that parents need to do something if their chid is obese?

[mumof2terrors]

Im new here but am really concerned about a family members son....he looks obese to the point he is 2 years old and wears clothes for a 4-5yr old. He eats only chicken wings from the chicken and chip shop and egg yolks and i have a feeling that his formula may be fortified with cream he still has formula 3 times through the night. I have a son that is the same age and he looks like a stick next to him...my son is on the 91st centile for weight. She has been spoken to about this but fiys off the handle when the weight issue is touched upon claiming his weight is down to genetics? I really need to know how to approach this so any advice would be appreciated i just feel so bad for the poor boy.....

Unfortunately I don't think there is much you can do, if she is in denial.

You can speak to the health visitors and ask them to speak to her about his diet - if he's having three bottles a night and there's cream in his bottle, that's a hell of a lot of food!

Report her to Social Services, and forget about family functions for the next 20 years.

Or, leave well alone.

The child obviously has food issues, my ds did, he grew out of it, but was never obese. It is a sensitive issue for her. But ds is only 2, they get fussy so I would leave alone for now.

The thing is children are fussy eaters around this age, they also develop at different rates.

DS1 at 2yrs old was about 3 stone, there is a pic of him on my profile.

DS2 is now 3 and just under 4st wear 5yr olds clothes and is very tall as well. I get stares when people see him in his buggy but he is still a baby to me, and naps in the afternoon. And he has a bottle of a night as well sometimes 2.

I am not saying you are wrong to worry but just remember every child is different.

It's hard to watch...my good friend is well educated, middle class and overfeeds both her son's to the point of weirdness. ALlowing them five Oreo biscuits in one sitting each and they are only 1 and 3...they also have formula still...not so bad with the one year old of course....it's disturbing but she seems to have a blind spot. They are both getting to the point of being seriously overweight...I can't say anything...its not my place. Her Mother needs to say something or her doctor...

My ds was huge up until he was two. So much so that when he went into hospital for an emergency op at 11 months the paed called a dietician to speak to me. Ds ate a good balanced diet in proper portion sizes (not that the dietician believed me) She said fat babies make fat children make fat adults.But by the time ds started nursery at 3 he was average sized and positively skinny by five as he didn't put any weight on just grew into it. He's 21 now and still thin btw.

5 Oreo biscuits in one sitting??? How disgusting! [hides empty packet of Hobnobs]

My ds is 4 and is huge, he wears size 7-8 clothes, he has massive food issues and in tolerances. I have asked my HV and GP several times about his weight and they have both said he is fine and as he grows he will even out. Kids grow at different rates, in 10 years time your ds and he maybe the other way around.

Its such a difficult situation to sit and watch when his mum turns up with a box of chicken wings for lunch and dinner but you are right there is nothing anyone can do!

But maybe he won't eat anything else?
DS1 went through a stage of eating plain pasta, people must have thought I was evil as ther was not even a bit of cheese on it.

DS2 went through a stage of eating mash and gravy every day.

Both now eat a varied diet.

It's tricky.

My son was fat. I got it in the neck all the time from the ped. From the time he was three months old she wanted him drinking baby tea as a sub for milk for three feeds per day. Aside from being culturally allergic to giving a baby anything called tea, my son point blank refused to suck on any nipple that wasn't made of skin, so the idea of putting baby on a diet was a non starter. He stayed fat until he was a jumbo sized 2 and half year old (girthwise).

And then he slimmed down. I wasn't feeding him less or differently, just all his baby fat fell off as he started to grow upward at a cracking rate.

People who only saw him eating when we had company would probably have been under the impression that we fed him exclusively on fish fingers. But I am a rotten cook and hostess, so my fish finger standby was easy to fit in around cooking for adults and meant that perfect parents (i.e. the people who don't have any children yet) couldn't tut at me as my son got some kind of cosmic signal that right now was the perfect time to act like vegetable were venomous and he should kick up the most public fuss possible.

So I don't know. Because it is hard to say to what extent your impression of the situation is the whole picture or snapshots of bits here and there. How much time do you spend with her ?

Even if it is as you think it is, I not sure that there is anything anybody can do in terms of intervention until things reach a truly gargantuan state of a affairs.

