, and I clearly remember her saying that strangely enough, some people stayed "well-covered" even though everyone was on the same starvation rations.

I eat a lot more than some overweight people I know, and I am considered slim. Maybe these overweight people binge in secret . . . but I do think some people can eat more than others. And luckily for me, I have been one of them for much of my life, although now I am heading for my 50s I can't get away with it any more and am having to watch the calories like everyone else.

Bet those people were in cahoots with the guards- quite common in conc camps, however unpalatable.

I think everyone accepts that metabolic rates vary and some people find it easier to stay thin than others, just like some gain muscle bulk more easily.

However, these genetic variations are a constant. We are getting fatter as a nation, and genetically we havent changed so our genetic makeup is not responsible for the increase in obesity which is caused by

• increasingly sedentary lifestyle
• Loads more convenience food available

There's definitely more temptation out there now.

90% chance YANBU