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?

Agreed
Article in New Scientist last week explaining how different types of food interact with your body to give different hormonal and endocrine responses
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929282.200-food-vs-you-how-your-dinner-controls-you.html
and some people are genetically predisposed to be fatter (but not nearly as many as tell us they are)
www.newscientist.com/article/dn23869-obesity-gene-makes-you-fat-by-keeping-you-hungry.html#.UgPEcJLVDTp

Long term lurker here and did just register to reply to this thread.
Just wanted to say that I deal with a few larger and obese kids in a social setting that are carrying extra weight due to all the reasons listed above(and I did read all 11 pages) but sometimes it is not the parents or children's fault.
My child is the perfect example.
Average daily intake is porridge made with water, no sugar and berries or wholemeal toast with banana for breakfast. Lunch 1 salad sandwich with at least 3 colours of veg and some ham, 2 pieces of fruit and water or diluting juice for lunch and a home cooked meal for dinner that involves at least 3 veg, little carbs and normally wholemeal (eg veggie fajitas) and snacking on fruit during the day, protein is normally lean red meat with no dessert. The only time he gets sweets, crisps, fizzy juice is 1x a week after rugby games on a Sunday.
Average exercise involves full contact rugby 3x a week for 1hr1/2 min from August to April, walking 2 miles to the bus stop for school 2x daily as neither me or my husband drive, riding 3 days a week during winter for at least 1hr plus an extra 2mile walk to the stables from the bus stop and back but up this to at least 4hrs riding a day and being at the stables from 9 to 5 working during the holidays, scouts 1x a week which is a very active group he also swims at least 1x a week not always in the pool but also in open water depending on where we are and has so far this year bagged 3x Munro's and learned to Kayak again on open water.
Plenty of energy but does still go on facebook or whatever for about an hour at night.
And according to the NHS and school he is considerably overweight at 12 years old,5ft1 and 8st10

Sorry for the essay

Is he "built like a rugby player" Feck? I imagine he must be fairly muscular if he plays full contact rugby three times a week. I remember when I was in school (rural Wales) a lot of boys were quite big when they started secondary school, but by the time they finished Year 11 they had turned into big strong rugby players, built like a brick outhouse but certainly not fat.

That's part of the problem. Built like a muscular forward, as when the wee guy started playing up here at 3 they went straight into full contact so 8 years of this has considerably built up his muscle mass along with ponies that have made his life challenging since he was 4 but due to a small covering of fat (ie you can see the muscle definition but there is a slight give to it when prodded ) the school and when I took him to get his nose checked after a interesting game, the doctor feels he is far to overweight for his age and height and I should be limiting what he eats and increasing his exercise. Think I need an extra few hours in the day

if he pulls hit tummy in, can he fit his fist into the gap under his solar plexus?
can you see his collar bones clearly?
if he bends over forwards, can you see his ribs at the back?

if not he is too fat

as at the age of 12, testosterone is highly unlikely to have developed much muscle yet

somewhere along the line he is eating more and doing less than you think

How did children manage without constant snacking 50 years ago? Or even 20 years ago? Because there is no doubt that they did manage.

I think it is very likely that children will overall eat less if food is presented in the shape of 3 sit-down meals of well cooked and fairly unexciting food. When I was a youngster a typical meal was boiled potatoes or mash, boiled greens and smallish quantities of meat. If you were hungry enough you filled up on the potatoes and greens, but you wouldn't sit eating more and more of them just to keep yourself occupied.

He could send a bit of his weight to my DS1 Feck. He is almost 11 and loves rugby, but despite being broad shouldered and not too short (4'9") he only weighs 5st. He is resigned to the fact that he is probably destined to be a Winger

Talkin DS1 has developed quite a lot of muscle in his chest, upper arms and shoulders over the past 12 months and he isn't quite 11, so they can do. Looking at him in comparison to his friends at the swimming pool you can see that he is starting to change shape.

cory
The food does not even have to be boring.
It just needs to be in discrete batches that provide the digestive tract with plenty to work on, and a break between to work on it
so that the hormones in the system learn to deal with "full" and "stop" messages that are overridden by snacking.

I'm not sure where the idea of eat all day being what we did before farming comes from, as it is not the case.
Hunter gatherer and simple agrarian societies spend all day collecting food and then eat it - in one meal - at the end of the day
so that they can share it out with those who are not picking and digging and hunting.
Its incredibly selfish to eat as you go and deeply frowned upon.

Knew somebody would say this, but unless he is stealing food no he is not eating any more as his school lunches are made for him as are the lunches he takes to the stables. I also know he is going to training as I coach a younger team than he plays in and my step mum is the manager of the yard that his pony is kept at so know how much riding he is doing a day as he helps school the riding school ponies along with riding both her horse and his own pony. All water sports are done with either myself or my best friend and 1 of the Munro's was with myself and the other 2 were with my FIL.
In answer to your questions
No cant fit his whole fist in as the upper abdominal muscles are easily visible and take up some room
Yes especially the break on his left one from a riding fall.
No but you can make out all 3 of the large back muscle groups and you can make out the vertebrae between the muscle groups.

