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?

I know it's hard when you don't have a good role model in your husband for healthy eating. As others have suggested, this could be simply portion control.

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

You previously in another thread blamed someone who was overweight as a teenager because they could have eaten less and exercised more.

OPid look again at portion size to be honest.

Most people who are overweight think their portion size is appropriate and most of the time they are wrong. I'm overweight and I suspect this is part of my problem. I suspect it's part of the issue for your family too

Will do. Thank you.

I'm sure you feel like you are trying to help them be healthy but there are elements of this being your 'fault'
Larger mothers tend to have larger babies: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8788593/Overweight-mothers-give-birth-to-fat-babies-study-finds.html
If you eat big portions you might well be overfeeding them.
If you are heavy perhaps as a family your lifestyle is not that active?

I try not to judge parents of overweight kids but I think if you yourself are overweight it might be worth scrutinizing your families lifestyle and eating habits in general, to see if you can make changes that would be positive.

No blaming from me. There's no place for blame or shame in a progressive world, just focus on solutions

I can recommend:

Water only. Don't be fooled by the supposed healthy content of juice. Fruit juice is as sugary (and fattening) as fizzy drink.
Use fresh and unprocessed foods as much as possible, nothing in a packet! Packet, pouch, boxed etc foods are packed with sugar (and other nasties)
Use full fat milk, cream, cheese, yoghurt. It's much healthier than the "low fat" varieties which have been stripped of goodness and leave you hungry.

In a nutshell, stick to meat, fish, vegetables, cheese, eggs, yoghurt (the plain, full fat is ok. None of the flavoured ones), some breads.
Fruit is overrated, one apple contains as much sugar as an adult needs per day.
My kids eat eggs, bacon, sausage or smoked salmon for breakfast and are not hungry again for hours. (Buy from the butcher as their meats are not pumped with sugar and water). Lunches are home baked rolls (very simple), cheese, carrot/capsicum/cucumber/etc and tuna, and dinners are some sort of meat or fish with vegetables. They love pasta dishes so I'll make one of those each week though I don't eat it myself. I still bake cookies and, on occasion, cakes, but I'd never buy them ugh (look at the ingredient list and you'll understand).

The person to blame for a child being overweight is the person feeding/allowing/facilitating the food to be put in the child's mouth.

However lack of education plays a part in this too

The overweight children I know have overweight parents.

Get smaller plates...

Yes Wirry. I'm not sure how that relates to Pringlecat's post?

Lelloteddy WorraLiberty My mum gave me appropriate meals and snacks for my age and weight, but I chose to sneak food out of cupboards when she wasn't looking. That's on me, not her. It was not her responsibility as a parent to deprive the rest of the household of nice food by not buying any treats and/or sticking locks on doors. If she'd only fed me junk food and refused to buy fruit and veg, you might have a point about the parents being to blame, but she actively encouraged me to eat healthily.

I don't live with her anymore, but I when I go round to visit, there is still a bowl of lovely fresh fruit which I'm encouraged to help myself to! And she is still slim and a good example.

Most parents try really hard. I would never blame a parent for their children not turning out to be "perfect"; sometimes it doesn't matter how much you try, children just don't behave the way you expect/want them to.

I think unless someone has had an overweight child, they don't really understand how difficult it can be. It's all too easy to blame parents, which is over-simplistic in most cases. I certainly wouldn't blame you, but as a parent of an overweight child I'm very aware that most people blame me, so I suspect that's your experience too.

Totally agree with this from a pp:

"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."

My youngest son is overweight and I feel as if I've tried just about everything. He was normal weight until about 7 years old and then started to pile on weight. (I'm not, and have never been, overweight nor is my exh, I also have 3 older ds who vary from normal weight to naturally skinny and have never been overweight.) DS is now 13, so it's very difficult to control his meals. I have nothing unhealthy in the house, we never have fried food, no unhealthy snacks, etc. He will have fruit for snacks, but if I'm not there he'll have 3 bananas instead of 1, for example, and is a night-time fridge raider. I've also asked relatives not to buy him chocolate and sweets as gifts (which they still continued to do at the same time as blaming me for his weight problem .) I'm not sure if his overeating has an emotional cause (my exh and I have been through a very difficult divorce in the last few years) or has a medical cause - he was quite ill between 4 and 10 yrs old and had frequent treatments of antibiotics and steroids which I've been told can have an impact. As he grows upwards (he's now 6ft 2 (!) the weight is becoming less obvious and he's enjoying exercise more. It's an up-hill struggle, though, made much worse by the fact that a lot of people judge me because of his weight.

Good luck with your two!

I wouldn't judge you.

Pringlecat, yours is a fairly unusual situation really and not something I think is responsible for the childhood obesity epidemic in the western world.

I get what you're saying in your personal circumstance but I think on the whole, parents are very much responsible for their primary school children's intake of calories and the amount of exercise they get.

This thread is not about anyone being 'perfect' btw.

Thank you Scottish I suppose deep down I feel like I am being judged and I guess I also blame myself too. After all I buy most of the shopping. Yes much of it dh asks for but I could just get it and hide it from dc or encourage us all to eat together more often.

If I was overweight, and my dc were overweight, my dh would be supportive and proactive in making sure the family was healthy.

That would mean sacrificing all of his rubbish "snacks". Because he loves and cares for us.

I am only going to judge you positively because you clearly are keen to make changes for your dc.

Husbands can be annoying. For instance, my 3 dc all like Weetabix, porridge and shreddies. Dh one day does the shop and comes home with Frosties because he fancies them. Cue the kids wanting them and in my head cue them never wanting the healthier options again. Luckily, dh saw my point and took them into work with him.

I think there is an issue with your dh eating crisps for his dinner as not only is it obviously not good for him, but even if the dc have a healthy meal, it's not that great to witness crisps being eaten for dinner as a norm.

You have my sympathies, it's not easy especially if you have a food obsessed dc.

Good luck with following up with the referral, I hope they're really helpful.

Sadly mags I can't see that happening.

WorraLiberty Just see scottishjo's post. I don't think it is unusual, more that people assume there are only two types of parents: parents who try to encourage a healthy lifestyle and parents who don't give a toss.

Some parents will feed their children all kinds of garbage, but due to being naturally sporty kids, they'll burn it all off. Some parents will feed their children healthy food, but due to being greedy little things, they'll seek out extra food at school, at their friends' houses and in their own homes when no one is looking.

You really can't judge parents of overweight children, unless you're close family and have spent time living with them and their children and observing a complete lack of effort.

Sack the diet - how's their activity levels?

I ate crap as a kid (not that that's a good thing!) but I was incredibly active. Walked to school and back every day (4 miles) in addition to daily PE lessons and competitive gymnastics. 3 spoons of sugar on my coco pops did not make me fat!

I went swimming with my toddlers on the weekend and was shocked at how many overweight children and teenagers there were in the pool. Genuinely shocked.

It's got to be down to more like than just the odd extra pizza.

I'm not judging. Great that you want to do something about it.

I look at obese parents of obese kids and wish that someone would take them to task, as letting your children overeat to the point of being obese, is abuse.

I suppose activity levels have reduced as they have stopped swimming lessons. We also haven't been out on our bikes this summer.
This will change.

Not keen to do it bin the winter.

In

Just obese parents of obese children or both parents (regardless of weight) of overweight or obese children