To not be surprised our kids are so fat

[Babycham1979]

When they're fed utter crap like this;

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2957301/What-school-lunches-look-like-world.html

No wonder obesity rates are so high,mand no wonder so many British children are incredibly picky when they're fed processed shite as is evident in these pictures. Imagine some of the pickiest UK children being handed a bowl of miso soup, or prawns, or plantain?!

Is the issue budgetary, or culture? Either way, we're failing our children.

Ok so if you're blaming the tiny bit of lunch they get at school 5 times a week, for childhood obesity, what are you blaming the 60% of adult obesity on?

It's too simple to blame the schools I'm afraid.

Parents are responsible for what they feed their kids and seeing that they get enough exercise.

I don't even think it's so much quality of food that is the problem, but the quantity people are feeding themselves and their children.

I was raised on a shit junk food diet. It makes my toes curl now thinking of what my parents fed me. Every night, aside from Wednesday's and sundays, we had fish fingers/chicken nuggets/Turkey dinousaurs with chips or smash and peas or beans. Wednesday was spag bol which was my favourite meal of the week but even that was white pasta, a packet sauce and no vegetables, just cheap processed mince. Sunday dinner most sundays which was about the healthiest meal of the week. Rarely had fruit, always got a can of pop and chocolate bar after school. Every Saturday I spent time with my dad and we had Mcdonalds or KFC then we'd go back to his and devour a whole box of maltesers, big tub of chocolate ice cream and big share bag of crisps. Lots and lots of fizzy drinks... I was such a fussy eater that every time we went abroad the only food I would eat was chips and chicken. School lunches were always white bread with processed ham or that disgusting cheese in a tube, dairylea Dunkers, a packet of crisps, a sugary yogurt, a carton of juice and a penguin biscuit. I think I sometimes got an apple or banana but I always left it.

AMAZINGLY I wasn't overweight. Thankfully I was fond of playing outside, didn't have the distractions of endless technology then which helped so I was always running around playing which is probably why I wasn't obese. I dread to think how unhealthy I was inside though...

Now I have DC I'm the total opposite. DH taught me to cook and introduced me to lots of different foods I didn't even know existed before- avocado for one! I'd rather die than buy something like smash and we're vegetarian so zero processed meat which is practically what I was raised on. I don't encourage snacking between meals so I make sure meals are substantial. They're home schooled but if I was doing a packed lunch it would very much look like the Finnish one and they'd eat it. The only foods they don't like they haven't liked since weaning so I accept its just a dislike of theirs- tomatoes, tofu and mushrooms for the eldest and mushrooms for the other two, quite common for children I think. Their diet is balanced though, we do have homemade cake or chocolate once or twice a week and saturday is pizza night. Never had a fizzy drink, dilute squash, carton juice or fast food... I'm pretty health conscious in general but not obsessive, I try not to make anything taboo so it becomes a rebellion when they get older. I'm open with them about why we don't eat certain foods and its up to them if they want to try when they grow up...

SO having said all of that, I think the obesity 'crisis' is mainly down to kids not getting outdoors and running around enough, too much access to technology. Also parents being lazy (and yes, it IS laziness...) and not wanting the hassle of trying to get their children to eat healthy foods so just go for the easy option or not being arsed to cook. Long working hours don't help either especially now it's common for both parents to work full time which didn't used to be common. Also the fact that a lot of junk food is cheaper than healthy, nutritious food. There's a lot of issues at play and I'm not sure what the solution is. There's only so much the schools and government can really do, the power is ultimately with parents. It's sad.

Mouse, I do think the parents both working full time is a very important point. I think a lot of parents just don't have time to cook properly anymore.

Were in Sweden. Lunch at DS's school today is homemade meatballs, macaroni cheese, crackerbreads and a salad bar (usually including grated carrot, olives, cucumber, tomato, boiled eggs, sweetcorn, gherkins, peppers, melon, mushrooms, pickled cabbage, grapes and other stuff that I can't remember now). There are no puddings.

