If you allow your young DC to become morbidly obese then it should be treated the same as if you'd starved them.

[ItsOkayItsJustMyBreath]

This link is really upsetting. I hate seeing young children that are incredibly overweight. It is, for me, the same as seeing children that have been underfed. When children are young they do not get to choose what they eat, they are given their food by their parents.

I understand that as children get older then controlling what they eat when not under your supervision is impossible but at this age it is just appalling.

AIBU?

So was this child ff then? And how on earth did the parents ff it to 10 stone?

I might be wrong, but I suspect that it was a shit load of unhealthy crap and little exercise with possible medical problems thrown in - probably with the parents being particularly unhealthy too?

Just thinking out loud obviously, but I'm really struggling to make the link between a 10 stone morbidly obese child and ff when there are MILLIONS of children in UK who have been ff and are not near that weight at that age.

"happy mum - happy baby bullshit", I am also of the opinion that a mentally healthy mum is more important to a baby than the mode of feeding she uses to keep it alive and nourished.

for many food equals love. This is where overfeeding comes in.

Because miserable, depressed mum really means better outcomes for baby?

Happy baby - happy mother

is how it should be, if you have any sense of morals.

I'll make sure and direct the next person who posts with pnd to their lack of morals then, because if their baby is happy they have no reason to be in mental anguish

I genuinely don't know how, when I see what my skinny kids ear, people have the time and money to get this fat?

I guess my kids were always trained when to stop

Not to clear their plate if finish their milk as they were all extensively breasted and not trained to eat once full

It's so sad

I think some cultures are more predisposed to over feed. I am mix feeding my 4 month old after ebf and I don't force my baby to finish the feed as she will take as much as she needs. She is putting on weight and developing well. My MIL on the other hand will twist and shove the bottle in her mouth until the baby has extracted every drop. I have had to take the bottle away from my MIL as my lo isn't feeding and the milk is just running down the sides of her neck. But my MIL doesn't see this as forcing the baby.

My SIL was obsessed with over feeding her son so that in her eyes he would be big and strong when clearly he was overweight. She now periodically puts him on a diet when he gets too big and he will yoyo dieting for the rest of his life. She has two freezers one stocked exclusively with frozen desserts and icecream.

Oh wombles, bless you.

There is always one who is capable of turning any, all, debates into ff vs bf. maybe we should get you a special medal for this particular thread?

I'll give wombles a medal: she's talking sense.

FF has been linked to obesity. It has also been linked to higher rates of infection, disease etc. Not to mention the financial cost.

Not every FF baby will end up fat and sick. Not every BF baby will be slim and healthy. But the general trend is in that direction.

bashes head on table

What a reductive debate this has turned in to.

YANBU. I watched the This Morning debate on it this week and was really upset. The woman who was defending parents who overfeed their children seemed as if she didnt live in the real world - no grip on reality whatsoever.

If you are using your money to overfeed your child - you see and hear your child is short of breath - you know very well their present & future quality of life is affected - you know their self-esteem is afflicted by jibes they receive - and, you carry on overfeeding - then yes, you are an abuser.

Its only defensible in cases of illness, where obesity is an unfortunate symptom of that illness. Aside from that - No. A child has less freedom of choice than an adult and I find the thought of an adult inflicting their choice to overfeed, and not instil boundaries even where a child is insistent on overeating (which is normally due to 'foodpattern'/issues stemming from parents anyway) then I find it abhorrent to say the least and I dont see why such parents should be excused. Indulge the huge food bill money they spend elsewhere.

I thought everybody knew the link between obesity risk and ff??

Breasted babies store a different sort of fat

Regulate their own appetite

Turn away from the breast when full

So learn when they feel full and to stop

Not only common sense but medical studies have also shown this trend

How strange.

My dc were all formula fed and they all eat and eat and eat until they're physically sick. Then they continue eating until the pattern repeats itself. And they all eat out of a trough like pigs.

Except, obviously, none of this is true. They all, somehow, understand when they're full. How on earth this happened when I was obviously so lacking in morals (or it just might have been the PND and also the fact that the medical professionals I dealt with were more than happy for me to ff) I do not know.

Could someone please enlighten me to my miracle children who know when they're full despite not being BF?

