AIBU to wonder how it's possible for an 8yo to be obese?

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I know I am and I'm being judgey too, but how?

I struggle to buy trousers fro my DSs (8 & 10) because they won't stay up.

I am in no way healthly eating obsessed. We eat 3 meals a day, mostly home cooked, but not always low fat, eg sausages and chips do feature and if anyone's still hungry there's always cake or a pud. My boys are active when out and about, but not sporty. They spend a good part of each day indoors and they get reasonable amounts of crisps and sweets as treats. DS1 is always hungry and never denied food (usually toast or a cheese sandwich for snacks) and yet still "average" waists are far too big for them.

What are the other parents feeding their kids?

I always buy the adjustable waists for dd as she is quite thin, but also has long legs for her height. dd has a good amount of crap in her diet. Probably more than I did at her age as my Mum made everything from scratch when we were kids. My idea of making a meal involves jars of sauce etc as I never learnt to cook properly (because there wasn't a cooker in my house for the majority of my childhood - after my Mum died) However, I was always chubbier than my brothers and my friends. I wouldn't say obese, but definitely chubbier. I'm just glad that dd doesn't have to worry about such things.

well DS is 8 and sometimes grows out of things sideways before he does lengthways, IYSWIM. He does at least 2 hours of sport a day, is very tall for his age and most (not all) of his girth is muscle. He gets a bit of a spare tyre before growth spurts, but is well muscled all over (broad shoulders, etc) - so he does fit "normal" (age 13) clothes - does that make him obese by your judgey standards, OP?

foreverondiet also when hungry they eat cheese sandwiches not crisps, biscuits and coke.

Cheese sandwiches aren't exactly slimming themselves though. I've been doing weight watchers recently and have found that crisps are less points then a cheese sandwich by a long way.

clothes are definitly too big for the ages they are intended for.

3.6yo ds fits into pants with 1-2yrs on the lable if other people buy him presents of pants/trousers with 3-4yrs on they are absolutly huge and i have to take the waists in.

i assume this is because the retailers measuring stats are showing that kids are getting fatter so they cut the clothes to fit.

bamboobutton - children come in very different sizes, you know! In my DD's class at school (children born in 2004, ie 6/7) there are children who are twice the weight of others without being remotely overweight, but just a hell of a lot taller. So DD has one friend who weights 15kg and another who weighs 30kg.

the clothing depends on where you get it

eg ASDA clothes - wide wide wide

H and M cut smaller

just slightly off topic - whats wrong with being judgemental? you SHOULD judge people by their actions (not necessarily one-off stuff, but overall stuff yes).

And what 'action' would have an obese 8yo be? I have several friends with more than one child all fed exactly the same food and and with very different body shapes. I also see in my work (diner lady) children who are 'chubby' whist pretty much not touching the content of their (healthy) lunchbox or school dinner.

Bamboobutton. Different children are different sizes, that doesn't necesseily mean they are over weight.

Ds is 21 months, only just moved into 12-18 clothes which on the whole are to big. My nephew is 2.5 and needs 4-5 clothes. Neither child is overweight by any stretch on the imagination, my nephew is just very tall and needs bigger clothes for length.

It would be really boring if we were all the same and we are not. DH and I are both solid built - he was a rugby tight head prop so you can imagine his shape and I am from good farming stock. Our DD is the same shape she hardly ever has crisps, chocolate or fizzy drinks - maybe once a week. She walks around 10 miles every weekend with the dog, she swims at club level, does ballet, dance and 4 sessions of sport at school.
She is 8 and wears size 9 to 10 year clothes for the width - judge away.

The only part I don't understand is why some parents seem complacent about their overweight offspring (by no means all such parents complacent or in denial, but some are, and quite openly so). I would be very distraught to have a heavily overweight child, not musing "Oh, I guess he does drink a lot of milkshakes?"

I saw a very overweight puppy recently, too (maybe 5-7 months old?, looked like a pedigree). That left me pretty too.

This thread is odd. It's going to end up with competitive offspring thinness. That doesn't feel right to me.

