to ask what can or should be done about childhood obesity?

[Bakingtins]

Prompted by this article of which I think the worst bit is not the headline grabbing 24 stone 10 yr old, but the figure that 20% of children are now obese. It's something that I have increasingly noticed at my son's swimming lessons (and those are the kids whose parents do take them swimming) and at school.
Current weighing kids at school and 5-a-day, change-4-life campaigns don't seem to be working. What do you think the government, parenting organisations, the BBC etc. could or should be doing to reverse the trend?

Ooh I agree! SIL thought I was being harsh for saying no to her 6YO when she asked for a snack 20mins before the dinner I had prepared for her as well as everyone else in the house was ready.

Her DD complained about being starving - so her mum sent her through to the kitchen where I was making the dinner to ask for a snack just after I'd told them that dinner would be ready in 20mins!

Miggsie Thu 08-Aug-13 11:00:06

"Children are encouraged to eat constantly. When DD was a toddler I think I was the only mother whose pram was not filled with those cheddar snack things and endless bananas and dried fruit and biscuits. It is possible for children to not eat every hour and not die - although round here you would not think so. I nearly fell over when DD asked if she could have a snack for ballet class. A 40 minute class where most of the girls were apparently stopping to eat biscuits halfway through. Why? Most were coming out and eating again as well - it is as if having food in your hand is a form of nervous habit."

This. Absolutely. And the first generation of the snacking children are now undergraduates: they genuinely do not believe that they can survive a 90 minute seminar without refreshments, because they have no experience of not having a food stuff in their hands.

That's a very good point cory. I am just going into my 3rd year of a degree and I am constantly amazed at the bags full of sweets, butties, crisps Etc people take with them into seminars and lectures. Mind boggles how they will cope when working!

I think:

Not eating what's put in front of you.
Snacking and grazing.
Lack of activity( not just sports, but being driven to school etc).
Family lifestyle endorsing poor habits.
Availability of unhealthy food.

It's basically just poor discipline, surely?

I don't think there is any harm in treating crisps, chocolates etc as a treat and making it more desirable as long as you are confident enough to show that you don't indulge your desires every day.

In many ways, I think a good Rioja is more desirable than tap water. As in being more festive, more special, more exciting. But I still only have the Rioja for special occasions: when I get thirsty on an ordinary boring day, my first port of call is still the tap. Because I was taught as a child that there is a natural rhythm between feast and everyday and I have internalised that.

You can teach children self discipline without making it a dreary or punishing thing.

I can't help noticing that there is still a difference between the UK, where crips are part of everyday lunch boxes etc, and Scandinavia where crisps are what you have at parties. It doesn't mean my Scandinavian nephews spend all their day yearning for crisps: they know they will get them now and again, just not every day. "Everyday" is boiled spuds and meat or fish and two veg; that's what school dinners are like, that's what home dinners are like, that's what children expect. And there are noticeably fewer obese people around.

Parties are special so you have special foods to mark them. Otherwise how do you know you are at a party?

Ok, my theory...

Don't cook too often , we don't need big cooked meals all the time. Also, if we always get exactly what we feel like eating we're likely to overeat.

Eat a good breakfast

Snack lots throughout the day on healthy snacks, never get too hungry so you overeat to compensate

Don't make a big deal over meals - so long as snacks are healthy and balanced, why do kids(or adults( need to eat lots at particular socially prescribed times

Serve small portions, don't encourage dc to get used to having a really full stomach - much better to feel unpleasantly full after eating too much

Eat "unhealthy" snacks too in moderation so they are not forbidden

Puddings occasionally - so not forbidden but not expected

The idea is to encourage healthy eating without consuming excessive calories whilst being able to listen to your body and what it's telling you...

Constant snacking, at least if on fruit, is very bad for your teeth though. And lots of the snacks that are sold as healthy snacks are also fattening.

Constant snacking is everywhere though, not just with children. Look around the average office and people are ALWAYS eating. Breakfast/pre lunch/lunch/post lunch snack/more snacks. It's non stop. Nothing worse that someone next to you constantly chomping away on apples all day. Just because they are apples doesn't mean you can eat a whole bag and think you're being healthy!

I didnt used to give my DCs snacks when they were little unless we were swimming or hiking miles or similar but let them eat as much they wanted at mealtimes. I also let them have a treat a day.

Even now they are almost adults they seem very good at not eating between meals. They are all 'fat' free and healthy and they still seem to keep to the one treat a day rule, even the ones that have left home.

I don't have snacks in the house or I would eat them and never buy things like crisps and biscuits.

YY - snacking is awful for your teeth.

I used to have to carry food around with me, I was almost scared of getting hungry and would worry about it. I stopped doing that, it was ridiculous.

I carry stuff about with atm but only because I'm pg.

I am a great believer in letting children experiency physical sensations like being hungry, or cold, or wet, or tired. Not all the time or just for the sake of it, but in a natural way, by taking them out and about, letting situations arise where this will happen naturally.

I think people are increasingly steering away from small adventures, because they really think it would be bad for their child to get overtired one day or miss out on their eating routine or get caught in the rain. But I think it is good to experience what your body can do.

I'm not advocating "constant" snacking - but regular snacks so you don't get too hungry. Ie every couple of hours or so.