All schools have different menus.

Usual skewed generalising attempt to whip up a storm excuse for a story from the DM.

No, Worra, I'm not only blaming school dinners. I think these are symptomatic of a dysfunctional food culture, where we (society) scrimp on feeding kids properly and opt for processed, industrialised crap instead of basic, real cooked food.

And to all the posters asking what's wrong with the meal pictures; REALLY?! Suger-filled baked beans and mechanically-separated pink mush in sausage form? Good taste aside it's an appalling meal from a nutrition perspective. The saddest thing is that for many kids, this is the best thing they'll eat all day. We should be taking the opportunity to give them a fantastic meal at lunchtime, not the cheapest/quickest.

Our primary school has a "salad bar" - they put a 1cm slice across a baguette, a quarter of a tomato, 2 thin slices of cucumber and a dessert spoon of plain gluey white pasta on your plate if you ask for salad. mmmm - not......

I mean the Ukraine lunch has a sweet pancake and sausages but is described as a "feast" compared to the UK one

I have taught ks1 for many years, IME there are very few overweight children in this age group. What I have noticed is how unfit many children are - many struggle to keep going in a reasonably active PE lesson. This has got worse in the 20 years I've been teaching and I presume is because many children don't play out for all sorts of reasons.

By ks2 there seems to be a divide between children who have got involved in sport and those who have sedentary interests (some of who may be overweight). My DS was very active and consumed huge amounts of food growing up (still does) but remained very thin.

I don't think quantity of food is necessarily a problem - I worry more about additives and things like sugar and salt which may have long term health consequences even if a child is thin. iMO these can also have short term consequences which can affect a child's ability to learn (poor concentration) or their behaviour. I have taught children who are almost buzzing after consuming a packed lunch full of additives and sugar. As occasional treats these are fine but not if they comprise your whole diet.

wow some if those look really good.tje steak in the French one looked a bit grim.though. bit those salads and soups and bread looked good.

The UK and us ones however look like they have been eaten already and vomited back onto the tray. that veg ... boak.

Sure there are ones from all over though that are rank and some better looking British ones. but cheap processed white bread and over cooked veg is standard I expect.

There is NO (apart from very rare medical reasons) excuse for allowing your child to get fat. Fat = eating too much and doing too little. I have seen so many adults be in denial as to why they are fat.

The saddest thing is that for many kids, this is the best thing they'll eat all day. We should be taking the opportunity to give them a fantastic meal at lunchtime, not the cheapest/quickest.

Whilst I don't disagree, I have to say that my DC's Primary school has 950 pupils, so often it does have to be the quickest.

Also, since the £2.20 per meal hasn't risen in the last 4 years, cheapest has to come into it somewhere too.

Having said that, the dinners at my DC's Primary are not bad at all....just lacking in choice a bit.

But look at how many kids start reception class overweight or obese, having never had a school dinner at that point in their lives?

I think exercise or lack off is a big thing. I also think hidden sugars in things like shop bought pasta sauce are an issue.

My 3yo goes to nursery and I recently had a chat with one of the ladies who told me they were really impressed with how active our DS is and how much he likes exercise in comparison to a lot of the other children.

I was pretty horrified because in my opinion in my family we don't really do enough active things. We are very ordinary and our main exercise is walking, I've been feeling the lack of exercise and been planning to get DS playing out more.

What she said gave me the impression that there are a lot of families who are more sedentary then ours.

Some countries have an abundance of fresh gorgeous food on their doorstep and their natural diets are much much better than ours. Cooking from scratch is part of the culture, eating enmasse in the evening till late is commonplace, children get used to a variety of wonderful food.

Unfortunately that isn't our culture and much of our food is imported and the quality stuff is expensive. I think our children are used to eating beige processed food out of the freezer and so that's what they expect to see for lunch too. I would bet that if some of those trays were put infront of the average UK child they wouldn't touch 3/4 of it. I bloody would though as much if it looked GORGEOUS!!

