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?!

minervaitalica
There is no excuse for fat bashing, gay bashing, disabled bashing full stop
I don't think anyone is fat bashing, simply saying that it is unhealthy to be obese. People are born homosexual, and either born or become disabled through no choice of thier own. People become fat because they eat too much of teh wrong sorts of foods and don't do enough excercise to burn off the excess energy they consume.

One of the fattest women in town lives near me. Her kids are fat because she feeds them on chippy chips and junk (having to sit for a rest on the two minute walk from the chippy with a big bag of greasy food). My friend used to work in the local shop and called them the "Pot Noodle and Peperami family" because that's just the sort of crap she'd buy for them.
Her son is now around 17, very obese, and a very sweet lad. He never even looks people in the eye or smiles because he has no self esteem. I only know he is nice because he has caught my escapee rabbit a couple of times and brought it back.

Publicly abusing ANY section of society isn't on. And yes, the NHS could have much more success if they looked at the WHY people take solace in food than just shouting them down - and if gym subsidies (ours only last 12 weeks by the way - they're not indefinite but designed as a short term hook to get people in there so they take htem on themselves) help remove that barrier of people not feeling they're "allowed" (and it does feel like that) to go into the leisure centre because that's where thin people only go - so be it.

When my depression's at it's worst - I become almost agoraphobic - it doesn't take much to force me to run back into the house and stay there. Someone coming along shrieking at me and hurling abuse would be very likely to do that - and it has done in the past. I object to the dehumanizing of overweight people which is happening increasingly at the moment - the hysteria when companies launch plus size clothes, the bashing when there are any moves designed to facilitiate self-esteem and help people make changes in their lives. Bashing alone does NOT work - it didn't work for smoking for all those years before we moved to support rather than condemnation - it won't work for obesity either.

It's a damn site more productive than having yer head shoved up some woman's chuff doing a smear and shouting at them (my chuff by the way has a healthy BMI of whatever ladybits is meant to and isn't at all wobbly around the edges).

I'm also not going to naffing well police lunchboxes. Being brutally honest - I can't be fucked with the subsequent shitstorm on that one, and lunchtimes are for me to have a pee.

Yes I understand that but how has anyone abused or fat bashing on here?

BTW I also think the 'lose weight through exercise' thing should be banished

Exercise alone won't lose you substantial amounts of weight. It is only through cutting down food that you will lose weight.

My very good friend has weight problems and she uses exercise as a balance (but not v. good one, if you catch my drift) to allow her and DD to eat too much.

"Well, you've been swimming so you can have a king size Mars bar now". It is such a myth perpetuated about exercise and losing weight. And it needs to be stopped.

EmptyShell - it makes me sad everytime I read your name & I hope, one day soon, you can change it to EmptyShellNoMore x

I totally agree with your posts on here (well, the ones not about the slow cooker! I don't have one!!).

NortherLurker, SofaKitten, Salizchap - why aren't people actually listening to what these posters are saying? Because even though you have no experience of it (or have had to lose half a stone once in the past you think you have), you think you know better?

PlentyOfPockets - lovely post. It's nice to see a naturally thin person who admits that a lot of the time it's down to luck :)

Ronshar - nope, teaching people to cook is not the answer, it might help some people, but it's not a 'cure all'.

Mugglewump - I think you are doing the right thing. I think your first post came over quite controlling & a bit 'mean' - but as your posts have progressed, I think you sound less 'mean' & more caring. However, as a couple of others have said, please be careful that this doesn't push your DD into secret eating & spending pocket money on crap - she'll soon have more independence and if she's hungry after school will buy crap. I would buy bread occasionally in the week and allow her to eat things other than fruit after school. Not making food an issue is a very hard thing to achieve - but so important.

I agree that children should not be fed a diet of crap. I also agree that I would do everything within my power to stop any children of mine getting over weight, but also, I wouldn't let a naturally skinny child eat crap either and would ensure they exercised. There are also children who become overweight due to other reasons.

I strongly disagree with the OP that SS should be involved because a child is over-weight - a child can be just as unhealthy and not over weight... once again, that attitude is just 'fatty bashing'.

LadyBlaBlah I read an article about this the other day, interesting. I think it really does boil down to waht 'food' you're putting into your body, you can do all the excercise in the world but if you're still eating junk... chances are you will just eat more as you are hungrier

ChippingIn Morbidley obese is not the same as overweight.
Ok, perhaps not social servies but someone needs to step in to protect a child who's health is seriously at risk because they are morbidley obese. What would you suggest?

sawdusty - you started this thread to judge & fatty bash.

You don't seek to understand, you don't try to help - you just go on & on & on with your ignorant views.

You aren't 'listening' to what people have to say - you are just dismissing it.

That is fatty bashing.

I don't think social services have the manpower to visit every family with obese dc tbh

Sawdusty - once again - you focus on semantics over weight/obese. You don't bother to read what people are actually saying and try to learn from it - all you do is pick up on stupid little things and repeat yourself.

What do I suggest? - The govt/NHS backing off from their 'Fatty Bashing disguised as Heathy Eating'. Making 'fatty bashing' as socially unacceptable as racism, not allowing the newspapers/tv etc to actually bloody promote it.

