To tell my friend her daughter is getting fat

[ExtraJudgeyPants]

Have name changed as feel like an arsehole writing this!

My friend is massively obese and is unhappy with her weight and I worry her five year old daughter might end up the same way.

Friend's DD is looking very chunky lately and I genuinely don't think my friend realises. Although how would I know without mentioning it?

It's not my business is it, but I feel like I am letting the child down by not mentoining it, just in case her mum hasn't noticed.

We are close so I know she would have told me if there was any health issues with her daughter. And my gut instinct is that she would tell me if she was worried about her weight/eating, that's why I would like to bring it up.

I keep reading that such a high % of primary age children are overweight or obese (something like 40% in Wolverhampton), someone else must have come across a similar situation !?

I am a genuinely concerned friend but don't know if I should do it at all, let alone what I would say. Please help and don't hold back (like you would anyway:))

I would think that an obese woman, rather than just any parents, will recognise weight on her child. Weight is her specialist subject, she wears her failings at all times and is reminded every time she looks in the mirror, reads a forum, reads a magazine. There's so much more going on, that a well meaning comment from a friend isn't going to fix it for her or her daughter.
Look OP, that's just my opinion, you know your friend, go with your instinct.

I don't think you can do anything other than encourage exercise.

Does your friend know how to cook healthily? is the girl allowed loads of junk?

ultimately it's better that the girl ends up obese then that she ends up with an eating disorder- so don't start discussing a 5 year olds weight.

I think it's hard, you can see weight problems starting in children imo really early.

I also disagree with the 'normal weight is skinny' stuff also. Dd is very slim (116cm and about 19kg). I just looked on the bmi calculator and she'd still be in the healthy range if she put on 5kg . She'd be very well covered I imagine!

When my sister was feeding her toddler children adult-sized meals (at the same time as my 8 & 10 yo were sharing one same-sized meal) and expecting them to finish them, and they were both starting to look quite chunky, I most certainly did say something. The impetus for over-feeding them turned out to be from her bastard ex. As soon as she left him some months later, she did reduce the amount they were expected to eat, but her daughter in particular, who is now 11, still has a noticeable roll of chunk about her middle and is now quite bothered by it. I do feel that early obesity predisposes to later obesity so it is better sorted early.

I would certainly be tempted to say something to your friend, just not sure what.

ultimately it's better that the girl ends up obese then that she ends up with an eating disorder- so don't start discussing a 5 year olds weight.

But eating too much is also an eating disorder- surely it's best to deal with it before she's had the chance to develop much body awareness, but not relate it to her weight in her hearing. Surely it's quite easy to reduce the amount a 5 yo eats without them really noticing? And swapping out crisps etc for fruit/ carrot sticks is pretty straightforward with a young child as well. Just don't buy crisps.

I feed my dd adult sized meals . They are meant to eat nearly the same number of calories as an adult woman between 5 and 10.

I guess she usually doesnt eat all of it though. Perhaps overweight children do eat everything they are given....

Surely it depends on the child's age and how much exercise they get tobysmum77?

Only if the adult intake is actually the recommended one and not the one most people abide by, with lots of extra snacks and frankly over-eating. This site suggests 1400 kcals per day for a 4-9 yo. I can pretty much guarantee that 5 yo DD3 hardly ever eats that much. Some days she will eat a lot but I reckon she's eating 1000-1200 most days and she is very active. She's also very slender (16kg at 110cm). Her same-aged friend is less active, much chunkier and eats all the time. (every 2 hours at least). DD is virtually never hungry for snacks, but eats well for her size at mealtimes.

Sorry, the site.

She may not realise, a close friend didn't realise how much weight she'd gained until she saw herself in photos- sometimes seeing someone or yourself every day, you don't recognise or don't want to. She went from overweight to very obese with half a year and even now she's not sure if she just didn't see it or didn't want to. She moved to another country so I hadn't seen her for a year when she got back, by that time she'd lost most of the weight and gone back to her original size but seeing the photographs there was a noticeable difference.

I wouldn't volunteer any comment. I'd go for your approach of more activities together and honesty if she asks.

If someone had told my mum I was fat when I was 5, I would have been hearing it every day until I was 15, every time I ate something, every time I read a book rather than played outside.

Leave well alone.

theconversation.com/obesity-is-now-so-normal-that-many-parents-cant-see-if-their-child-is-too-fat-31032

She may not realise.

Exactly duchesse - so in a family where no one is overweight, food is healthy and snacking is controlled children should be eating nearly adult portions.

My younger cousin was a very overweight child. Neither of her parents saw it as anything more than "puppy fat". They were not blind or stupid, as has so charmingly been suggested, they were just to close to see how big she was getting. And as they were both large themselves, I'm certain their opinion of what was "normal" was out of sync with reality.

