to think that people who feed their kids junk to the point they are obese should be visited by social services?!

[sawdusty]

It makes me so angry when you see these morbidly obese children (fat from food, not any other medical reason) waddling around and there mums buying them more bars of chocolate and packets of crips, wtf are they DOING?!

Often mothers associate food with love. Feed your child and you are loving him/her.
To deprive the child of their favourite foods (probably junk) would seem cruel and harsh.
Also the child has been programmed to see food as love. Putting them on a diet would seem like their parents don't love them anymore...

Counselling and support is needed to overcome these emotion laden interpretations of food - which the NHS can't really do!

Haven't watched Panorama and I think you are being a bit hysterical, but you are right in that parents should be responsible for their children's weight.

Someone I know is so upset that her 15 yr old is massively overweight, but I've known her for 10 years and saw it coming.
Her sons are so into football and very active so avoided it, but she still buys and cooks crap.
Pasta and bought sauce is a better meal, served with bought garlic bread.
Carb overload, additives and sugar.

How can you not blame the parents?

I've been concerned about DD recently. She's put on weight so quickly, and then grown upwards, but the weight going on is not coming off the way it used to, so I've had to change her diet.

We no longer have any bread in the house, snacks are fruit and meals end when you've eaten it all.

I'm doing this for her good.
She won't thank me at 13 when she's large, so I'm doing this for her at 9.

YANBU. Obesity is crippling the NHS.

salizchap
True, there is a lot of stuff that is technically available on the NHS but not if you have a day job! Also I have never yet met a very motivated or knowledgeable health professional working on dietary issues - they're generally like the nurse you described. Happy to be put right by anyone here who is/knows a health professional who is a highly motivated hotshot on diet and nutrition.

People could be given Weight Watchers membership for free as their NHS support if obese. WW does address some, if not all, issues of menu planning and keeping yourself motivated.

If healthy food was cheaper and more readily available and schools could buy back the playing fields they've sold off in the past 20 years, I think we'd see a difference.

This should be tried before involving Social Services- the care system is a drastic thing to inflict on a child who has loving but hugely misguided parents. Other avenues should be exhausted first.

YANBU but food is so much more interesting and appealing nowadays and relatively speaking much more affordable than 40+ years ago. Also it's the stuff that's easy to eat and needs the least preparation that does the worst damage. Doesn't anyone else remember the boredom of a chop, cabbage and boiled potatoes or mince bake, carrots and mash - again and again and again - and tinned fruit and Carnation - when ice-cream was a weekend treat! If it wasn't available and if the prices were higher people wouldn't be able to eat it. They would be hungry and poor and if we turn the clock back cold as well.

I don't think healthy food is expensive, I do think it is boring, or at least seems it in comparison with other available foods.
I had a bag of the cheapest apples the other week and they were watery and quite tasteless, but we ate them.

Good point onceamai. And let's not forget that junk food is an international, multi-billion pound/dollar industry. It pays scientists to come up with the cheapest tastiest combinations of ingredients, which usually amount to lots of fat, sugar, and salt. E.g. corn syrup is cheap and makes stuff taste nice, so food companies look for more and more ways to use it in their products.

People don't stand a chance against all this. The toxic combination of multi-million pound marketing budgets, the relative cheapness of junk food, and a general decline in education and knowledge about nutrition and cooking have all conspired to make obesity the problem it is.

IMO putting it right will take:
a) price hikes for junk food, coupled with extensive educational and health drives to tell people more about what they should eat and how to cook it themselves. This hands back control of their diets to them.

It's no use blaming people for becoming obese - our culture virtually forces it upon us. It is simply unrealistic to tell people "You're too fat. Lose weight." It is far more complex than that.

I do sometimes wonder what on earth some parents are feeding their children because I don't think we have the most healthy of meals but my kids are not fat and they eat what I would say were large portions (5f10 and 9.5 stone and 4f3 and 4 stone) ... they are not sporty kids either.

Its such a difficult issue. I could weep when I see the state that my sister has allowed my nephew to get into. And she has so many crap excuses; "He's big boned, he's not the biggest in his class, he knows what's healthy and what isn't so it's his choice to stuff his face".

Her son is 9 years old and 8.5 stone, it's up to her to take some bloody responsibility. I honestly think she's ruining his life.

But going back to the original post...
I often see larger kids in the supermarket tucking into family sized bags of crisps that their mums have let them take out of the trolley whilst she does the rest of the shop. I don't understand why they do it.
I accept that obesity is a complex issue but surely some basics are not rocket science ie if your child is overweight maybe consider giving them small bags of crisps as an in between meal snack rather than family sized?

