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.

YANBU OP I made the same observation at DDs end of year assembly where many the kids I've known since reception have completely changed shape and are noticeably overweight. It is a combination of factors but mostly too much processed sugary food and not enough activity. What really gets me is that people think it is necessary to give snacks to kids every 5 minutes. Parents show up at school pick up with muffins and giant cookies and then drive their lardy kids home munching all the way. Every outing seems to require snacks - biscuits,crisps, cereal bars - everywhere kids are stuffing their faces. I never heard of a snack growing up - 3 meals a day and the occasional home made cake was about it. Kids do not need constant snacks.

And it was only about £3 each, which puts it right in the after school pocket money kind of range.

It's so bloody cynical and calculated - can't see many kids exercising self-control around temptations like that. Clearly, there is no chance.

"Alcohol and smoking don't cost nearly as much as obesity. Obesity is the single greatest thread to the NHS's viability. There is no way to directly tax obesity as efficiently as smoking and alcohol"

BULLSHIT. Its not overweight/obese people clogging up A and E Friday night into Saturday morning and Saturday night into Sunday morning.,......EVERY WEEKEND.

Marking my place for future commenting - I've been "chewing" on this for much of the day (pardon the pun) - but just wanted to make an initial observation that this very website has, at least on my screen, an ad for a video to make easy chocolatey muffins to "satisfy a sweet tooth" right under an ad for Weight Watchers.

Obesity is the single greatest thread to the NHS's viability.

Sorry HelenaDove, but this is true. Doesn't diabetes cost something like 10% of the NHS budget. That's before you factor in things like heart disease

lock

Funnily enough we now have one of those kind of places in town that has opened. Sells a load of ice creams and milkshakes pancakes waffles etc all in fancy glasses/milk bottles etc

The kind of place where people "check in" on fave book and post pics of enormous sundaes their kids are fucking into

I like to treat the kids as much as anyone but something that can be shared between an entire table yet people have one each is not a treat.

Huge difference from when we were kids and ice cream for pudding in a restaurant were one scoop in those little silver dishes a little or home shaped tub.

And it was enough

Cab you imagine going for dinner now? And the kids faces if they were brought one scoop of ice cream. They would wonder where the sprinkles cookies marshmallows and the overflowing jam jars full to the brim with ice cream and brownie pieces and sauce dripping like everywhere

Tucking

Seriously auto correct?

Didn't even notice that mommy. What about the Disney Kitchen Toddler Snacks? You know we've reached saturation point when we are oblivious to this being rammed down our throats.

Well i suspect by losing 10 stone ive lessened my risks quite a lot. Coupled with the fact that i dont drink dont smoke dont sunbathe( im 44 and dont have ANY wrinkles yet) will probably cost the NHS a great deal less than many people who do the above.

Giles we have a sweetshop in our town that just sells American sweets.

Well done Helena that is a fantastic weightloss achievement - good on yer

misshelena Dont be so bloody catty to Olivander.

Olivander do flirtelle do those bikini tops in a 32HH

American sweets?

I'm going to assume they are bigger and somehow even nore sugary than ours?

Diabetes type 2 has risen 65% in a decade. Shocking.

Ta Dame I wear a size 12/14 in tops dresses and fitted skirts but because trousers have to be pulled up over my stomach i wear a 16 ...........i have loose skin on my stomach. I wouldnt put a photo up on here though because i suspect some on here cant dont want to tell the difference between loose skin and actual weight.

Helena - yes, they do a massive range of sizes

Giles my niece eats them. Horrible sounding things like pizza flavour Pringles. and Holiday Mint m and ms

With high fructose corn syrup added too Giles.
A colleague told me that for her son's birthday breakfast, he had a whole Millie's giant cookie. She revels in feeding crap to her kids who are morbidly obese and was having a jolly old cackle about it.

Thanks Olivander Will check them out. Despite weight loss i kept the bigger boobs.

I was a size 28 back in the day. And a 46G

Placemark for later...

Snacking, availability of over-processed food, highly processed sugars (which are addictive), portion sizes.

This is a really interesting programme on it:

The men who made us fat

There are some quite nasty comments on here when the op is clearly concerned rather than abusive - but the OPs in these threads are ALWAYS lovely concerned people, special snowflakes who are soooooo hurt when people pull them up - after all, they are only thinking of da kiddies, and without exception they are ALWAYS better parents, their kids are always thin and active (because as we know, those two things ALWAYS go hand in hand).

Another thing that always happens is that lovely Mumsnetters who aren't greedy pigs (for aren't all the fatties so) have the key - the holy grail for weight loss. Despite the efforts of the medical community, the scientific community, research etc., those who have the answer to the obesity epidemic are Mumsnetters who know a fat kid when they see one and can point and shout "fat kid!".

It beggars belief.

Funnily enough we now have one of those kind of places in town that has opened. Sells a load of ice creams and milkshakes pancakes waffles etc all in fancy glasses/milk bottles etc

They would wonder where the sprinkles cookies marshmallows and the overflowing jam jars full to the brim with ice cream and brownie pieces and sauce dripping like everywhere

This is completely irresistible to children - like a real life Willie Wonka experience. After that, a strawberry mivvie will really not cut the mustard.

A colleague told me that for her son's birthday breakfast, he had a whole Millie's giant cookie - and without tales like this, which are peppered throughout this thread, the theories of greed and laziness wouldn't stand up. If anyone comes on and says no my kids eat normal food then that just does not compute with the Pointers and Shouters, so that person must be put down, very hard, very quickly. No, your kids cannot eat normal food and still gain weight, you are delusional, we are better parents than you.

And so it goes around again, rinsing and repeating, till the next concerned OP starts a thread about fat kids. You know what? I saw a fat kid the other day eating an apple.