To ask whether you would blame an overweight child on

[Catlady1976]

The overweight parent.
I am overweight/bordering on obese but used to be much heavier.
Two of my children (late primary/early secondary) are overweight.
My dh is a normal weight but has a crap diet. When he cooks (rarely) it involves bunging a pizza in the oven or ordering a pizza. Large size for a 10 Year old which gets eaten over 2 days. When I was away for the weekend he took the kids to McDonald's and let them have large evm with coke.
When I do the cooking I try to cook healthy meals and adjust portion size to suit.
I am also he one taking the kids swimming or go the gym , park etc.
Yet often I read ( on here and other forums) that many children are overweight because they have an overweight parent or parents
So MN would you judge me for this as I am the overweight one?

You can't do it without your DH being on board.

I was offered a referral to a dietitian for Dd2 who has other issues which I accepted but it never happened. Will have to chase it or get on a family programme which I think will help more.

Do they get £2 a day pocket money or £2 a week?

When you say she plays netball for the team, how many hours a day/ week is this actually? Under 8 should be around 3hrs active a day, around 2+ per day after. This includes walking, cycling etc. But unless she walks 90mins a day to and from school it's probably not enough

They drink water or squash at home.

I agree a good idea to get rid of crisps as it's a good idea just to keep them as treats (in our family we might have them once a fortnight or less and share a big bag of friends come over)
I really recommend lots of unprocessed snacks - ours have a boiled egg if starving, lots of fruit, nuts or chunks of cheese.

As someone else asked what do they drink? Ours only have water (or milk if wanted but it isn't) which I grew up with too

Artandco that sounds a lot of exercise , wow! I think you can be the right size through diet alone though as our DC eat as much as want and not that active other than at school.

Pocket money a week. They get more but it goes into a bank account.Takeaway or meal out of some description seems to be about twice a month.
Time for me to have a serious chat with dh and make some adjustments for us all.

I'd blame both. I'm overweight but my son isn't and he has a much diet than I do.

Sounds like you are making a great effort to feed your kids good, healthy food but if they are copying your DH's eating habits of binging on junk snacks, this could be where the problem is. Your DH may have a fantastic metabolism, whereas your kids might not. Don't beat yourself up about it, and take NHS guidelines lightly. The suggested calorie intake for a women is 2000 cal but my BMR is only 1400 to maintain my weight so it's very misleading. I have to weigh food out too I.e pasta and cereal because pouring freehand is dangerous!

I'm going to say this wrong because I cannot think of how to say it nicely.

If your dd makes cereal in a picnic bowl and needs to be reminded of how little cereal is a correct portion, then portions have always been off. A portion of cereal is small. A fist/cup size depending on the cereal.

*woman!

Having been a little fattie at that age myself, I'd blame the children. My mum was thin and provided a balanced diet for me. Unless she had put locks on cupboard boards (and who wants to live like that?) she wouldn't have been able to control my weight. She tried exposing me to lots of different foods, reasoning, threatening, bribing, signing me up for activities that burned off calories - didn't work.

These days my palette has developed and I eat all kinds of food including fruit and veg, I take part in regular sport and I know what a normal portion is. I grew out of the fat phase. But I certainly don't blame my parents for any of my previous unhealthy habits. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it have a healthy diet.

An hours training per week and than a match each week. So not a huge amount I accept.
She also does one gym session per week in addition to whatever she does at school. We also play badminton a couple of times per month.
Dd2 just plays badminton and whatever they do at school.

Pringlecat your mother continued to shop and buy the foods that you couldn't resist. She WAS responsible.

Have a look at what they call the "Hand Portion Guide"
Its really handy useful ad a rough guide to what portion sizes should look like.

Ime people feed themselves and their children far too much and they do it completely by accident. They start their kids with small portions and grow the portions with the child, which is fine, but a child's stomach doesn't necessarily grow at the same rate as arms and legs etc.

Its worth a look at least. If nothing g else try to remember that an average persons stomach is very roughly equal to their clenched fist size. Anymore than a fistful is more than the stomach can hold without expanding. Iyswim.

Thanks scruffy I will take a look.

I'm 2 st over max weight and dh is normal weight - but eats loads of rubbish. Kids are healthy weight. I don't let junk in the house. We have a sweet box that lives on top shelf with mini packets haribo, mini choc bars and they are allowed one pick a day after dinner.

I'm a bit paranoid being obese when it comes to feeding the kids. They get choice of sultana bran, porridge or weetabix - adult portion as they tend to be v hungry followed by banana or more fruit if still hungry (they eat massive breakfast). Then it's an apple or tangerine for break followed by school dinners )not healthy but at least they eat them. After school snack is veg sticks - carrots, peppers, cucumber. Then dinner is home cooked meal - usually something slimming world friendly with added olive oil or cheese for the kids. Pud is one fruit yogurt. If they are still hungry they can have fruit or extra carrot sticks. It works well for us.

But they are active. An hour of football, an hour of swimming, then 3 days a week they go to afterschools and do sports. I aim for an hour of activity a day for them

I think she knows what a serving is. She just said it doesn't fill her up. I suggested filling up with fruit.

Iv also gone back to using small side plates for their meals as i too was worried about portions

Plenty of green veg can help fill her up. That and water/squash as thirst is often confused with hunger.

Sounds good all Thank you for tips everyone.

And plenty of water with their meals and between meals.

Pringlecat how on earth can you blame the children?

The parents put the food in the cupboards and most are not allowed to just help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they please unless the parents allow that.