And as to this:

*Happy baby - happy mother

is how it should be, if you have any sense of morals.*

That is quite possibly one of the nastiest comments I've read on here.

My children were all quite happy being ff, thanks for the judgement. Not overweight, not allergic to anything, rarely ill, etc, etc.

Weirdly, I was thinking this morning about how I would have felt had I been on MN when I was at my absolute lowest points of PND and AND and had come across some of the breathtakingly judgemental and snobby and 'I'm a better Mum than you because I did X and Y'. I was so low as it was that I was contemplating suicide most days. I mean really on the brink.

If I'd read any of this bullshit then (as I suspect some Mums are) I would have believed every word of it and believed I was a shit Mother when actually I was nothing of the sort. Thank God I wasn't here then because I wasn't mentally strong enough to deal with the attitudes on here. Now I'm in a much healthier place so I can shrug it off.

I know for a fact that I did the very best that I could do for my dc. The only people I had to judge me were my midwife, my HV and the GPs at my local surgery. Oh, and the psychiatrist I was put under for DC3. Luckily, they all supported me and my choices. They could see that my dc were thriving. That they were happy. That they were well cared for. Thank God for those people because they probably saved my life.

I find it unbelievable that people still think it's fine to come on here, where there are more than likely vulnerable Mums and sweep in with their 'I know better than you/you are doing a shit job' bullshit.

Because it is bullshit, designed to make people feel shit about their choices. Frankly, it's nasty, spiteful, bullying and childish.

Why can people not accept that we all make the choices we feel are right for our circumstances?

I have no guilt about ff my dc at all. They're all happy and healthy now. Not overweight, even remotely.

So fuck off with the judgemental shite - reserve it for people who actually deserve it, like the racist/disablist/homophobic twats on here. If you took the time to aim your venom at them, we'd have less of them.

A lot of the formula increases risk of obesity argument is to do with how the parents fed but not in the sense they used formula but with formula there is an expectation that babies must empty their bottle at every feed and I have seen parents really trying to force this. I wonder if these parents are also the same who expect plates to be cleared when eating. It is easy to see how that side of forcing to eat when full could lead to the overeating and not understanding when you are full.

DS was formula fed but never with any expectation to drain all bottles, in the same sense as when he is full I don't make him eat the rest of his meal. At 4 he is pretty good at self regulating his appetite possibly because he has always been allowed to do so? Who knows!

What heart said. A million times over.

I agree with Monica that the mental health if a parent is more important than how you feed your child.

However they go hand in hand, parents if overweight children are sometimes so disillusioned that their children are it fat or have issues around food, equating love to feeding!

I think most people are talking about the general picture, nobody specific.

There is more I I I I me me me than pointing the finger/ you

Other than the 10 year old girl.

If you're feeling sensitive about the issue maybe go and browse chat or funny threads.

Even the smallest baby is capable of turning their head a way from a bottle when full. This isn't a FF vs BF debate but fwiw I do know a child who was exclusively BF until she was 3 who is now obese.
So weirdly it's become my turn to try and make someone else see what they can't, it's not going well..

Ood, I saw your post further up about your son. It's weird isn't it, that sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees when you're in the thick of it.

There's been many things that I've had pointed out to me over the years, especially when the boys were very small, that have been so bloody obvious with hindsight - sometimes people do need an intervention of sorts to get them back on track and open their eyes to the obvious.

Hope it goes well in the end with your friend - at least she's got you who cares enough to tell her something she needs to hear. She might be resistant now, but I'm sure she'll thank you in the end (even if it's only in her head that she thanks you, and not out loud ).

If you're feeling sensitive about the issue maybe go and browse chat or funny threads.

I do hope that wasn't aimed at me. I'm allowed to read/post what I like, thanks, whether I feel sensitive about it or not.

I could respond to that with 'if you have nothing decent to say, that isn't have a dig at people who don't parent the same way as you, then don't post on here'.

I'm responding to the insensitive person who decided to turn this into a FF v BF debate by making snarky remarks about those who choose to FF.

It was uncalled for and unnecessary - it was simply to get a dig in at people who use formula. It has no relevance to the OP - it was just a spiteful, catty remark.

