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.

It's not just advertising that needs to change. Kids watch less TV and much more online these days so for my DC the temptation comes in the shops. As soon as you enter the store and at the end of every aisle you are bombarded with walls of chocolate, crisps and junk on offer but fruit is . Giant chocolate bars for £1, 4 jam doughnuts £1, Doritos £1 but 6 apples are £2, Rasberries £2.50 or a punnet of Grapes £2 so guess what people are tempted to buy.

Tax junk food and fizzy drinks and use the money to subsidise the provision of cheaper fresh produce. Make this stuff prohibitively expensive to buy.

I work in schools, and it's true. When I was growing up in the 90's there was only one overweight child in the whole school, today there is at least one per year group. Ive seen some reception age children who are already quite clearly very overweight, it's setting them up for a lifetime of health problems and bullying unless its nipped in the bud.

Children get a health check every year at school which includes weighing and measuring and receive personalised advice on their health needs,

Something like this would get huge resistance in the US. People would say that weighing kids make them feel bad about themselves and would lead to eating disorders and low self esteem.

Like my DC I have developmental disabilities and had extreme sensory issues around food. It's definitely not just about texture, it's smell, sight-identical sized foods, not touch other foods or similar- sound as I chewed them, and taste. I was physically sick repeatedly as a child over foods I couldn't bear just sitting infront of me. I could eat cheese on toast and chips with ketchup and tinned tomatoe soup without problems, could happily not eat solids for days (still true, lattes, soups, smoothies, protein shakes can do me just fine) and likely would have been fine if I had been left to it. But constant insistence that I eat what was served up lead to an eating disorder that took my teen years. As an adult most of the foods I hated as a child I now love and I wouldn't touch a chip if you paid me.

Sensory issues goes way past just texture and many children with sensory issues also have higher likelyhood of control issues, pressure avoidance, anxiety, and hypermobility which comes with acid reflux and either constant eating bland foods to keep that down or reluctance to eat much at all. Eating disorders and developemental disabilities are a common cross over and something I saw commonly when I worked with camhs.

Something like this would get huge resistance in the US. People would say that weighing kids make them feel bad about themselves and would lead to eating disorders and low self esteem

Ironic really isn't it.
Being overweight and unable to keep up with your classmates and havung parents who have their head in the clouds is bad for self esteem.

Standing on some scales to allow someone to notice befire you get to the point your kid has to shop in the adult section and order in their school sweatshirt in a size not kept in stock...not so much

If they thought their kids were fine they would let them do it.

But if any one remembers the Jamie Oliver American school dinners program he did, where a six vegetable stir fry and noodles was not approved as it didnt meet veg quota but a burger and chips did because of the unused salad bar and the potatoes counting as a veg I guess it's not surprising there would be so.much resistance

We walked everywhere, to school , we played outside all the time . we went to work . We helped in the house, we didn't have many labour saving devices so we all had to do more activity to live our everyday lives. We ate three meals a day and very rarely ate sweets or snacks. Not many people fat then. If they were I don't remember people being rude to them either.

Everyone ate bread when I was growing up, but the majority of bread that you get in the supermarkets nowadays in Britain is filled with God knows what. Proper bread should be stale the next day but so many loaves last for ages. I read a thread the other day about palm oil going into bread. Is this even necessary?
I read a book called 'Wheat Belly' ages ago - apparently some kind of dwarf wheat hybrid has been used to make bread and heavily industrialised process called 'Chorleywood'. There is little to no nutritional value after this process has been used - apparently it causes a real inflammatory response throughout the body.
Must dig it out and have another read.

Does baking your own bread help? Or is the flour full of shit too. Quite fancy a bread machine.

Depends on the flour you buy. at least you can add seeds and nuts to it.

YANBU. I see it more often. From personal experience I've noticed two things - that other children of the same age as mine 4 and 6, get much less sleep - mine get 12 hours, and there has been a link between lack of sleep and obesity.

The other thing I've noticed is parents being less willing to keep trying kids with different foods, it might take ages for them to accept something, or tastes change and different foods needs to be tried for a number of years, so not left with only a few foods they are willing to eat.

Can't comment on poverty link, not something I've noticed.

