To feel I have just witnessed child abuse?

[mrsrosieb]

Please note I have only used medical terms in this post and nothing I am writing is meant to be insulting towards obese people.

I have just witnessed a morbidly obese woman pushing a pram with 2 older children-one about 9 and one about 14. These children are dangerously obese from a medical point of view.

I felt so sorry for them. If mum wants to eat a diet that makes her obese that is her choice and I have no problem with that. What I have a real issue with is raising children that may go on to suffer heart disease and diabetes-plus getting a ragging from the school bullies.

I know the SS have removed children like this. Am I right in thinking this is child abuse?

Smells but no-one forced them to fill the fridge with excess food or buy jars of full fat mayo.

People have to take responsibility and stop passing the buck or nothing will change.

I dont totally disagree with you vezzie.

Its just the whole 'I am going to relinquish any responsibilty for my own/my kids weight and health and blame society/capitalism/hormones/body build etc' mentality that pisses me off.

My 7 and 8 year olds would know that if they piled mayo on every meal they'd put on weight,the nutrition values also are on the jar.If she was overweight one wonders why she didn't look at the jar.

But this whole 'I can do it so why can't they' is so silly.
We can extrpolate that out about everything.

I'm really rich, why aren't you? If I can do it, so can you...

No one has pointed out the cultural side of over eating .My G.P.s and I.Ls came from poor countries where to be fat was a sign of being rich and or healthy so force feeding yr kids was considered the CORRECT thing to do . A lot of people don't question how they were bought up and so continue the vicious circle.

No one is saying that it's entirely societies fault if someone feeds their kids McDonalds 3 times per day, only that when people are trying to provide a healthy lifestyle for their children, society stacks everything against them - from the cheapness of rubbish 'foods' compared to good quality ones, the constant pushing of junk food/sweets to children, the high fat shit that is sold in Secondary schools (Primary schools are so good at promoting healthy eating, then your child turns 11 and the LEA allows vending machines to be put in the PE block at school and sells chips every day in the canteen) and the lack of free, readily available sports facilities for all children/teens.

You can feed your kids well on a budget, but this does require that all parents know in the first place that foods you assume to be good, might not necessarily be so. Manufacturers put a lot of money and effort into actively deceiving people.

There are no circumstances imo, where it should be acceptable to put addictive ingredients into food.

I do wonder if we're now in a situation where the overweight parents of overweight kids, were themselves mostly brought up in household where healthy eating habits and an active lifestyle were not common? All the posters and TV adverts in the world are not going to help if people have had it ingrained in them from day one that they can eat whatever crap they want, not get any exercise, and that if they then put on weight it must be because it runs in the family/it's genetic/they're big boned/they aren't actually that fat etc etc

I don't think we've all become greedier or generally more inclined to get fat, but I do think that (especially people of my generation, I'm 28) we've become lazier than our parents. And eating healthily, esp on a budget, requires planning and effort. Feeding your child healthy foods is more difficult than letting them eat crap. And that, to me, is the crux of the problem. Plus cooking takes time, and no one seems to have enough of that.

By no means am I the best example, but now we have DS, we try really hard to have healthy food and activities just be a normal part of life. It's not as easy as some would like to make out - if you are not naturally a sporty, active person, it can be a bit of a drudge to try and keep active. If you have a mega sweet tooth, yo uhave to learn to restrain yourself and not indulge it too often etc. All this has to be learnt, and trying to reteach adults a whole new way of looking at and thinking about food and lifestyles, is not as easy as saying 'well, she should have just read the label'.

Do I judge fat parents with fat kids? A little bit, but I try not to because you don't know their circumstance, as a PP said, they might be on Day 2 of a mega diet and lifestyle change.

If someone is offered help time and time again to change their lifestyle and give their kids a healthier start in life, but they ignore it or can't be arse, and the child's health is at risk, then I would class that as neglect, but I wonder how common that really is?

If anyone cares to look at the weight loss club on here they'll see that a high number of posters comfort eat a lot. They equate food esp. sweets and cakes with love because their parents or carers did the same. There's not an easy answer to obesity.

Exactly, with the comfort eating. Sometimes I binge or starve. Now using my fitness pal, I've been eating correct calories for 60 days and exercising hard. Still no weight loss but I will carry on, may have to drop my calories more. But I know I am not bingeing and I am fit despite being overweight so I am happy I am doing as much as I can

I've only ever known one obese person who was that way due to a severe thyroid problem, most obese people are the way they are because they eat too much (often junk) and don't exercise and as their weight increases can't because their weight affects their mobility, it's not comfortable to move while carrying an extra 6 stone of fat.

Adults are responsible for themselves, if they want to eat themselves into permanent disability and illness then that is their right to do so, they should not be entitled to abuse their children's bodies in the same way.

There is no excuse for an overfed, under exercised child (genuine medical conditions excepted), it is the parent's responsibility to control their children's health, if the parents refuse or can't do that then social services should intervene (not by taking the kids away, that should be the last resort). It's their duty to protect children from abuse, including abuse from otherwise loving parents. They need to be educated, pressured and helped to stop.

Obesity does serious damage to a child's body, if a parent was inflicting long term injury, disfigurement and increasingly limited mobility by beating them, nobody would pretend that the damage was acceptable, good parenting and undeserving of judgement.

