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.

I agree about the snacking issue. We never ate between meals and my 2 dc (now adults) didn't either except on rare occasions as a treat. It seems parents can't leave the house these days without taking a bag full of snacks with them because their little darlings can't possibly wait until the next mealtime.

And juice! Anything that wasn't water used to be expensive and a treat. Now children seem to have it as their standard drink!

I think the problem is big business has taken over our food supply, so junk food is the norm, our natural (Northern European) diet: meat and two veg has been vilified to the point where it is seen as unhealthy, meat,, butter, eggs, cheese etc., so in came the sharks, waiting to pounce, with their processed foods, swiftly followed by an obesity crisis. How people can blame individuals for this is beyond me. Human beings are hunter gatherers, you simply cannot give them access to endless food and expect them to remain slim. it's against nature, that's why diets will never work in the long run. I suspect in 50 years time EVERYONE will be obese

The alternative for tots when I was younger used to be fennel. Otherwise we had water. Fruit juice wAs a starter in a restaurant

Yes the typical UK kid's diet is dreadful but I still think the problem is more lack of activity than too many calories.

Lunch breaks are shorter and they don't have an afternoon break anymore so les time to play out.

The slightest rain and they get kept in.

Hardly any walk/cycle to school.

Kids aren't sent out to play all day every day of the weekends and holidays anymore.

They have more homework.

The parents dont have active lifestyles.

Ratios in swimming pools are do strict lots of kids can't go at all.

How many 8-10 year olds do you ever see going swimming without a parent?

Sport clubs etc are very expensive.

Consoles.

Kids don't walk to each other's houses to see if they are in/to play - they text them.

We need a whole cultural shift to tackle this problem, and part of it starts with ditching the extreme risk adverse parenting that has become the norm, so frequently demonstrated on mn threads.

Starchy Carbs and sugar are the devil. Gave them up 10 years ago and everyone says how good I look for it, but in the next breath says they couldn't give up bread.

I work at my children's school at lunch time and I was just thinking the other day that in a school of 400, there are maybe 10-15 that would be overweight and only 1 or 3 that would be classed as obese.

Is this unusual or do schools in poorer areas have higher figures of overweight children. Our school is in the middle (not poor, not posh).

Ours is in the middle too - there are maybe 6 to 10 who would be classed obese, at least half of the rest are overweight -

"a healthy ten-year old's ribs should be clearly visible Many parents would consider that such a child was quite underweight.”

Professor Mary Rudolf, Obesity expert

Summeblaze, it's often more apparent when they go swimming.

Some kids who look fairly slim in their uniforms, actually have roles of fat around their middle and hips.

jackie

you are spot on there.

When I was a kid playing out was the norm. You'd go in for dinner then back out til bed time. Every day. Now look at AIBU where people are debating whether kids at 8/9 are still too young to be out on their own.

I went abroad for a week with dp and dd to stay with friends for a weeks holiday and people on here would have called Ss on parents who were letting a 14 yr old babysit. The kids just played out with the older ones looking after kids as young as 2 and dd joined them.

The only thing stopping me allowing dd and her friend to go to the park (accessible either crossing very quiet roads or possible to do it crossing no roads at all) is the fact that so many people on here think 8 year olds playing out is neglect.

and yy to the homework. We didn't have this much at their age and it does prevent them having tome to go out

Also do not underestimate the importance of your own diet and how your children eat.

One example is my 2 year old DS. Loves peas and sweet corn, cucumber and carrots - all good. Used to also eat fine green beans but then over the past 6 months if they were given to him he would leave then. I LOVE a packet of fine green beans for lunch with a bit of mayo to dip then in (I know this is possibly strange). I sat down the other day with them and my son came over and started hoovering them up off my plate. It was fabulous. Now he likes green beans again. If I had been eating a plate of something nutritionally crap he would have probably tried to eat a load of that too, but thankfully my diet on the whole is really healthy.

So the moral of the story is lead by example if you can. They are taking it all in whether you think they are watching or not.

It is portion sizes and snacking. A few years ago I was with DD and her school friends escorting them to a community disco via a trip to McDonalds, a meal for me is cheeseburger and chip (about 500 calories) and yet these pre teens had Big Macs, quarter pounders etc and then made large with milkshakes (probably over 1500 calories). Our perception of normal is probably slightly overweight. Our perception of portion sizes has been altered by the food production industry.