I used to have problems getting DS 15 clothes to fit round the waist. You can see from my profile pictures he had really skinny legs and no fat on him (except those chubby cheeks) but because he is broad set trousers didn't fit his waist. He is now 6ft and take a 30 inch mens trousers and still has no fat on him, but I have to get him a 40 inch blazer for the length and the shoulders. It hangs off him.

I do think that clothes have since got bigger round the waist

DD 13 also no fat and was skinny and i found that even some elasticated skirts dropped straight to the floor. Thankfully la redoute and vertbaudet were one of the first companies to add the elastic and button in skirts and trousers.

Shops cater for most common child sizes, my DSs are long and thin, have to take stuff in or buy "long" versions of smaller waist sizes.

Re obesity we found it easier to get clothes that fit them in France, US and S Africa so maybe UK kids are fatter, or maybe UK shops have less choice, I don't know

I've got 3 DSs, two borderline underweight, one borderline overweight. They get pretty much the same food, varied quantity by age. DS3 eats everything I put in front of him and is still hungry for more. He's naturally less active than the other two.

I, too, used to be quite smug about my skinny boys, OP!

It also depends how old they are. My 6 yr old DS was always skinny because of being so premature, but he is also not very tall for his age. I actually worry about is rather poor eating habits. He is simply not interested in food and has a very limited number of foods he will eat. I definitely don't think he is healthier because he is thinner - it's sort of the opposite. He has two friends, however, who were very chubby until about a year ago when they shot upwards and slimmed out. It was almost as if their bodies were holding onto fat so that they would be able to grow upwards at that sort of rate. They both have very tall parents. I'm not sure what that tells us.

I suspect it's just your children's natural build.

My 4 year year old has the same problem, about average height but on the 5th centile for weight, trosuers won't stay up, eats like a horse, and we don't really monitor his diet -cookies feature rather a lot . I am similar, don't watch my calorie intake at all, but have somehow managed to maintain a BMI of about 20 for fifteen years.

My neice, on the other hand, is the world's fussiest eater - you are lucky if you can get her to eat a mouthful of anything some days - and is very, erm, round.

Same reasons as adults. what doctors say: too many calories, too little exercise. build and metabolism are just excuses to avoid responsibility and change in behaviour.

I sort of agree.

My Dc's have a diet that would cause me to put on weight. It is varied but not particularly healthy (too many high fat foods). They don't do any structured sports apart from PE at school but they spend a lot of time playing outdoors.

I don't think they are lucky, they are decidedly "normal" so I have to admit my mind boggles as to what they would have to be fed to leave them obese.

I was fed all home cooked meals as a child, wasn't allowed crisps or fizzy drinks and chocolate only occasionally. I played outside most of the time and as a family we walked everywhere.

But I was an obese 8 year old.

Why? Not because I ate rubbish or didn't take excercise. Just that the portions I was given were far too big. I still remember being shocked at the small portions friends were given by their parents.

And as an adult I have to monitor my calorie intake to avoid putting weight on.

I love all these people who 'can't understand' how children become fat.

Can you not imagine anything outside your immediate experience?

slacksally the point of this thread is that people are imagining outside their immediate experience and still coming to the conclusion that it must be extraorinarily hard to be obese at 8yrs old.

I think it's just the way clothes are made these days. Adult clothes seem to be massive in the waist these days as well, for women anyway. I think nothing is really tailored properly any more, probably to keep clothes as cheap as possible, as seems to be expected now...

To those who think it really is as straightforward as eating less and moving more, I would argue that it really is not that simple. We seem to accept that different people grow at different rates, develop at different rates, have genetic tendencies to all manner of different diseases and conditions, but some people doggedly refuse to believe that people could possible metabolise food in different ways. We all know that people put on weight in different places - apple shapes, or pear shapes...etc, so how can it be possible that weight gain is exactly the same for everyone.

Added to this that we accept there are certain psychological factors that are passed from parent to child (when being diagnosed with depression, the doctors were very interested in my family history, for example) whether through nature or nurture, a propensity to over-eating or an inability to feel satisfied after food may well also be passed on in this way.

It is so much more complicated than people like to make it.