I agree it's a cooking from scratch thing as well, it seems such a big deal to a lot of people. I really enjoy cooking so I am lucky, but that is partly due to my mum, who despite having 4 kids and working full time also cooked every single day from scratch. So I have grown up with it, it is normal to me to do that - we never had ready meals or take aways (maybe the odd curry on a special occasion).

I cook for DS and DH from scratch every day, really enjoy it. It's important to see what's going into your food. Also I have fed DS a variety of foods right from when he started on solids so he would get used to different kinds - it was really important to me that he would not turn out to be fussy!

However I do think we get a bit hysterical and sanctimonious about healthy eating in this country to be honest. Certainly in the case of severely overweight/obese adults I do not think it can be put down to simple 'greediness'. If you are 30 stone you clearly have a real psychological issue when it comes to food, just as anorexics/bulimics do. We should be trying to tackle why people choose to over-eat rather than fat-shaming them for doing so. Obviously it is different when it comes to children but it still needs to be handled sensitively.

My cousin was very overweight as a child and it was really a portion size thing - she had the appetite of an adult. Also her mum was not really much of a cook and was always busy so they ended up just having pasta most nights with sauce out of a jar. Nothing wrong with this every now and then but it's probably why she ended up like she did. She had to learn portion control when she get older, and she did manage to lose the weight eventually.

also should add - would take anything printed in the daily fail with a pinch of salt.

Well i don't know what all these kids are eating because mine are as thin as a rake. They eat three meals a day, all home made with the odd macdonalds and pizza usually when dad babysits i'd love for them to put some meat on.

A lot of those nations are obese though- I believe the Greeks and a number of South American countries have higher rates of obesity than us.

I'm not sure I trust that story from the daily mail . They did one before about weekly shops around the world that looked set up

I also think people's perception of children's weight is out of kilter. I'm sure I read that you should be able to see children's ribs so they are meant to be pretty skinny.

Agree with most that has been said but think ready meals are also a major culprit. 'Good quality' ready meals are appalling. I had a lovely CM once who gave my 9 month old an M and S carbonara ready meal. She thought because it was from M and S that it was fine. But they are just awful. I am extremely conscious about what I feed my kids and wouldn't ever take them to McDonald's but I always think at least, everyone knows mcdonalds is not a healthy meal. A lot of ready meals are masquerading as a decent choice.

I do feel sorry for kids these days. When I was at primary school we had perhaps one fat kid per year group. I look at my dc's school and the outpouring of children at the end of the day and the lollipop head skinny body look of my era is very much the minority. 2 girls in particular stand out in my dc's year group for being fairly weeble like in proportion buy always have the latest fashions shoes bags etc I probably have wrongly drawn the conclusion they never get told no by their parents. Yes I will remove my judgy pants now!

Also- childhood obesity is falling now, it was reported about 2 weeks ago I think. So years of mainly government initiatives (and maybe Jamie Oliver!) finally worked; the problems is the obese generation who are now entering pre teens. But younger than that its falling. Maybe indicates lack of education had lots to do with it? That people like schools and gPs needed to start interfering in what people fed their children?

I also think people's perception of healthy food is all wrong and that's a huge problem. There's lots of accusations of being the kale brigade on here if you say you give your children spinach etc. and people in general no specific to MN are very reactionary about being 'made' to eat 'rabbit food' and see eating healthily as eating nothing but lentils.

One of our Italian friends was working in the UK for 9 months last year. When he arrived he was, not to put too fine a point on it, overweight. When he left, he had completely slimmed down and was wearing a totally new wardrobe as none of his clothes fitted him any more. He said that he thought the secret was simply that Italians ate too much. All of this sitting down together and eating proper meals as a family meant that he was eating two whopping meals a day, plus a sugary breakfast. In the UK he was initially astonished to find that we thought a sandwich or a salad was an acceptable lunch. And that we might then grab a quick bite in the evening rather than sitting down to two or three courses. And we think that a pasta dish is a complete meal ...
Sometimes it's not just about the quality, but the quantity too.