In saying all that, it's wrong to judge people that you see walking down the street because you don't know their situation. A minority of people, including children have serious medical issues and they (all people for that matter) deserve to be able to walk down the street without getting dirty looks and negative assumptions from people who don't know them.

It's best to reserve your judgement for people that you know are abusing their children with an overabundance of food and making them obese, they need to hear it until they understand the harm the are doing and stop.

the high fat shit that is sold in Secondary schools (Primary schools are so good at promoting healthy eating, then your child turns 11 and the LEA allows vending machines to be put in the PE block at school and sells chips every day in the canteen)

this hasn't happened for a number of years - just as the healthy schools agenda was brought into primary schools it also came into secondary schools that are LA run. Academies though are a separate issue as they don't have the restrictions

It is abuse and there can be many reasons for it. Perhaps not taken into care but these families should be monitored, find out why the mother is not adapting a good eating habit for her children.

Does she want her children to maybe stay dependent on her? Is jealous of them and doesn't want them to succeed in anything where she may have failed?

The biggest lie of all is that she does it out of love. Yes, I am focussing on the mother here and no that doesn't mean dad isn't as guilty.

Before you start flapping, I speak from experience. My mother did it to me and it still affects my life now. I wish to god someone had stepped in and if it hadn't been for my dad I'd have been a lot bigger than I was.

Even then, chips and a vending machine won't cause obesity in an otherwise properly fed and well exercised child.

I do think self control (or lack of it) and a sort of 'jovial' attitude towards repeatedly over treating ourselves plays a part too.

Look how many threads there are where people are asking "AIBU to have just eaten 4 chocolate bars/cakes/packs of crisps/whatever in a row" and all the people who will say YANBU...then go on to 'out eat' the OP treat wise.

If they don't allow their kids to do this, why?

Because it's greedy and unhealthy...that's why.

It isn't just the physical aspect of parents making their children fat, it is the emotional side too. I would have hated to be the fat kid at school. They stood out a mile back when I was a kid. I wasn't a bully but saw how they were picked on.

worral there's the same 'jovial' attitude on here and generally towards alcohol which is so easy to abuse; it's an addiction, unhealthy and fattening as is junk food.

If you have a situation like the one I saw with the parents making the kid eat even though the kid had already eaten more than me and my husband together then I do think there is a real issue.

Firstly the fact the parents clearly have no idea whatsoever what is a normal amount of food to eat.

And secondly because they didn't allow their child to stop when he wanted to.

Surely, there are cases where this is going on, where we should have some sort of invention that goes on to help those concerned. Not necessarily SS but some sort of help.

The situation I saw, wasn't just looking at a child and thinking "oh he's big", it was also looking at just how much he was actually being fed. Thats not genetics or an underlying medical condition thats causing that.

Because it's greedy and unhealthy...that's why.

Yes it is...but everyone has their foibles or addictions, whether it be hard drugs, smoking, alcohol, caffeine, food, being OCD about neatness, passive aggression, anger issues, nail biting, being a troll... Show me someone who doesn't.

Food can make you very unhealthy but only if taken to extremes and over a long period of time. A binge on chocolate or pizza in an otherwise healthy diet is unlikely to cause health/social issues.

Hmmm were you out in a restaurant?
Because I must admit I insist my DC finish (or make a bloody good stab at their food) if we're eating out.

Nothing pisses me off more than paying for a meal DC don;t eat, only for them to tell me they are starving two hours later.

Breakfast buffets are the worst. If I pay fifteen quid for your breakfasy you had sooooooo better eat more thna a bowl of cheerios.

Yes I was. My point earlier was very clear in saying how much the child had already eaten was more than me and my DH combined. The kid hadn't exactly been starved... Kid had made more than a stab at the food he'd had. Wasn't going to starve any time soon.

Bare in mind my DH is 6' 2" and eats A LOT and commented there was no way they could eat that much in one sitting even on his more ravenous days.

Good morning folks. Has anyone seen this strange coincidence yet?

Very interesting slightlySuperior thanks. Paul Mckenna says that no one should eat past their full signals (esp. all the time) and doing so makes you fat (It's true BTW I've just lost 3 stone following his WOE) wordfactory IMO and E it doesn't matter how much the food costs.

Hmm I'd just read it and though what interesting timing.

Sorry that post should be addressed to SlightSuperior

Hmm - your story reminded me of a programme I watched about obese children. There was a mum with a morbidly obese 7 year old who was convinced his condition was genetic as she only fed him healthy food (which was possibly true). However, whilst the cameras were there after school she fed him two weetabix with berries (healthy food), two small slices of cake he had got from school because of a birthday (again not unreasonable) and a meat and two veg type of dinner (looked quite healthy). But the meal was a big as my 6 foot husband would eat and to be honest if he had already eaten two weetabix and 2 slices of cake DH probably wouldn't have finished a meal that size, yet the 7 year old boy ate most of it.

She also was discouraging him from exercising, she picked him up from school in a wheelchair when the doctors had said that he should be doing as much walking as possible.

She might have been giving him healthy food but the volume of food she was trying to pack in to him was frightening.