Except for a few obvious cases where there has been deliberate cruelty (Baby P etc), most parents, I imagine, don't set out to be bad parents. Many people make poor judgements as the result of tiredness, exhaustion, ignorance, stupidity or just ordinary human failings such as impatience and lack of empathy. There probably aren't many people who see a newborn baby and think, 'I'll try to turn it into the fattest toddler in Britain - that'll be fun'. But there are an awful lot of parents out there who could do with some help very early on in the process. Preferably before the baby is even born.

I haven't read the whole thread due to lack of time, so forgive me if I'm missing something, but a lot of people seem to be saying that if the parents don't intend to mistreat their child/ren, then that's ok . Surely it doesn't matter whether they woke up one morning and thought "Oooh! I'm going to overfeed DC until they are the fattest in their school!" - the fact is, they did. Maybe you don't see the weight gradually piling on when you see them on a day-to-day basis, but surely you can see the difference between them and other children their age? Surely a GP would also point out that the child is unhealthily overweight? How can anyone claim to not know what normal looks like? It certainly ain't 10st at 5 years old. That's nearly two stone more than me and I'm a healthy and pregnant 25-year-old.

Also, what the hell are they feeding them??? Aside from children who have conditions which predispose them to weight-gain beyond the norm, I have difficulty believing that they're being filled up on vegetables and cornflakes. What happened to a healthy diet and exercise? They don't have to be good at sport or particularly like it, but don't they play outside? Go for walks as a family? Have swimming lessons (don't most schools enforce this up to age 10 anyway?)? Have any hobbies that involve movement at all?

Yup yup agree with the OP. A morbidly obese child is child abuse in my eyes.

A few years ago I saw a grossly obese woman in ikea shouting at her toddler to finish his food. He was the fattest under three year old I've ever seen - and he'd been given an adult 15 meatball and chips plate. There is nothing to excuse that behaviour.

I'm very torn, there is very little information to go on in the story. I do find it interesting that it seems that starving is being portrayed as always malicious while overfeeding is being portrayed as neglect/love/miseducation, when I think it's more complicated with that and by extention how things should be treated is far more complex.

I was starved in my teens by my father. Not maliciously, but out of neglect - he worked several hours away from home and would forget to give me money and/or extend his time away so what I had didn't stretch. He could be away for up to a month at a time, be there for a weekend and do a small shop - and then leave again. I literally survived on the generosity of classmates giving me their lunch leftovers and their leftovers were often all I would be able to eat (and school holidays were obviously a nightmare - and this was an American school so there were months of it). I still suffer medical problems from it even over ten years later. Sadly, it was still better than living with my mother (which I tried multiple times over the time period).

I wish someone had pulled him up on it, but more than that I wish someone had cared earlier. School presumed I had an eating disorder (and
did nothing other than call me for weigh ins in the nurses office randomly) even when I was open about not having a parent around for weeks (to sign forms or attend an event), it never called him to question. It seemed they couldn't put two and two together and the system was more designed to protect him than me. I wonder what systems have failed for this child, at this extreme it likely goes far beyond the parents (just in social systems, ignoring the wider food system and access systems issues).

What percentage of the morbidly obese kids have morbidly obese parents? As an adult to be that big you'd have to be eating the wrong type of foods all the time, I expect it's tricky then to refuse your dcs food every time you eat....if you struggle to control your own diet, it must be a struggle to control your dcs too.
No doubt there's a link between types of feeding and obesity, just as there is a link between income and obesity and geographical location and obesity. It doesn't mean ff kids are obese and it doesn't mean they can't regulate their appetites....because there's plenty of evidence to suggest that's bullshit too.

whois

The problem comes though if an adult has always eaten that way they may struggle to realise that isn't normal because for them it is. Often things like that really are a vicious circle which is hard to break.

I was lucky that I was able to take control of my battle with food while DS was still young enough that it won't impact upon him long term hopefully, but I can fully see how people who are stuck in the cycle will pass those bad habits onto their children. That is why there needs to be much more help and support for parents who want to change but really don't know how, its easy for people to sit at a computer proclaiming its easy to change and there is no reason not to etc but when the relationship with food is such an emotionally driven one for so many people it really isn't that simple.