Is having overweight kids child abuse?

[Mummyme1987]

A friend posted on Fb that parents with fat kids are child abusers. Except for kids with medical problems. It started with comments on how it's awful that there's a generous fit section in clothes shops. I'm shocked that people think this. I think the majority of parents don't just feed their kids crap, and some kids are bigger than others, and unless it is a very extreme case it's not child abuse. Thoughts?

I feel that what my child has could be classified as an eating disorder - I just wish it could be taken as seriously as if it were anorexia/bullimia. If she were undereating I could have medical intervention and nobody would dare to say that she was anorexic due to neglect/abuse and I wasn't feeding her enough. However, food theft and secret eating isn't taken seriously and is somehow always the fault of the parents, allowing their children to eat whatever they wanted. Not always the case and I am at my wits' end with how to deal with her.

Grumpy have you tried the GP? I wish I went, I clearly had an issue. Not a health issue, but an issue with food - eating a stake bit of bread, I don't get what I was doing.

What has the GP said about your dd's food stealing?

Can you get her any psychiatric help?

grumpy have you approached your GP and said its an eating disorder?

It does sound like disordered eating. You aren't neglectful. You are trying.

Unfortunately some over weight children don't have parents that care.

I was an overweight teen because I ate too much for my metabolism. My skinny 6ft2 brother could eat whatever he wanted, but I couldn't.

I lost the weight as soon as I left home and cooked for myself as I had portion and quality control.

There are fat kids in the dcs classes. DS has two in his year 3 class who are very overweight. They are over fed and don't get enough exercise (one always 'forgets' her PE kit and both complain of being made to walk on school trips). It's such a shame.

Both pile on the weight in the school holidays and you can see they're visibly bigger.

Sorry to hear that Ovary.

I'm fairly sure that's what my cousin has been doing to her little girl. If she could make her fat too then it would play into that whole 'genetic' narrative she's been telling herself and everyone who would listen.

That's my next port of call Green. I had hoped I'd be able to get enough support to deal with it without the GP and DD gets very animated when I suggest the doctor, but I think that's probably my last hope.

Portion control here is a big issue definitely. I'm from Japan, and out adult meals sometimes are smaller than kids meals you get over here. Don't even get me started on America!

I'm on the fence about this. Of course some people- some kids- are bigger than others. I'm 5ft 8" and a big girl, 13ish stone, huge MM sized boobs and huge sized 8/9 feet. I'm a dress size 14 (16 on top) and have never been little. I was always tall and never dainty. Conspired to my younger sister who is a very petite person and always was- 4 inches shorter, AA boobs and size 4 feet! It wasn't any difference in what we were fed.

However.... My DH was very fat when we met- 6ft 2" but around 30 stone. Huge. He had been fat- properly fat- since childhood. There are photos of him aged 18 months in the bath with rolls and rolls of fat like the mitchelin man. The first thing his parents ever fed him was a liquidised McDonald's meal when he was 4 months old (I wish this was a joke). My in laws are very bad parents in a lot of ways but it's very obvious in the way they fed and educated their two children about food (his sister is currently trying to diet to have a gastric band fitted aged 23. She's 5ft 11 and currently weighs 26 stone). They never had set meal times and when I met my husband when he was 22 he didn't even understand what food groups were what. He's since reeducated himself and lost 16 stone in 2.5 years through diet and exercise. But I do think what was done to him was abuse.

Interestingly my local primary that I'm a governor at, has received more complaints about school dinner portion size, being 'too small' in the last 2 years than ever before.

They're the same size they've always been - a light midday lunch that kids can eat and then go and run around/do PE.

But according to parents, they're suddenly 'nowhere big enough'.

Yes

Not chunky kids, I went through a chunky stage at 14/15, as did my mother when she was in her teens. I grew out of it as did she

Obese kids on the other hand that's neglect. I lived in California for a year and I will always remember seeing this boy who can't have been older than 10 who literally couldn't walk properly.
I think you're setting kids up for a lifetime of food issues and bullying.

Us too grumpy I totally understand your situation. And running around in the fresh air is not always the simple answer that people seem to think. I had that sort of childhood, we live in a lovely village & their early childhood was filled with walks, but I have to ferry them around now, 2 dcs with different interestes, one motivated one much less so, I work & sometimes I need a rest too! Night fridge raiding in this house is often houmous & carrot sticks, but a whole pot. Or toast. If I do get anything 'treatlike' such as crisps I have to hide it. Personally I would consider young children that are being over fed a diet of crap with little or no exercise to be at best neglectful & it is going to impact dreadfully on their futures, however having an overweight ds & considering myself to be doing all I can I'd like to see a society that reverts back to sensible portion sizes, a less competitive activities structure for mainstream kids & better regulations for the ridiculously calorific foods on offer.