Healthy snacks which aren't bad for teeth:

Nuts, rice cakes, tofu (cut up into chunks and eaten with fork), carrot sticks, cucumber, olives

Avoid too much fruit juice

Btw I have 3 dc, 2,4,7 and they will all eat the above snacks

Constant snacking is REALLY bad for your insulin system
your digestive tract needs time to "hoover into the corners"
snacking is the cause of the rise in obesity
eat twice or three times a day
nobody needs to eat more often than once every four or five hours
(except possibly international athletes in training)

a light (not cereal / sugary) breakfast
a decent lunch with plenty of protein and not too much carbs
a decent supper with plenty of veg

NO SNACKING

Talkinpeace - I completely disagree that no-one needs to eat more than once every 4 or 5 hours. We are all different. I for one could not function that way. I need to eat every 2 hours. I would imagine most young dc would be the same. Healthy snacks every couple of hrs IMO is much better than overeating a few times a day.

Humans would've evolved eating as they found nuts and berries etc. not going hungry for hours then gorging on cooked food in one go.

I also know from experience that if I get too hungry my body snaps into survival mode and I gorge at the next meal. Humans evolved to avoid going hungry.

There is nothing wrong with feeling hungry, people are just conditioning themselves to expect food and thing they need to eat as soon as they feel a bit peckish. I think one or two SMALL snacks a day is ok but constant grazing isn't good for you and is what makes children want to eat all the time rather than being able to wait until the next meal time.

I also think a lot of people mistake hunger for thirst. I was reading an article before which suggested 75% of people in the uk were dehydrated because they simply don't drink enough water

I can't eat large meals (thanks to medication screwing up my insides as well as making me constantly nauseous), so it's better for me to eat little spread throughout the day.
Moderation is something people aren't very good at. Which to be honest is understandable especially with yummy cake but once you get into the habit it can become easier.
I've never been overweight (& consider myself lucky) but I also tend to eat small portions (I am small so it seems logical). I eat chocolate, cake, fried food etc but not very often. I've never been on a diet, I always think they make you think about food too much.
I don't fill a huge plate of food, I don't always finish in a restaurant or at a friends house and I don't eat when I'm not hungry.
I think the same way with my DS.
The weighing and measuring at school seems a slightly wonky campaign to me.
DS was measured last year.... We got a letter back telling us DS was overweight according to his BMI and a leaflet telling us to how to change our eating habits (to exactly what we already do!)
I mentioned this to our GP as we were there the following day and she fell off her chair laughing saying no way was our DS overweight (I knew this already but it's nice that somebody else said it besides me). He's so skinny that his trousers fall down and his ribs show, he's fit and very active and eats healthily, so an overweight diagnosis is very obviously wrong.
Nephew also got told he was overweight in the same program despite being of similar build and lifestyle to (if not even more active) DS.
Made me wonder if the 'statistics' might be as similarly accurate. (yes I know there are overweight / obese children and efforts must be made to help them but how do we get it right if they are getting it so obviously wrong in cases which discredits the programme IYKWIM)
I think it happens because it's a computerised process without adding common sense to weed out anomalies.

Yeah but the food we eat now is totally different to the food we ate as we evolved. We HAD to eat nuts and berrys as we found them because we have no way of preserving them, and the cooked food would have been meat. Not a salt and sugar laden shepards pie bought from the local supermarket. The problem is a lot of people eat 3 meals a day of reasonable high calories AND lots of snacks on top.

There are lots of report indicating that having more smaller meals can be advantageous in weight loss.

At the end of the day it is calories in minus calories out. You might find you eat more calories in a day if you do 2 big meals, or you might eat more if you graze continually...that is going to depend on the details of your own metabolism.

I think the 'this worked for me so you should try it' meme is a bit dangerous to be honest.

I am sorry that I haven't read all ten pages but I think that we have to bear in mind that the big difference between my childhood (70s-80s) and now is that I was 'playing out' all day at weekends and from after school till dinner on weekdays and often after dinner too (in the summer anyway).
The tv was rubbish and there were no computer games (except the occassional zx spectrum which required a lot of patience).

AND not only were we out being active, we weren't snacking while doing it.

Today's screen-based or indoor activities don't just prevent children from running around, they can also be done while snacking and in fact encourage mindless eating. We were always in a rush to eat our dinner and skip pudding so we could get back outside to our friends again.

I am really not sure how we can replace this 'playing out'... there are some good reasons why children do it less now - my parents still live in the cul-de-sac i grew up in and it's now FULL of parked cars compared to when I was growing up, there's just no space now. And that's nothing compared to the traffic on through-roads. Also, with so many children in childcare until 6pm or so (more working mothers than the late 70s) they are often indoors doing activities. Even those doing 'organised' sport will be taking turns, learning skills, listening to instruction etc rather than just haring around the place.

After school clubs where kids just 'play out' without instruction (and without snacks!) might be an idea... but these days even playtimes are supervised and sometimes organised to eliminate bullying and schools tend to keep children in at the merest hint of normal british weather so I can't imagine 'free play' after school clubs really being free....

Kids here still play out. Maybe this is why I see very few obese children, as playing out is normal. From my kitchen window I can see lots of children, aged between about 4 and 14, playing out with bikes/scooters/footballs etc. They build dens, climb trees and try to catch fish in the stream. After walking home from school mine dump their bags, get changed, have a drink and rush straight back out to play until I call them in for supper. Pretty much what I did at their age 30 years ago.

Maybe I just live in a 1970s parallel universe?