Making exercise classes/cooking classes/kids after school activities free to everyone and not focussing on the FAT people - who are not always the unhealthies.

Skinny people seem to be under the illusion that they are healthy because they are skinny - they're not. They can carry just as much fat around their vital organs as a fat person.

ChippingIn did I? Ok if you say so

How are my views on not feeding children junk food to the point they are morbidley obese because it is harmful to their health ignorant? Do you not think it is more ignorant if I were to know that I was putting my children's health at risk and carry on doing it anyway? The mind boggles.....

I do strongly feel that alot of people don't know when enough is enough- ie when they are full. My IL's stuff themselves so much they have to sleep it off. Stupid things like three different sorts of potato for Sunday lunch,and when they have cake/pavlova they have around a fifth of the cake each. My FIL is morbidly obese and MIL obese (their doctor told them so)
but insist they eat healthily and can't understand it. Grr!

The government have a duty to inform people about healthy eating, it is their job, just out of interest which healthy eating campaign is it you object to?
Kids don't need after school classes to be active, surely?! Is it so difficult to suggest parents teach their children to cook rather than sending them to after school cooking classes (never heard of these actually..) I also thought you said in a previous post that you didn't think teaching cooking in schools would be helpful.
No one is saying skinny people are healthy, not sure where you got that from..

Sawdusty - your OP was your first post on MN as Sawdusty - so either you signed up to do this or you are a namechanger. I'm guessing a name changer, you chose not to do it under your regular name - why not? What is your regular name?

sawdusty Mon 15-Nov-10 20:56:33
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?!

What was your motivation then - if it wasn't to judge or to 'Fatty Bash'?

Just read your post again, sorry my mistake, you didn't mean after school cooking classes.
Is it so outrageous to suggest someone buy a book on healthy eating or look up recipes on the internet?

It was to seriously question what parents are doing by feeding their children to the point they are morbidley obese and have serious health issues .

I joined mumsnet last week, this is my first post, if that's ok with you

The ones that have a slim 6 year old boy paranoid about everything he puts in his mouth in case he gets FAT. Ones that have the same 6 year old commenting that 'the fat person over there shouldn't be eating that should they Mummy'.

Ones that have 4 year olds coming home from school telling Mummy they are naughty because she has let them have a glass of milk & a biscuit.

Ones that are making our children think it's fine to pick on fat kids under the guise of 'helping' them.

Having things available to all people who wish to take part is the key - not what is offered.

Many children (fat or skinny) would benefit from having free after school activities (football, dancing, athletics, gymnastics) because not all parents encourage children to be active, not all are happy for them to run around the streets, not all of them can afford classes/clubs. Lots of children go to childminders/after school clubs where it's not possible to enable them to get the exercise that would benefit all children.

Teaching proper cooking in schools will help all children - it wont cure obesity.

You were only suggesting that SS goes into the homes of FAT children, you weren't suggesting they go into the homes of skinny children - so you are saying that fat children are unhealthy and skinny children aren't.

ChippingIn , thank you for pasting in OP's original words. I think its good at this stage to remind ourselves what was said. Sawdusty : If you see children that are, in your opinion, morbidly obese, and they are eating an apple, whilst waddling, how do you feel then? And if you see a child that was, in your opinion, just a bit fat, and they were eating, let's say, a single gummi bear, would that be OK - how about two gummi bears (or even a Pom bear) or what if they were quite overweight and eating two apples? What are they allowed to do, in your world?

When I see a child that is overweight, I feel concerned, because it may well have be detrimental to their health and self esteem, but also sad because people like you will be judging them and their parents.

Its not as simple as eat crisps and get fat, if it were then no one would be overweight. Someone earlier had a good idea about simply not having things in the house, that's a good start, a good idea. That's positive. Being angry because you don't like the way a child looks? How is that ok - and how is it suddenly OK with loads of MNs?

It was not to seriously question anything. If your motivation had been to have a real discussion about obesity in children you would have worded your original post differently.

ChippingIn - no, I am saying that a morbidley obese child is unhealthy because of their weight , which clearly they are.

MrsNonSmoker - Yes I am saying it makes me angry because of how a child looks when they are clearly morbidley obese and their health is at risk, not angry at teh child but angry at the situation that has led them to be like this (only 1% of children are obese for medical reasons btw)

Likewise if I saw a child who was covered in bruises (as in the NSPCC adverts) it would make me angry because they had been beaten up.

Ronshar

Neck of lamb. Not that cheap. £6.12 at Ocado. £3.99 at Tesco for half the weight of Ocado so £8.00 to make a casserole just about big enough to feed a family of 4 if you bulked it out with veg etc.

But that aside, a serve of this with the sauce it was simmered in would clock up more saturated fat grams and calories than chicken nuggets and chips, unless the serving size was very very small, which, at that price, it probably would be.

I'll have to leave you to it, be interesting to come back later and see what people are saying, but I'm going to get too upset and end up typing rubbish. I'm gobsmacked by what the OP has said and that she walks around having those thoughts about other families.