So in the interim, maybe offering a sympathetic ear and shoulder to try and see if there are underlying issues (of maternal confidence, depression, child's sleep issues so she stuffs with food to try and get him to sleep so she can too)...and help her deal with those, so at least you don't feel powerless ?

Although..I'm wondering if there is a way of exploiting the "genetic" explanation by saying that the kid needs to be tested for them cos there are issues connected to that which need to be addressed asap. And using that as a backdoor way of getting her to bring his weight issue to the attention of the healthcare system. Maybe then having to confront the issues she is creating for him if in fact the quacks say he DOESN'T have genetic issues and his diet really isn't up to scratch.

But from the sounds of it there is no way you could persuade her to bring up the issue with the doc anyway, so that probably won't work.

If he is 2 has he had the HV 2 year check? If that is the extent of his diet I think that the mother does need some help. Are the parents obese?

I think the issue here isn't the size of the kid (as most other posters have pointed out, kids can vary pretty wildly) but the diet. Ask yourself whether you would be as concerned if the kid was eating exactly the same food but looked a pretty normal size and shape. Does he eat take-away exclusively, or could there be healthy food around when you're not there? (Maybe he even gets the chicken wings etc specially when you are there?).

I'm not saying you don't have grounds for concern, but as others have said, there's very little you can do about it I'm afraid. Most of us change as parents as time goes on. If she flies of the handle when the issue is bought up it tells you two things: 1 - it probably isn't worth bringing up again, and 2 - she knows there's a problem. Bearing this in mind, the chances are she's doing her best and that over time things will change. He's still pretty young, and his tastes will change over time. If it carries on once he's got to school you'll probably find that this (teachers and other kids) helps as well.

My eldest daughter is overweight.She is 11.What really irritates me is people thinking I feed her on fast food all the time.Out of all of my children she is the least fussy eater,she eats lots of home cooked food,more than her sisters do,also a lot more fruit.Her problem is she loves food and all types of food too much.She has started horseriding now ,but has always hated sporty stuff,preferes to sit and draw.It's difficult because I have never known anyone love all types of food as much as her.Her sisters,although healthy weights,are really fussy eaters,and my skinny middle daughter won't touch any fruit,and yet people view her as the healthy one and my eldest as the unhealthy one.My eldest is always hungry and its a constant battle to keep an eye on what she is eating.

I think that you can see from this that food and size is a big issue-leave well alone is my advice.

Some kids are overweight for no reason, or it's a phase... some kids it's because their parents feed them crap (or... for example my poor DSD's "Whatever they want to make them happy" and "Why shouldn't they have a sweet cupboard?" and "There's nothing wrong with them drinking as much fruit juice as they want"). They are 7 (in age 12-13 or Adult size 10 clothes) and 3 (in 7-8).

Apologies for the rogue apostrophe. I'm thick today.

Sorry to pull you up on your son, LadyEvilStar, but how tall is he? Because unless he is exceptionally, incredibly tall, at 3, and 4 stone, he is obese.

NHS calculator

I mean, 1.2m tall (the size of an average 7 year old)

Is he the height of an average 7 year old? If he was, he probably wouldn't be wearing 5 year old clothes as the sleeves and cuffs would be half way up his limbs.

Is it possible he is just obese?

tatty his picture is on my profile. he is hardly obese.

I am 5ft 8" and have a 31" inside leg,DS2 reaches my hip. so he is not short either, he also is a 10.5 in shoes.

i have made it public now so you should be able to

He isn't obese TheLadyEvilStar and will lose it when he has a growth spurt. My DS2 went from 'chubby' to quite skinny almost overnight when he was 13yrs!
I thought that OP was talking about obese with a poor diet.

Obesity is one thing (and very sad, loads of it around here)

Eating such high levels of salt is very sad and nothing else is worrying.

you have to keep offer and offer and eventually they will try.

DOn't know what you can do about it. Hopefully HCP will pick up on it.

Maybe offer him (and everyone else) other fruit etc so he gets the opportunity to try it.

Pisces, he is solid thats true but he is far from chubby iyswim? but he is tall and big.