WorraLiberty, I agree. Last summer I saw a class of Y6 boys with their tops off, and there was an awful lot of fat going on that you wouldn't notice under their clothes.

I don't think school diners can be blamed, though...school diners are a direct response to what children in the UK will eat.

30 years ago, during half term I would run about the streets/local park, ride my bike. My kids wait for me to drive them to organized sports activities. Also, we had three meals a day. If I was hungry in between, I was allowed a slice of bread....crisps, chocolate, etc were a treat, not something you come in from school and helped yourself to.

Not being allowed to play out
Too many snacks & treats
Parents not being able to say 'NO'
Dinner portions too big.

I have never met a parent of an overweight child who takes responsibility for it. There are always excuses.

I think that UK meal is fine. If they ate it all, it would have 3 of the 5 a day (beans, corn and melon) the potato is OK too. It would be better if the drink was water or milk but at least it's not "sugar free" crap, and the meat looks cheap and nasty which is not great, but it's a balanced meal.

Lol at the french rare steak.

I don't know any fat kids

I think it's a myth

How can you represent millions of children's diets and lifestyles with one meal and one image (or 3 in the UK's case, none of which look too bad to me)?

Had the images been taken a few decades ago in the UK, the (not very representative) school meal may have looked a whole lot worse (spam fritter and chips, sponge and pink custard perhaps). And the percentage of overweight children would have been lower.

The concept of school dinners is foreign to me.

I live in Canada, where all food that is eaten at school comes from home - we send in packed lunches for our children.

I can recall a time as a child that I went without lunch as there was nothing in the house to eat, so even a crap meal would have been preferable.

However, this article is heavily biased. I am certain that in all of the countries mentioned, there are exceptionally bad and good meals. Unless you are seeking to prove a point (as this clearly was) examining school dinners beyond one meal at one school on one day in a country might give a more balanced view.

Daily Fail at its best.

Totally fascicle, my school dinners 40 years ago were like that. Spam, sausage pie, everything in pastry or batter and veg that was boiled to death, then a huge block of sponge pudding and custard.

It's true that 20 years ago school dinners were far worse, I was eating them!!

Chips and maybe pie for main, syrupy sponge and matching custard for dessert. Seconds allowed. My god I put on weight!!! I had to go back to packed lunches to control my expanding waistline. Children were certainly not immune to weight gain in the past, and I was very active.

I think it's the snacks too.

I rarely take snacks for my two, but if i go on a walk with friends for an hour or so, the snacks come out...bags of biscuits / crisps etc......

The same parents often moan that their children don't eat so much at dinner time (and they are all reasonable cooks/ homemade stuff etc).....but their food tastes are being skewed by unhealthy snacking.

The young children aren't overweight, but I think it probably makes it harder to make the better food choices as you get older.

I live in a poor town in France where my kids attend the local secondary school. Over 2/3 of the intake are children classified as being from a deprived background. In the UK and the US this would be classic "overweight kid" territory - but there are almost no children with a weight issue. Based on class photos, there are no obese children in either of my kids' classes, and no more than a handful who are mildly overweight.

It's difficult to explain the difference but two noticeable factors, from a British viewpoint are: (1) there is almost no snacking (no one eats at school except at mealtimes) and (2) there is no choice at mealtimes (students either go home, eat what is served, or go without).

The school meals aren't fantastic but they are reasonably healthy - usually a salad starter, meat or fish based main with a vegetable, and cheese or fruit for dessert. My veggie daughter just eats the starter and dessert.

I can't access the article because I get an allergic reaction everytime I click onto the Daily Fail.

I think it's all about balance; I love cakes but I know that should only be a small percentage of my weekly food. I try to pack as many vegetables as I can into family meals.

There's a lot more to it than school dinners, but it does annoy me that the puddings at DCs' schools are just as unhealthy as the stuff they ban from lunchboxes. Bit daft.

But it's a cultural problem more than a school one. IMO.

School dinners alone cannot make a child fat. When I am in our town centre I see many children with their parents, stuffing their faces with pasties or sausage rolls. Or there are queues of mums and kids at the Millie's cookie shop...and the number of times you hear some child moan they are 'starving' is ridiculous.
I go to kids under 8s football on a Saturday. The match is a total of 40 minutes but there are mums there unpacking crisps, cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks for their kids to eat whilst watching the match.
Snacks and eating seems to be an obsession.