My cousin ended up morbidly obese at 14, was horrendously bullied and ended up dropping out of school, having multiple suicide attempts, before a gastric bypass at 21.

I wish I'd said what obvious to me and others when she was a child. Perhaps things would have ended up very differently.

*too close

I was a fat kid, a miserable fat kid. I have sworn that no child of mine will ever reach the level of obesity I reached.

It's a subject that I admit I have very stong opinions on and are no doubt that I'm projecting my own experiences. I personally think that if you allow your child to become overweight especially before the age of 7, you are letting them down. Until your child has access to money and food shops pretty much everything they eat is within your control. No excuses.

I think that our perception of what an overweight child looks like has been completely re-written. I consider my DC's to be on the small size, I was rather surprised to see my then 5 year old DS hitting the 50th weight centile on the school weigh in.

That said, I'm sick to death of hearing parents making excuses about Little Johnny having the same BMI as a rugby player, because he's "big built". The obesity epidemic isn't something that only happens to other people. They are preparing their DC's for a lifetime of diabetes and heart disease and I admit it disgusts me.

OP I would have to say something. I couldn't not.

So what the OP is actually talking about is a young child who the OP thinks will end up fat because the parent is fat. And then in the course of the thread we have all the other tropes displayed - fat people are stupid, lazy, self deluding, poor parents, inactive and destined without question for diabetes and heart disease.

This is of course all bollocks. All those characteristics apply to some fat people just like they apply to some thin people.

Here's what I think, a child (fat or thin) needs first and foremost to be loved and cherished. NOBODY needs to be criticised. NOBODY will thrive with their food intake policed. Some of you need to wake up to yourselves. Teach you kids that food is fuel. Nothing is special, nothing is forbidden. Don't put chocolate on a high shelf or never buy crisps. All that teaches is that they have to scheme and lie to get those things. I but plenty of chocolate and sweets and crisps. My kids know they can help themselves. They self regulate and all are within normal BMI. Hand on heart I can say that I've never told any of my kids there is anything wrong with their body shape. I'm raising confident young people with a sense of self esteem who feel some control over their own lives. It's not good parenting to be mentally measuring your kid's waistline and then rationing the carbs in response.
The best bit of mothering advice I've ever read was this 'keep YOUR issues with food away from your kids. it's not THEIR problem'

OP keep your mouth shut.

But mumtotherescueagain, not all DCs are good at regulating.

I mentioned upthread about DS's friend - an average sized boy whose DM is concerned that he is too skinny, because she herself is overweight. DS loves going over as he gets offered many, many unhealthy snacks. I've had to restrict visits as whilst her own DS can and seems to self regulate, DS can't and will happily eat his way through multiple chocolate bars and bags of crisps even when only there for a short time.

I don't know what the answer is here though and I do agree that loving your DC and accepting them for who they are is important.

But that's my point - you're limiting his access to the 'unhealthy' snacks (and remember growing dcs need a lot of calories) and then you wonder why he can't regulate it himself. Back off and stop encouraging a feast or famine situation and I think you'll find he gets better at self regulating.

From the Diabetes Uk website, February 2014;

The number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has increased to more than 3.2 million, according to figures released today by Diabetes UK.

The new figures, extracted from official NHS data, show that there were 3,208,014 adults with the condition in 2013, an increase of more than 163,000 compared to 2012.

This is the biggest increase in a single year since 2008 and it means six per cent of UK adults is now diagnosed with diabetes (this does not include the hundreds of thousands of people with undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes).

Furthermore;

As well as highlighting the need to do more to prevent Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for most of the increase and is closely linked to being overweight, Diabetes UK has warned that, with one in 17 people now diagnosed with the condition, the need to improve diabetes healthcare is now more urgent than ever.

The numbers speak for themselves, and for what it's worth Mumtotherescueagain, my DCs don't have any forbidden foods they eat a wide varied diet and have never seen a member of their immediate family on a diet.

sorry mumtotherescue I strongly disagree. Parents should encourage good eating habits rather than stand back and hope their dc make the right decisions.

You can encourage healthy eating without policing food intake. Far too many mumsnet parents are policing NOT encouraging and it all comes from their own issues with food. It's terrifying.

I dont have issues with food, the dds self regulate in so far as they can eat as much healthy good food as they want and we eat puddings etc a couple of times a week. I buy crisps sometimes, they have sweets sometimes, ice cream if we're out. Free rein to snack on rubbish though is a no for me. Its not needed. If you're going to eat then make it something that has some goodness.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

If it was just as simple as teaching children to "self regulate" there wouldn't be a huge rise in obesity.