Also due to the muscle mass of his thighs (again clearly visible definition on the large muscle groups ) if trousers are bought to fit his waist the seams will be split within the week.

Your response does seem to prove the point that I was making though. That no matter what some parents and children do they are always going to be classed as over weight

More exercise, less processed food, smaller portions, fewer snacks.

Having said that, some of the children at DC's primary school are chubby but I can think of only 1 out of about 150 who is actually obese. His mum is very overweight too.

Hi Jemima No chance of stealing any from the boy. Fast on his feet and coach wants him to play centre but I have brought up an oddity and he is determined he will play Hooker for not only his club but his country( Only thing is the little darling has not decided if that is Scotland or Italy yet)so is quite happy to keep the muscle mass he has at his age. Tell your boy nothing wrong with a good winger

I lived with a rugby player without an ounce of fat on him. Think tall second row for muscle build. Legs like my waist, scarily rock solid.

"Morbidly obese" by standard measurement just proving that BMI is only meaningful to people of the middle 75% of any scale.

thats a good point Horry, I think most proffessional rugby players would be classed as obese via BMI - sometimes it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt!

Feck
Fair enough, he is unusual. It would be interesting to get a body fat percentage scan done on him (or even one of those sets of body fat scales) as they separate out muscle from fat and give a more nuanced picture than just BMI.
From your figures up thread, his TDEE (what he needs to eat each day to keep being as he is) runs to nearly 2400 calories ...

DS1 has his (very ambitious) eye on playing for Wales, and my 10 year old nephew tells me he will play for England. Maybe they'll be proved right and all be playing in the 6 nations one day!

Had to just go google TDEE as being a bit thick and couldn't understand If I was feeding him 2400 calories a day(and would have been majorly suprised if I was) or if that was what he needed and I agree he is a bit unusual. Must admit I have always wanted a set of the scales that do the body fat thingy as I would be really interested to see sons results. Remember the used to do the calliper tests in 1st year of high school up here but they seem to have stopped this.
6 nations in 10 years then Jemima should be fun :)

I agree with all said re portion sizes, snacking, more junk food available. However my dd, nearly 5, is a gannet, honestly if you're not looking or not eating fast enough - she'll have it. She loves food, any food, healthy or not. And you can take her anywhere because she'll devour even new and strange foods with relish.

But she's not overweight, she's 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight. I put it down to her personality, she has a classic case of ants-in-the-pants-itis. She's constantly moving and fidgeting and driving everyone else insane. She'll watch TV but she has to be jumping off the sofa or doing headstands while shes doing it.

My ds though, 2, is an extremely fussy eater, he'll take a bite of that, a few nibbles of this and that's it, he's done. But he's more sedentary, he'll happily sit in his buggy for ages if you let him, just taking in the sights... not arching his back to get out and walk 5 miles home like his sister used to. He's on the 75th percentile for weight btw.

I remember a thread on here where the OP said they had eaten 48 Cadbury's creme eggs in a couple of days. Many posters said that they were impressed. Some others confessed to similar binges.

It was a very odd thread, and clearly with a different set of posters to the one on this thread.

I would think that a very active 12 year old would probably need over 2000 calories a day TBH. DS1 can certainly eat a good 1800 a day, especially if he is playing sport as well as general running around. A typical day during the holidays is something like:

Breakfast - 3 weetabix with semi skimmed milk, a banana.
Mid morning - an apple
Lunch - 2 brown rolls with tuna and salad, a pot of yoghurt, a small bunch of grapes.
Mid afternoon - 3 breadsticks and some hummus
Dinner - Chicken, carrots, green beans, new potatoes.

Before bed - 3 oatcakes, a small piece of cheese and a few cherry tomatoes.

That must come to at least 1800 calories. But he weighs 5st and is always on the go, so I don't worry about it.

Don't forget though you can be skinny on the outside and fat on the inside.From what I have read it seems to me that the food we eat and feed our kids is the real culprit here. So much of it is filled with sugar by the manufacturers to prologue it's shelf life and so it is considerably more calorie dense than 20 or30 years ago. Also as you have to walk something like one mile to burn about 70 calories you have to move a lot if that is your main way of maintaining your weight. if you consistently over eat by just one hundred calories a day it is easy to put on a pound a week

BBC2 right now .....

The Men Who Made Us Fat is onBBC2 at 11:20 tonight and will presumably be on the iplayer.

Definitely worth a look

the one called "The men who made us thin" at 9pm was interesting too.

FFS this is my last post. Firstly if your child is not obese?
It is not up to you to save the world from obeses
Children.

Please take note, as with many other
Issues, it's ok to feel sad for particular children's circu
Circumstances, it is Not ok to comment continuously
On a medical issue of which you have no direct
Experience.

If statistics are to be believed most if not all
Your children will grow to be overweight.