To be shocked at how many overweight kids there are here?

[glasgowsfinest]

Have got my fireproof hat in place, here goes...! I'm currently at a Butlin's-type holiday park on the south coast. As you can imagine, it's jammed full of kids of all ages. I'm genuinely shocked at how many of them, from pre-schoolers to older teens, are significantly overweight. I don't think puppy fat can be used as an excuse for all of them. Thinking back to my childhood, overweight kids were the exception, not the rule, but now it seems the opposite. I have two children who by no means have a perfect diet, and eat more chocolate and watch more TV than I thought I'd allow, but they're active too and don't seen to have any fat on them at all! Maybe they're just "lucky", I don't know. But the sheer numbers of chunky kids made me feel quite sad.

I can remember when people didn't 'rustle' through films, nah, they smoked instead. Society was doomed! OMG, we're all doomed!

I grew up in the 70s. A takeaway was a massive and very rare treat but these days it's normal to have them often. Things like cadbury's fingers were for birthday parties and now I see them every day in lunchboxes. A lot of the things we now see as everyday food (which is total junk) was rare treat food when I was a kid.

I work in a school and most of the children with packed lunches have way too much food - full sized sandwich (about 300 calories), large packet of crisps (150/200 calories), couple of biscuits/chocolate bars (at least 300 calories), those awful 'frube' things (50 calories), possibly some fruit that is rarely eaten. That's over 800 calories in one meal. I've seen much worse packed lunches - 2 packets of crisps and 2 large bars of chocolate for a 6 year old.

Portion sizes are crazy. I also don't see why it's so awful for a child to be without snacks and to always have to be full after a meal.

The children are obese. It's horrible to see. But there's no telling them. Our society is doomed.

The only logical outcome is a two-tier NHS. There is no way, as this problem progresses, that the non-obese citizens will tolerate the enormous diversion of budget to obesity.

Not really two tier, but rather some form of self-pay.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, too. Takeaways were a rare treat but fags sure as hell weren't. Every other person smoked. Many of us grew up breathing in secondhand smoke. Smoking is an appetite suppressant.

Times change. Imagine that.

If I eat in front of a screen I am so distracted I barely notice how much I have eaten. I try to avoid it or portion out a reasonable amount in a bowl instead of working my way through a bag of sweets or whatever.

expat

mature.

Yes, we are doomed. There is absolutely no going back from the obesity pandemic now because of ingrained attitudes, lifestyle choices and other influences.

We'll see in a couple of decades when the social care is crumbling under the obesity related illnesses as well as a growing elderly population.

^
The only logical outcome is a two-tier NHS. There is no way, as this problem progresses, that the non-obese citizens will tolerate the enormous diversion of budget to obesity.^

Interesting point.

We recently had a morbidly obese patient whom it took 5-6 of us to clean, and everytime she needed to use the bedpan. She had c-diff so you can imagine how many times this happened.

So every time this lady needed personal care, it took ALL the staff from the ward leaving others vulnerable. Patients were not happy and rightly so. But nothing could be done. There's not enough staff.

Now wait till we see this sort of obesity more and more. We're already getting folk quite regularly who need a four person care.

Interesting suggestion Re the NHS

Yes, but we aren't talking about smoking.

I'm not saying that everything was all rosy in the 70s either. I'm just making an observation about how attitudes to food have changed.

There's plenty of threads about smoking, why try to derail this one?

Titanz, silly gets silly back. We're all going to die! Some from obesity, some from antibiotic resistant disease, some from climate change, some from dementia. It's very silly to panic about the certainty that is death, in fact, there's some argument for not living as long as we have been doing recently.

smoking also doesn't have ridiculous notions like 'health at every size' that tells young women they're perfectly fine being overweight and obese.

expat it's pretty clear you don't know the extremity of what you're talking about so lets just leave it at that.

Why is everyone blaming parents they are buying food that has hormones and antibiotics added (meat/milk) and is way over processed. Everthing else (cereals, biscuits) etc., has glucose syrup or high processed corn syrup. It really is the Goverments fault for allowing this. Even fruit you buy in supermarkets can be a year old and doesn't go off. It's obscene that it is allowed.

I'm not, Mum, just pointing out that people used to smoke a lot more in the recent path rather than eat, but I know how precious MNers are about their fat threads (and smoking and drinking ones), they must be left to their preaching and pearl-clutching at all costs.

It really isn't the governments fault just this once .

The government doesn't pile children's plates high and hand them snacks at every opportunity.

'expat it's pretty clear you don't know the extremity of what you're talking about so lets just leave it at that.'

On the contrary, but let's just leave the righteous to their soapboxes. It's how all these threads go.

It's affecting children. So it's fine to let it carry on? Not discuss it?

Anyway, I'm going to ignore the detailing attempt.

Chestervase1 the hormones and antibiotics stuff is largely an issue with meat in the US, not so much in this country.

And I blame both the parents and the government. Because the parents are still the ones choosing to buy that. If you're not happy with the meat you can afford, eat more beans and vegetables instead. If you're not happy with the fruit and veg on offer go to the market instead where it'll be fresh and a fuckload cheaper. I know it's not easy, I'm obese myself, but there's a reason why all the "feed your family for £1 a day" sites and blogs don't include multipacks of crisps and takeaways - because they aren't the cheapest option.

Obesity is way more expensive for the NHS to treat; there is no way to tax obesity.

Big difference.

Between smoking and obesity, that is.

And I blame both the parents and the government.

What would you have the government do? It is not the government's job to feed children, surely?

I think it's a vicious circle really because I believe that mental illness, no matter how seemingly minimal, is tied directly to eating habits. These habits then become the norm and are passed onto children.

I wonder if we got our people healthier mentally, it would have a knock on effect on eating better.