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?

minifingers
are there strong cheeses you like that she does not (DH and I have found stilton to be useful for that)
bread : OK but make it wholemeal granary
butter : OK but make it block, in the fridge so harder to overdose
cocoa : wean yourselves off it for a month - habit then broken
sugar - ditto
and yes, its rebellion, but by removing the problem foods you are already well in the right direction
keep it up, you'll get there !

The problem is at 14 the change has to come because she wants it not because she is being pushed into it. The hard part is finding a way to motivate her to want to loose the weight.

at 14 parents can only control what is eaten at home, so of course they can ensure that is a healthy balanced diet but it means very little if they then run off to the shop for pop and sweets.

Can you introduce some sort of mutual goal to lose weight/tone up (however you feel is best to word it) for? Holiday, or some sort of sponsored walk for a charity she cares about?

Oh right Talkin, I had a very absent health visitor and went back to work when ds was six weeks old and he had an older childminder who weaned him as she had weaned her children pre 1972. I completely missed the snacking indoctrination then.

Talkin thank you for your concern. However....I never said a 5 hour gap will lead to Anorexia. What I said was that instigating more control in a girl who already HAS an eating disorder will not help.

You're full of it.

Loads of medical advice . Been there. Got the tee shirt.

She is a normal teen - just a VERY rebellious and determined one.

Should add - we live in a
poor area and she is by no means the fattest girl in her year. Some of her friends are really big too.

I'm not sure she actually cares that much (despite the rampant obesity/hypertension/diabetes in ds's family which augers badly for her future). In fact when in the past I have suggested that she think about her diet because it was harming her health has expressed the view that she wouldn't want to lose too much weight anyway because she wouldn't want to lose her boobs or massive arse.

Eat less move more.
Strict portion size. Many children are given adult size portions of food.
Don't buy junk food. If its not readily available kids can't get at it.
Ban pack lunches.
Improve quality and nutritional value of school meals.
Tax food companies that produce unhealthy food.
Improve labelling on foods. Make it clear how much sugar and fat is in it.
Make 4 sessions of PE a week for all ages mandatory.
Change the focus of PE lessons to show kids that an active lifestyle will help them stay physically fit and relaxed and help them beyond school.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that it's OK to feel hungry - for us and our children. People can't seem to go any time at all without eating.

Combined with a lack of physical activity and a diet high in processed food and refined grains.

We have lost sight of what is a 'normal' weight. I attended an interesting training session for HCPs given by a consultant paediatric endocrinologist - she showed slides of children seen in her clinics and asked us to mark which ones appeared a healthy weight and which ones were an unhealthy weight. Even as HCPs we got many wrong!

She is a cheese aficionado and will eat ANYTHING, including cheeses like stinking bishop. . DH works really, really hard and cheese and wine is his treat.

It's just not fair on the rest of us to have to massively restrict normal foodstuffs in the house. And she'll find a way around it. She always does. If she wants to eat shite she will find a way.

Talkin You are missing the point spectacularly. Neo is correct, there is nothing necessarily wrong with not eating for 5 hours (for most people) but making a competition of it is just asking for trouble.

I hate these threads full of pious oh parents should do this and do that.
My DD is technically obese. I don't buy crisps, sweets or biscuits. I cook from scratch every meal measuring portion sizes carefully. We eat a wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. GP has checked food diary and can't see anything he would change. She got three small Easter eggs at Easter we still have 1.5 left.
DD takes part in 7.5 hours of PE per in which the teachers say if she tried any harder they think she would explode, last week she was at netball camp and played Netball for 5 hours each day and we dog walk as well.
She has a max of 1 hour screen time per day.
However, technically if you do my BMI I am also obese, but with measurements 29, 26, 37 and taking a size 10 my GP says I am not.
GP is of the opinion that both myself and DD carry very high muscle level and that she will end up like I am. But still I am judged for the way she currently is. In my GP's words we both have a 'traditional' body type which can't be judge by modern BMI calculations that don't take actual measurements into account.

minifingers
oh dear, a girl after my own heart. I ADORE good cheese!
and yes, cheese and wine is what makes life worth living!
you are right, if you are enjoying good food, all you can do is lead by example that good food is to be savoured and enjoyed

do you have all meals at the table?
do you make a ceremony out of cutting the cheese on the cheese board (all wrapped in wax paper, been out of the fridge an hour)?
do you refill the (small) wine glasses to savour with each cheese?