Not saying "you're too fat" but suggesting a simple way to reduce chance of kids getting fatter. If fruit is substituted for crisps, even better.

social services are stretched too thin to deal with real cases of child abuse, like sexual abuse and beatings (not giving a child a mars bar "abuse") to deal with that.

i have always been fat. ever since i could remember. I had the same food as my sisters ran about as much as all of my friends, but i still was always the fat one. Its not always down to just eating too much.

what do you mean by fat? What is your height and weight?

Interesting theory but guess what: while all the social workers are out targeting fat kids, even less resources will be available for children in need and there will be more and more Baby P's.

Mugglewump - I sincerely hope you haven't told your dd why there is no bread in the house. I'm pretty chilled by your post tbh 'I'm doing this for her good.
She won't thank me at 13 when she's large, so I'm doing this for her at 9.' - She's 9 for goodness sake. Her shape is going to change beyond all recognition over the next few years - do you actually know what weight you think she should be?

I wouldn't be so sure that obesity isn't a concern in poorer countries

\link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11730091\from last week}

\link{http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/284902\earlier this year}

\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3969693.stm\and 2004}

I certainly remember having to squeeze (literally) onto combi's (the cheapest possible form of public transport) back in the late 1990's with some very large people

\link{http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejcn2010253a.html\a study from Sudan}

Interesting first post on MN. Did you sign up just to say this or are you a wimpish name changer?

You might want to look up some of the threads in Pedants Corner as you seem to have so much spare time - loose/lose, their/there. Just a suggestion.

NorthernLurker
I have no idea what she weighs, for that I'd have to make her get on the scales, and I'd never dream of it.
I've got rid of bread from the house as she comes home from school and eats sandwiches. At least one, but often is looking for another, with biscuits and crisps and a token piece of fruit.
I don't have crisps or biscuits in the house anymore either.
She is welcome to fruit after school.

She will stuff herself silly if I let her, and I don't think I should let her.

Meals are the same. I haven't changed them at all. They are home cooked and good.
Afters are fruit and yoghurt.

I've just started making porridge for her breakfast, sweetened with sultanas, which she likes, though she can still have her sweet cereal if she wants.
I won't make a fuss about breakfast as I don't eat it at all.

I think she eats pretty well, the problem is eating too much, so I have to limit it.

It's not an easy thing, but I believe I owe it to her, to help her have a good diet and a good body.

Sawdusty, you are right and it's not the cost of food an apple is cheaper that a Mars bar.

"An apple is cheaper than a marsbar"

Not in terms of calories per penny it isn't.

When you're poor, and you've got fuck all, and you know that they aren't going to get what they asked for for Christmas and they can't have music/riding/football coaching, the temptation is to give them what will make them happy NOW.

When they've had a shit day in a rough school, when they're going to have more shit days, when you can kind of predict that their life is oging to be shit because your own life is shit and they don't seem to be any brighter than you were at their age - you want to put a smile on their faces.

I'm not condoning, I'm explaining.

Colditz, take your point it is well made.

Excellent explanation colditz.

Mugglewump, how do you know she isn't hungry? And you do realize you are making an issue around carbs/bread/ect by removing them from the house completely? Bread is part of a balanced diet. I agree about limiting sweets, I do so myself, but anything else is pretty much fair game around here. And even at 9 she'll be aware that you are making an issue about some foods and not others.

Tee, I can see how it would seem that way. I will buy bread, a small loaf or a couple of rolls to be eaten for weekend lunch.

DD will eat far too much of it if it's just sitting in the cupboard.

Of course I can and do say no, but that leads to whining, and me saying no!

If it's not here she doesn't ask when I say it's not here, I just point her at the fruit bowl.

I'd love to have the type of child who ate a balanced diet of her own accord, and took no for an answer, but she doesn't.

I can't stand the whining and negativity around food when there's things in which I want to be limited, so I got rid of them.

I'll let her eat crisps too, and cakes and we usually have takeaway on a Saturday, but I have these things in to be eaten there and then, no more packets of them in the cupboard.

I really don't think there are bad foods, just a bad diet but saying no all the time leads to far more negativity over food than just not having them here.

ChippingIn umm, too much time for what? Too point out feeding your children to the point they have serious health issues is wrong? okaaay.
In answer to some of the posts saying that cheap food is cheaper, actually it's not. My family are on a very low income and still manage to avoid junk food, although obviously once in a while is ok it is not what the bulk of our diet consistes of. There are PLENTY of things you can do rather than joining a gym to lose weight and it is ridiculous to expect the NHS to pay for you to go to a gym. If you can't jog, try walking, buy an excerise video or even a book. You have the internet, why not look up tips rather than expecting the NHS to do all the footwork on your behalf. As for over feeding a child to the point they could DIE, sorry there is absolutely no excuse.