What does 'big girl' mean in context FellOutOfBedTwice?

Do you mean overweight or just tall?

You don't get the full picture just by looking at a child or even knowing them and their family.

My dc have become overweight but both are on medication. I am very slim myself and give them a balanced diet but they are both obsessed with food and we have daily battles over food, lots of anger, shouting and slamming doors. It's hard.

They are not allowed to help themselves to food although they do try. I used to say they were allowed to take fruit whenever they wanted but ds1 would literally eat three bananas in a row.

I have seen what friends feed their children and their portion sizes and I know I restrict my dc much more than they do.

I try to keep them active but do have to drag them out much of the time now they are older.

I found when my eldest went to secondary school and was in charge of choosing his own lunch, we had major difficulties. He was eating two ice cream sandwiches a day . And I don't know about Jamie Oliver's healthy schools, but it's never reached any school I know. They got rid of the vending machines in the school I work at but the most popular lunch served is cheese and chips. At break time the staple diet is pizza, chicken burger or sausage rolls.

Worra, that's probably more to do with it being relied on as the 'hot' meal of the day I would think.

I'd like to see a society that reverts back to sensible portion sizes, a less competitive activities structure for mainstream kids & better regulations for the ridiculously calorific foods on offer.

You don't need to rely on society for that.

Society is what it is, but we are the parents. Yes, this sort of society can make things more difficult, but ultimately we are still responsible for what we put in our kid's mouths and how much time we set aside to make sure they take enough exercise.

If society ever does change, it'll be an extremely slow process.

Worra, that's probably more to do with it being relied on as the 'hot' meal of the day I would think.

I don't think so because the number one complaint is, "He/she eats way more than that at home".

I think because portion sizes have changed all around us (see PP who mentioned muffins/cookies), they expect the schools to follow suit.

Apparently their kids come home 'starving' and many parent's 'have to' meet them at the school gate with a snack.

The thing is Worra, back in the day parents struggling with societal issues chucked their children out on the street to play. I remember them from my own childhood, I imagine most of us born before 1990 do.

Now, they are stuck in front of an Xbox/TV/tablet with an ever available supply of cheap and processed food and drink.

nomorechocolate I totally identify with your post. And I stopped DD having school dinners after one term at primary school because every day I'd ask her what she'd eaten and it was nearly always something with sausages in it, except Wednesdays when they had a roast dinner. I'd far rather have control of what she ate at lunchtime - school dinners seemed to consist of the kinds of crap I wouldn't allow in my house.

I agree ilovevegcrisps although to be fair it wasn't just parents with societal issues.

My Irish mother would declare, "Look at the glorious sunshine. It's a sin to waste it stuck indoors", before ushering us outside

Even if the 'glorious sunshine' was in January/February.

Luckily we have Parentpay here for school dinners, so you can log in and see what they ate.

I've told my kids that if they constantly make unhealthy choices without mixing it up a bit, they'll have to take sandwiches.

My DC have recently become friends with a girl at school that's VERY overweight. I don't want to judge because her face looks swollen and her mother is a normal size so I'm unsure whether it's medical or not (she doesn't have SEN but it could be medication or something..) but she looks uncomfortable and it's sad to see.

I'd argue it is abuse yeah. I don't see it often but when I do it never fails to shock me, just as much as it would seeing a malnourished starving child. To knowingly overfeed your child or let them do it to themselves is just as cruel as not feeding them enough. You aren't just setting them up to be bullied, you're also damaging their HEALTH.

Obviously worra but as I've said he's almost 15, i Have educated my son, fed him well encouraged him to have an active life. Society has changed so much since I grew up, I'm talking about ideally what I'd would like to happen. I can remember being shocked by portion sizes & obese people on a trip to America 20 years ago, it's the same here now. My hope is that my ds will have a growth spurt, slim down & live his life as he's been taught/ encouraged to do I've healthily. My great worry is that he will remain overweight, struggle with confidence, turn to comfort eating, & he could be leaving home in a short few years time, then how do I control what he puts into his mouth & how much exercise he chooses to take?

I think one of the problems - aargh, I am going to make a hash of this post, I can already tell. Here goes though

Anorexia and bulimia were 'diseases' of my generation, not in the sense that they were then created but they became something that everyone was aware of.

That generation has now grown up and I think sometimes there's a real anxiety about talking about weight and health with girls especially in case it 'turns them anorexic' which is a noble sentiment but I don't think it works like that!

Worra if you're asking what I mean by "big girl" now, I've explained my height/weight/build above. As a kid I was just always a head taller and a couple of shoe sizes bigger than my peers with a bit of timber to match but was never fat.