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?

[HotDogWater]

I think it's mad that genetics haven't been
mentioned so far. I think there is a skinny gene. DD and DH have a beautiful, long, fluid frame and not much of an appetite. They can go all day without requesting food and nibble or gorge when they see fit. DD is fairly active but has her fair share of screen time this hols. I don't ban any food. They are just never going to be big in a million years.

I am constantly hungry with v low blood pressure and blood sugar. DM and DD and DSis are all overweight. I have to force myself and work my body like mad to be a size 10 and nearly 6 foot.
Some simply are luckier than other in what they were born with.

[CoTananat]

Gettingfit, the overeating thing: 100 calories a day equals a pound a week -just seems so unlikely to me. If that's true, how come people don't accidentally become skeletally thin? Like, whoops! I skipped breakfast every day for a year and now I have accidentally died of starvation!

I go through phases (when it's hot mainly) where I eat hardly anything, yet I don't lose weight.

I have never been overweight. I have a bit of podge on me but I'd have to put one smth like two stone to even reach 25 on the BMI thingo. I am the same size in my thirties as I was when I was fourteen -I still have some clothes from then and they fit fine. But what I eat has changed enormously over those years. I spent several years in my early twenties existing almost entirely on pizza and Snickers bars. Like, six bars a day, easy! I've eaten almost completely vegan when I was hanging out with a lot of vegans, just, all kinds of things, all kinds of ways of eating. These days I eat mostly low carb, as DH needs to eat low carb for medical reasons, but I also am eating a pain au chocolat and drinking cafe au lait as I type so it's not that low carb . I don't do very much exercise - I've never gone to a gym in my life - but I have visible muscles. And my body shape, barring illness, is fairly consistent. A hundred calories - my diet changes by so much more than that. What I eat might change by a thousand calories from day to day, month to month.

And you know my mother was the same until menopause.

I just feel like this has to be genetically determined. I think it might be useful to look at why people don't get fat, as well as why they do. I get a lot of messages in the world that it's because I'm somehow more moral, more controlled, better than those fat people. But it's a con! It's not true! I'm not doing anything at all. I just came this way.

[Twattybollocks]

I think portion control has a lot to answer for. I see people putting huge plates of food in front of their child, and I just cringe. A child's stomach is roughly the same size as their fist, so really a small plate and a child size portion is correct.
Everyone seems surprised that my kids still have kids meals aged 7 and nearly 9, why on earth would a child who is 2/3 my size need a portion that even I can't finish?

[Thisisaeuphemism]

Well, genetics alone can't explain the exponential rise of obesity we see now. Two generations back, no one was obese - now 20% of people are, that's not genes.

[Sirzy]

I think genetics can make it harder to control weight but poor diet and lack of exercise are what causes weight gain

[CoTananat]

No but it is probably our genes that make those 20% of people fatter in this environment.

Like, you get dealt both a hand of cards and a game you gotta play that hand in. That's the whole idea of epigenetics, innit.

[Bakingtins]

bluelovesred you don't think we should be concerned that children as a group are getting fatter and fatter and heading for an early grave if our individual children are not fat? If most children will be overweight adults (think it's now 25% of adult population obese and about 50-60% overweight) then even more reason for the parents of skinny kids to instil good habits now.

I'm sure genes play a part in determining metabolism, but they haven't changed on a population level in the last couple of generations, and there is nothing you can do about the genetic hand you've been dealt, whereas you do have control over your diet and activity levels.

[Backonthefence]

Well considering how people are fatter now than before it isn't 'genes' that is the problem, what is the problem is that people eat more and move less then they did before.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

I'm not sure that's right exactly.

It certainly has to do with availability of food - which in the UK has pretty much never been so easy or cheap to buy. And the genetic predisposition is to do with how one stores and uses fat, not how fat one is.

In previous generations those with the predisposition still wouldn't have had enough to eat to lay down an extra ten stone in fat (honourable royal exceptions ) .

[JemimaMuddledUp]

I come from a long line of fat women and was a fat child who grew into a fat adult. But I have lost weight (through eating healthily, keeping an eye on portion size and doing more exercise) and am now making sure that I keep it off.

It must be much easier in terms of appearance to be able to eat anything you want and stay thin, but I can't imagine it is very healthy. At least I have a little inbuilt alarm system that if I eat too much or don't exercise enough my jeans get tighter and remind me I need to do something about it.