I know it sounds daft, but that IS something the French get right : you eat at the table at meal times - no TV dinners, no phones at meals, no TV at meals
if you are buying good food, make it THE MOST important thing in your house at that moment.
She will understand in time

I grew up in the 1950/60s and brought my children up in the 1970/1980s. I fed my children the way I had been fed as a child. I think the main difference between then and now is the huge amount of choice. When I go to the supermarket there are whole aisles devoted to crisps and snacks and sugary cereals and drinks.

As a child I ate three meals a day and no snacks. Foods like crisps were treats and only eaten at parties. We always ate as a family, my mother cooked from scratch and she grew vegetables. I think food was simpler and not so 'fiddled with'. When I go shopping if an item has a huge list of ingredients with additives and e numbers, I don't buy it.

People are definitely larger now, you only have to look at old news reels or photos to see this. There has been a huge increase in the incidence of Type II diabetes.

It's the manufacturers for adding crap and being allowed to add crap, and the retailers for buying and selling it on. And us for falling for the marketing.

The Foods Standard Agency are not on the ball.

For the record, my dc's weights are fine but I am under pressure from them to buy 'crap' for snacks. Which I do within limits. If I had my way it would be different.

Ho hum.

I agree that snacking has a huge impact. Its actually quite hard to eat more than you need if you're just having 3 good meals a day. I happily go without snacks, as does DS. You just need to get used to it. Having a biscuit at 11am is a habit, not a requirement.

If you're the type to snack and graze, fine if you have small meals. Too many people eat their normal 3 mealsaand then snack on top of that. I don't remember snacks as a child, we werent allowed them - we certainly didn't have any at school. What's changed in the last 30+ years?

Talkin crapping on about good cheese won't detract from the fact that another poster has agreed with me and challenged your views. But I suppose you'd rather ignore that having tried to undermine me for having problems with my weight in the past.

I also think that it's not only down to parents - it's society and government influence.

Parents usually both work now so children are often given more convenience food than in the 70s/80s.

Meals are often a lot less organised and taken ad hoc rather than at the table. UK society is just in one big rush and I think obesity is down to the fact that work takes over our lives and spare time to just go for walks has gone out of the window.

When we were little, my parents used to take us out for after tea walks, in winter and rain as well whereas now, everyone shuts themselves in and stares at screens all night!

Mini I think you will have to sit it out until she decides for herself to do something about it. Having bigger friends will make it easier for her I imagine dd and her friends are all size 6 to 8 and wear similar fashions so there's an incentive to not get big. As a teen I know I lost weight without really trying once boys were on the scene probably because I was always out, maybe she will too.

Mini, I assume you've done this, but what does she thinlk about it? Does she see it as a problem, and what does she think will take to change it?
(It's hard...at the age of 34 I'm only just figuring it out for myself!). The one thing I do know about losing weight /maintaining a healthy weight though is that the same thing rarely works for more than one person. You really need to work out what kicks you into starting, the actual method (calorie counting vs low carb vs etc) and how you motivate yourself when you're flagging. If you try to follow someone else's "fool prrof" method, it's unlikely to work for you.
Anyway, like I said, I do know how hard it is and I sympathise with her. What motivates her in other areas of her life? What gets her fired up?

Talkin, as i said i can't link as in my phone. But i have read lots of the research. There is lots if evidence to suggest that eating 5 or 6 small meals is better than eating 3. Obviously only if hey are healthy though. This is how we eat in my family anyway and it works for us. In a day i might have, scrambled egg and asparagus for breakfast, a small bowl of nuts, an avocado salad, live yogurt and fruit, a small chicken and veg stir fry and then a banana later.

hardboiled
there is lots of reportage to that effect but little or no peer reviewed evidence to that effect
particularly as access to food five times a day is an exclusively 'Western' phenomena of the last 30 years
that and ALL research is paid for by somebody and Nestle and Nabisco have deep pockets

Talkin you are extremely patronising and rude.

Mini my dd lost loads and loads of weight at 14. It just happened as a natural thing. No change in diet or anything. I did homecooking a lot and limited the 'goodies' cupboard (she's 20 now and size 8). I have a ds who's 17 and he eats the biggest pile of rubbish ever (or at least as much as he can get his paws on), but he skateboards, so far from overweight.

Take it iin your stride, dd will hopefully mature enough herself to realise she wants to be lookin' good :) :)

I think the issue gets overcomplicated.

