To think this is child abuse

[FacelikeaBagofHammers]

A parent I saw yesterday wheeling a 2 or 3 year old in a buggy. The child was seriously obese. Parent gave said child a can of Pringles to eat on while she shopped as she was whinging.

I think this is grossly unfair on a child as young as this, setting her up for a myriad of health problems. The child is more likely to develop diabetes and probably less likely to take up sports etc as they get older (which is hugely important for personal development imo).

I am aware there are other conditions that can cause children to put on weight, medication, learning difficulties etc (and these are not the scenarios I'm talking about) but other than that, it's the parents responsibility to manage the toddlers weight and activity levels. It's very sad tbh.

I honestly wouldn't judge a snack in public. The worst stuff gets saved for when I need to get stuff done and dd has other ideas which she expresses passionately.

Fact is you have no idea what the larger picture is so I would look into getting some well fitting knickers that don't require hoiking.

@supermoon100 Hadron, having asthma is no excuse for a child to be fat! Many great athletes have asthma

Many great athletes do have asthma, yes. However it depends on the asthma as some children with asthma cannot do any exercise even with strong medication. Others, like my daughter, are thankfully fortunate that the medication controls it well enough to let them have a normal childhood. One of the tablets for severe asthma is thought to have a connection with weight gain.

You would not judge a slim child but did a larger one. It says more about you than someone else's parenting skills. It's this mean girl mentality that makes life much harder than it has to be.

And a can of pringles in and of itself isn't child abuse.

To be fair, the vast majority of fat children are not fat because they have a medical condition, they are fat because they are overfed and don't get enough exercise. Same as their parents.

To be honest I would judge silently aswell. That said, the kid may be on a diet and the pringles are a one off

Maybe the child was in the pushchair because of mobility issues that are not related to weight.
Maybe the pringles wasn't a full tub to begin with. And this was part of a treat.
There's medication and health issues that can cause weight gain.

YANBU

I do class that as abuse!

On another note... DS used to carry a pringles tub around in his buggy, although he used it for storing his cars in and shaking them about

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who used a pringles tub for toys

I think your mistake OP was to use as an example a child that is a total stranger to you which you know nothing about. If you were talking about a child that you knew, and knew had no underlying problems, that you knew the parents continually fed fatty foods despite the child being obese then people might feel differently. As it is, it seems like you just made a snap judgment about the parenting of a complete stranger to the point of calling it 'child abuse'.

For arguments sake, let's replace this child by 3 children I kno, all neurotypical and not related. All massively obese with tooth decay. All between 2 and 4 years.
Child one has a (sharing size) bag of doritos as snack every time I see him.
Child 2 has been given his first baby bottle of juice around 6 month. Unsurprisingly refuses water now.
Child 3 has been weaned "baby led" (as his mum calls it) on kinder bars, sweet yoghurts and chocolate brioche etc.
All mothers swear their children are only sturdy, not overweight, and health visitors know nothing.
Yes, to me it's child abuse in all cases.

on my bus this lunchtime there was a young toddler in her buggy eating her way through a grab bag of walkers crisps. This is not an uncommmon sight where I live. I wonder if some parents think because crisps aren't a sugary snack, they're ok?

In general terms I agree with you, letting a child that young get obese is cruel, obviously all kids go through chubby stages as they grow but I'm assuming you mean actually obese.

Judging this one child though on that small part of their day is awful. DS looks totally healthy, however he has issues with his stomach and when he was a toddler I was still learning to manage it. I tried to make sure I had healthy snacks in my handbag but sometimes I'd misjudge how much I needed or he refused to eat what I offered so I had to find something he wanted. I have no doubt people were judging me while he sat in the buggy and smeared wotsits all over himself but better that than ending up back in hospital.

Lol at 99 centipede :)

"Don't worry OP, the school nurse will talk to the parents about it when they go to school if the HV isn't already involved and there are no underlying medical issues, which isn't clear."

Chances are that's two or three years away.

I became very overweight as a child as a result of asthma steroids, I was doing swimming and trampolining on a Sunday, karate on a Monday and Wednesday, cross country running on a Friday afternoon and dance on a Friday evening. I was still very overweight. I lost some weight but was still a bit overweight in my early teens, taking steroids for a knee problem caused by my running. I then gained weight again through a combination of PCOS, diminished ability to exercise daily due to the general pain in the arse that is living with endometriosis, oral steroids for severe eczema and asthma plus a restricted diet as my self esteem was through the floor and I turned to punishing myself with food and other forms of self harm when people made fun of my skin, body hair and weight. I was never fed crap and I was active.

Crisps have huge amounts of sugar in actually!

So wierd! But the dental nurse said so...

I'm confused about the steroids thing though - they produce weight gain by increasing appetite and changing the way the body stores fat, plus causing water retention, but they cannot actually make extra weight out of nothing so eating a controlled diet can control it as far as I understand it. Obviously that's not nice for a child who wants what they want and even more difficult if an ND child has any food issues, but my relatives with a child taking large doses for a blood disorder worked very hard to keep her weight down and they were able to do it. I don't think you can simply say that because a child is on steroids they will be overweight and nobody can do anything about it.

Albadross long term use of steroids - especially at high doses - can make you look puffy, fat and full of water even if you don't gain actual real weight. I was very sick, barely eating for weeks yet still puffed up water weight due to high doses of steroids.

As an asthmatic all my life, I get tired of hearing that athlete so and so has asthma so anyone can run a marathon. Medication can help a great deal, but as a pp said, for some people even on strong steroids excercise like running can remain difficult especially in cold weather.

Whilst there are athletes that are great champions for asthma, I have read that a suspicious number of athletes claim to have asthma in order to justify and authorise steroid use. How true this is I don't know.

I still push my son in a buggy (he's not yet 3) as he can't walk more than a mile. I am overweight and need the exercise of walking with him for any distance where I might otherwise take the bus. He does however walk to and from the playpark or local shop most days. A friend advised us to ditch the buggy as soon as he could walk -but then they drive everywhere!

And sometimes we do get a gingerbread man to eat while we're out on a long shopping trip for his snacktime (bribery). All part of a balanced diet though. But then he's not at all fat.

Oh ffs. Mind your own business.

My nephew is obese and will often eat crisps too. He's head and shoulders above the rest of his peers, can't walk long distances due to underdeveloped lungs which will hopefully sort itself out at 2, and has a dairy and gluten allergy so crisps are about the only junk food he can eat. Perhaps you caught the child having her one treat in the whole day?

My DS is just 4 and I still take him out in a buggy sometimes. This is because I don't drive and I like to get exercise from walking and sometimes wherever we are going is just too far for him and he gets tired. He's not overweight though.

I think the buggy at 2.5 is worse than some pringles. Ditch it and teach your child to behave instead of having to contain them.

Afuna does that apply for all 2.5 year olds,
To ditch the buggy?