[RobotHamster]

I don't think metabolism varies as much as people think - I'm sure I've seen studies about this that show that the majority of people have very similar metabolisms and any changes are down to medical reasons or just anomolies. Obviously it changes as you age though.

(don't quote me on this, I can't remember my source. I think it was on a program with Michael Mosely about fasting)

[Cat98]

Very interesting thread.
My 2p- Most of the points raised are correct.
Easier available snack foods
Peer pressure
Parents wanting to stop whining/give kids what they want because they feel guilty about some other aspect of their parenting (and lets face it, there's a lot of pressure these days on people to 'be the perfect parent')
Less activity
Less playing out
More car usage
Health and safety concerns
Portion size
Working parents more likely to use convenience foods (short on time)
Perception of what is a 'healthy' size

Ds is not overweight but probably eats too much 'treat' food. He has come to expect it now at activities, parties, friends houses - and at weekends with his dad and I. It's hard - I didn't want to restrict it or it would be more desirable, but I think we've no choice.
I also think educating the children about how to be healthy and what foods nourish our body as early as possible is key - ultimately we want them to grow into adults who have the ability and motivation to make healthy choices for themselves.

[thebody]

I am a 70s child raised on findus fish fingers., sweets, fuzzy pop. no healthy meals at school or home and tons of snacks.

skinny as all my friends as we played out ALL day, rain or shine on our chopper bikes

excercise excercise excercise.

[Talkinpeace]

cat98
Interestingly it was a visit to the dentist that put paid to the "sweetie tub" in our house : now there are only squares of bar chocolate at the weekend.

thebody
If I go to the gym on a Wednesday I swim a mile in 40 mins (450 calories) do an hour of yoga (150 calories) and then do 50 mins of body pump (550 calories)
All of which is outdone by a cappucino (200 cals) a muffin (300 calories) and then a chicken caesar salad (700 cals)

research shows that kids "playing out" burn a lot less calories than their parents ever thought
and that kids get very similar levels of exercise than they have ever had (particularly girls pre WW1)

BUT
what has changed is the mass availability of cheap food
and the
dangerous dangerous insistence on offering snacks
Read Swallows and Amazons : no snacks there
or in Tom Sawyer
or in Little Women
or in Anne of Green Gables
or in Jane Austen
or the Brontes

kids ate at meal times and that was it
they fully digested and burned their food
they were not fat

[CorrineFoxworth]

cory that is shocking about undergrads and lectures. Perhaps they think they are in the cinema, where gluttony seems so acceptable. I don't actually go very often but am always amazed by the type and amount of "food" that people buy when they are about to do as sedentary an activity as one can imagine. When do they fit in a meal? Is it in place of a meal or what?

When I was a child we had a movie night when my Dad bought a video-recorder. We watched Clash of the Titans, Jaws and bloody Ghandi (he got a bit carried away) and I don't remember being offered any extra food or most of Ghandi just because we were sitting down and watching a screen.

[Thisisaeuphemism]

Read Enid blyton - it's snacks all the way!

I do agree with the point though. I've been to the cinema in America and couldn't believe the amounts people were eating as snacks. This has nothing to do with genetic disposition- it's too much crap food.

[RobotHamster]

No Its not, its all potted meat sandwiches and ginger beer

[Talkinpeace]

Grog

[Thisisaeuphemism]

In the faraway tree - which I have just finished - there are cakes and sweets all the time atmoonfaces house!

[CorrineFoxworth]

I remember Enid Blytons lashings of ginger beer

Crap food and drinks too. I've never understood buying a a McD's and dessert and a bloody huge milk-shake to wash it down with which is probably the calorific equivalent of whole other meal.

I don't remember ever having a drink in the cinema and in the seventies if we did have a coke or lemonade at a pub in the summer for instance, it was a tiny glass, 125 ml if that. Lashings of pop was probably two of those!

[RobotHamster]

Yes, and they were always ravenous weren't they, and required a giant meal at a farm house somewhere.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

It was always ham, eggs, tomatoes and fresh bread washed down with the ginger beer, wasn't it? And scrumped apples and ices afterwards.

"Oh Tommy, you're so licky."

[QuintessentialOldDear]

Well no wonder, when most people think that crisps and cake bars have a vital place in a packed lunch, and fruit is a sugary processed humzinger, washed down with juice and sugary yogurt.

My cousin came back from holiday in Malta, said she was shocked to see the size of the British guests in her hotel, they were twice the size of the other guests, they really stood out. She said she was so amazed she could not stop looking at them stuffing themselves from the buffet. Cake after cake like they had not seen food before.