If you stick to fresh fruit and veg, avoid processed meats and avoid ready meals, sweets and crisps like the plague, it generally won't matter when you eat or how much you eat.

I can't help but feel those who try x diet or y diet or try more meals or less meals or who try controlling meal sizes are missing the point. Perhaps they are mistaken, or perhaps it is a way of avoiding the real problem, which is what they eat.

I also reckon a lot of parents talk a better game than they play.

And I also reckon a lot of people underestimate how much bad stuff they eat and feed their children.

At school in the 80s I used to get 1 chocolate biscuit (e.g Penguin, Viscount or similar) or 1 bag of crisps. I also was allowed 2 biscuits with my cup of tea when I got home. It seems quite similar to what children get now, to be frank, although I always hated and never had fizzy drink.

loopydoo

I actually think snacking is the main cause. Grazing all day, between meals is now the norm; brought in by the health visiting profession.

It depends on what you eat. I am stick thin and graze constantly - on apples, oranges etc.

I am surprised that my colleagues don't complain about the frequency with which my bin fills up with foetid peel.

I think the hangover of the war era attitudes to food in a society where calorofic and processed food is easily avaliable has has a lot to do with it, and has distorted society's sense of a healthy portion.

In a (sad) way, I'm quite glad DS1 has food allergies which mean that at 2 1/2 he's never eaten chocolate because of the milk and soya content. I would never have banned it other wise, and it would be for occasional treats, but to not have (mass produced) cakes, chocolate and many other highly processed low nutrition foods in our lives means that he has to have a clean diet. People act like it's a tragedy, and it's not. He's got a great appetite and will eat anything other than salad. On a typical day he'll normally have one snack which if sweet is at least something like a humzinger which has some nutritional value. He is fee to leave food he doesn't want.

Screen time is limited. Left to his own devices, TV/DVDs will dominate his day, but since recovering from pregnancy/ birth of DS2, we've put a timer on the TV and it "breaks" at 10am and won't turn on again until he's in bed. Not being able to switch it on removes the issue.

He walks a lot. I didn't want a double buggy, so most of the time he walks. We have back-up options of a seat on the pram and baby carriers, but they aren't often used as he can easily walk over a mile already. I'm lucky that I have local services about half a mile away a nice distance for us to walk together.

It is very early in his life, but he is off to a decent start on food choices, attitude, family eating round the table and being active, and I hope that is a foundation for a healthy future.

I was away on Guide Camp last week. An ex-brownie was there and when I last saw her 2y ago I thought that she was going down the same path to obesity as her mother. 2y on and I'm sad to say she's developing a large belly. At some point she will either be compromising her health very seriously or have to change many habits that were ingrained early in life which will be tough. I've worked in a wide range of schools, and there is definately a class split with a greater proportion of obese children in poorer areas. In some schools your sense of a healthy weight is very distorted. Slim builds are rare making the overweight look normal and making it hard to judge the boundary of where obesity is, and only those who are on their way to morbidly obese stand out. That is a lot of health problems banking up for the future.

I think it's all a combination of various factors:
lack of time/knowledge/ money/ motivation to prepare fresh foods
vast amounts of retail space dedicated to high calorie/ low nutrition foods
distorted portion size
misleading claims of "health" level of foods
"treats" being a regular component of diet
snacking being treated as normal
less spontaneous active play (physical activity seems to be more structured because of access to safe spaces)
car dependency and often poor access to local services on foot.
Fear of damaging peoples' self esteem about challenging size
a culture of quick fixes for foods and weightloss
high advertising and promotion of unhealthy foods, often on subtle things like special offers and positioning
additives in foods

Prior to DS's allergies I checked labels on foods, and now I'm pretty rigorous and it's amazing how much the "same" food can vary by brand.

Most people gain excess weight subtlely with a small excess being consumed to used, and often small changes can make a big difference over time.

One key culprit has not even been mentioned here - the proliferation of fruit juices and smoothies. These are given to children as "healthy options" are anything but. The sugar hit and in the particular form of sugar it is in (fructose) is just like mainlining sugar. Funny how people demonize fizzy drinks and think that these juices/smoothies are oh so healthy - they should look at the sugar content of both, and might be surprised that it is the smoothies which have a far higher sugar content. Children should only be given fruit in their original form - with the fibre content intact, and should be only given as a treat!

Another culprit is the habit children get into from a very young age of constantly eating something - why? Bad for their teeth, and bad habit to get into.