It's today's lifestyle that has become the norm.
There's so much focus on food and eating and people just think it's normal.
People used to eat to live, not live to eat.
The lifestyle change from the 1950/60s to now is massive. People would have been fat then if there had been more money, access to fast food and treats and not being able to play out all day.
Anyone born after 1980 probably thinks it's just the way things are.

Exactly gone but a lot of people don't/won't accept that for some children the "give it them and they will eat it" approach won't work!

I can't even eat pizza in the house anymore as the smell alone makes DS sick

It was an eye-opener - after reading it I eliminated wheat from my diet and the effect on my arthritis has been incredible. When I do fall off the wagon, my symptoms become significantly worse so it isn't worth it for me.

Poverty doesn't make kids fat, poor kids in India for example are not fat, just the opposite in fact. You get fat through eating more calories than your body needs/burns, whether that's chocolate or a salad.

I agree with OP, I was on hols in South West recently and was shocked to see so many fatties rolling around - I believe its child abuse. I accept that some are caused by health issues, which apparently according to stats makes less than 1% the rest - a mix of ignorance, laziness in activity and cooking, and don't know any better.

I'm always having disagreements with my DM and MIL she looked after my 2 girls the other day and they usually have 1 treat a day, she gave them Ice Cream, Yogurt and Milkshake in one bloody day as well as their lunch and snacks.

Indeed ton we have the double whammy of too many obese but nutritionally malnourished children. In a first world country it is shocking to see that diseases like scurvy and rickets are on the rise.

I'm not really sure how poverty leads to over eating. Laziness leads to obesity and lazy people are probably less well off than those willing to work. So maybe laziness and lazy parenting is the problem.

I think it's quite easy to see how poverty can lead to obesity.

If you don't drive dragging your family onto buses and taxis would prove immensely expensive.

Here is be quite lucky I would be able to reach any supermarket I wished within a 20 minute walk. If i saved three quid for a taxi I could get a decent shop in and get home.

If the only shop within several miles is some local corner shop where the fruit and veg are hit and miss and several times the price and the best bet is a bargain bucket style imitation kfc thing in the freezer....

Fresh produce can be very variable at small corner shops. However there is nearly always chips fish fingers and crap in the freezer and you could walk home with that.

We have like two streets where pretty much all there is is takeaways and chicken shops. I can't think.of anywhere in this town where there isn't some kind of junk food place just minutes away.

I can see why hitting the chicken shop would be easier and cheaper.

I'm staggered by the huge numbers of fat people and fat children. I see pregnant women daily and shocked how morbidly obese at least 50% are but without any concept of it and the risks they pose for their pregnancy and childbirth. Don't get me started on the pregnant smokers!!!

Obesity will be on the rise in schools, state or otherwise because playing fields and time given to sport at school has diminished. This started back in the 80's with Margaret Thatcher's rule 909 which meant that schools could sell playing fields. This lead to councils selling off school grounds to developers. The result - education now ignores sport. Children obese and our athletes, instead of finding their love of sport through the state education system now have parents running ragged to ensure they receive adequate provision.

I remember coming from the end of my first term at university. My mum gave an audible gasp of horror when I walked through the door. I was given a very stern warning to sort myself out as I had gotten fat. She was right - my beer and pasta diet had increased my girth and I did feel uncomfortable in myself. I do wonder, if she hadn't said anything, would I have continued to get larger?
I am grateful for the wake up call and it certainly didn't set me up for a spiral into anorexia.

I was shocked when eating out to see two primary age kids eating massive platefuls from the adult menu whilst my dd ate from the kids menu at the weekend. It's something I've seen before though sadly. We've never forced our dd to clear her plate and as a result she's a perfect weight for her height. She eats rubbish like any other kid but doesn't stuff her face every mealtime. So many kids just eat way too much.

" fatties rolling around"

Well thats the second derogatory phrase.

I wonder which poster is going to make the hat trick.

My middle son is very thin and about 3 years behind on height. He eats healthy food with plenty of fruit but also likes a fair bit of junk. I just can't ever imagine him putting on any weight. Not sure what causes it.

We can call it fat shaming, or we can recognise that there is an obesity epidemic for adults and children.

I can't remember where I heard it, but we are currently raising a generation that will have a lower life expectancy than their parents and grandparents because of obesity related diseases.

No, we absolutely do not condone or tolerate the individual bullying of overweight people - but we should be able to talk about it as an epidemic.