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.

Poor sod. :(

"So much homework for starters"

I got my arse handed to me on a plate for suggesting this on a previous thread..........even though its true.

When i was a primary school kid (early 1980s) there was no homework at all.

MrTurtle

I don't think it's 3 hours of running around, just three hours of active play I think.

This is from NHS website:

"The 180 minutes can include light activity such as standing up, moving around, rolling and playing, as well as more energetic activity like skipping, hopping, running and jumping"

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/physical-activity-guidelines-for-children.aspx

Sorry to be clear Rex_Oper was the account where the abuse was/is
coming from One of many unfortunately.

We aren't home til 4. Between dinner bath homework etc it's tight. Really tight.

They do stuff after school or at lunch time but we leave at befire 8 in the morning. We are home just after 4 I throw them out the house a fair bit but there isn't time

I wonder about this all the time too. I saw a little girl so round, I she could hardly walk yesterday. I could have cried for the poor girl. It makes me angry that we allow this to happen.

Small kids have perfectly functioning appetite regulation systems. They simply stop eating when they're full. To end up with a fat child (medical conditions excepted) you're just feeding them utter shit. Simple.

Frankly it's sort of child abuse to feed your children such crap that they end up like that. Christ, can't the authorities step in and do something?

Poverty is not an excuse, it's ignorance. Poverty in the past meant you were underweight! It's still cheaper to cook things like legumes, porridge and in season vegetables rather than feeding your children Miss Millies. It's just people apparently don't realise this or don't have the skills to make a pot of dhal.

The health statistics facing this generation are very grim.

What age do school kids now have dinner? Mine was always around 5 before Home & Away. If your working 9-5 how do you get home, prepare home cooked etc & fit in bath/homework etc

It is a sad!! So many fat children, but also so many fat young girls!! Who all thinks it's ok to wear short skirts or hot pant style shorts and crop top!! I'm afraid fat might just becoming to normal !!

It's ok to wear that. If that's what they want.

hiphop I just don't think a lot of people appreciate the tummy warming, filling yummyness of dhal or mushy peas.
When we were kids we ate a lot of peas pudding, root vegetables and porridge we were neither fat or hungry. Still eat it.

My ds is fat.

I keep looking at him and thinking, Christ he's huge, and feeling panicky about it, but for the life of me I can't find a way to force him to lose weight. He's 12, autistic and eats compulsively. He cries when he feels hungry, which is ALL THE TIME. He was a normal weight at primary but since he's had more autonomy he's piled on so much weight. He spends every bit of pocket money on sweets, quietly eats his way through any treats like ice cream if we have them in the fridge or the freezer, and the only way to stop him would be to never allow him to have any money in his pockets when he goes out. He's 12. His (skinny) brother has money to spend when he goes out, it's impossible to police him that much.

It's really bloody tough. We're not a bunch of ignorant, negligent twats, and we eat well at home.

Like the OP I also look at the number of overweight kids and think it's awful, but then I look at DS and think 'oh shit'. This summer I actually felt glad there were so many fat kids around so that ds didn't stand out like a sore thumb.

BTW - went to the GP when ds was starting to put on weight and asked for help. I got no support, no advice.

It's ok to wear that. If that's what they want.

Agree with this^^. There are much, much sadder things re obesity than overweight people wearing hot pants and crop tops! That sort of comment sort of misses the point imo and makes genuine concern about obesity seem somehow superficial. "Oh I just can't bear to see fat people in hot pants"! Not at all. Couldn't give a shit really. I've seen plenty of amazing looking overweight people in fairly revealing clothes. You don't have to wear a mu mu, just because you're overweight! Likewise I've seen plenty of slim people showing too much flesh and it isn't always to my taste.

I'm just worried for the health and quality of life people are going to have in the future if levels of obesity continue to grow.

I'm afraid fat might just becoming to normal !!

Vulgar personal abuse of children appears to be normalised as well. I hate to see that.

While the majority of us are finding this discussion interesting, there have been some rude comments about overweight people. Please can we stop these. Please can we also be clear that we are talking about the majority of overweight people, children and adults, and totally understand that there will be a percentage of people who are overweight for medical reasons. Some parents with such children have commented on this thread as it has made them feel uncomfortable or targeted in some way. You do not deserve this.

I have visited a local convenience store this evening for a couple of basics. Right by the till are stacks of cakes, cheap and full of fat and sugar. Next to them are huge bags of crisps and other salty snacks. Both cakes and crisps have large signs depicting their bargain prices. It's no wonder it's hard for people to avoid such food.

Well that's not helpful at all is it mini

You can't be expected to baby your ds the rest if his life. I know jack about autism but I'm thinking the injustice of him not having pocket money could be the cause of massive meltdown/difficult behaviour?

You would think that given obesity being the huge problem it is there would be more help out there?

Have you researched online at all? Is there anyone anywhere sho deals with weight problems in children with AN?

Is there actually help out there? What has to happen in order for a person to access it?

This month's UK paeds medical journal compares the results of a 12 week, intensive, multi-disciplinary intervention for obese teens to a single, one off education session.

The authors found no difference and that neither group lost weight.

Whatever changes need to be made they probably need to be made when children are young. Which means parent based education which isn't likely to happen as most parents don't see when their kids are becoming overweight.

In the 1960's and 1970's u did not see many fat children, there are lots of reason for this more stay at home mums that cooked for scratch!! Less cars on the roads so kids played out more, less snake food!!crips and sweets were a treat not a every day food!! No game consoles or tablets!! As the say different times!! So seeing a fat kids was not the normal. So here we are in 2017 and there are loads of fat kids and adults so we just look at them as normal!! as you make being fat the norm we will just become a big fat country just as the USA has!!. As I have said before so people just don't like the truth telling!! Being fat has become the norm in the uk. Get use to it!!

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.

It's rare that ignorance on this level is demonstrated in such a wondrously succinct way. There's something rather beautiful about it. Appalling and a depressing indictment of those who are unable to craft any intelligent argument, granted, but strangely beautiful all the same....

"Is there actually help out there? What has to happen in order for a person to access it?"

This is a truthful account of what happened when I went to the GP after getting a letter from school identifying him as overweight: GP asked me to make an appointment for ds to discuss diet and exercise with HCA at the practice. At the appointment the HCA seemed puzzled as to why we were there. She looked ds up and down and said 'he's not overweight is he?' I said he was, that he was 11 and wearing age 16 Gap jeans, which were too long in the leg and more to the point had had a letter from school flagging up his weight.

She weighed ds and told me he wasn't overweight. He WAS overweight. I'm not an idiot - I know what an overweight child looks like. She was using an adult BMI checker.

She then say him down and asked him what he ate for breakfast lunch and dinner. 'Toast' - 'Good!', 'School dinner' - 'Good!', 'Salmon, chicken, fish or something for dinner' - 'Good!' Obviously he chose not to mention the large bar of chocolate he bought on the way back from school with money he found down the back of the car seat and kept quiet about...

And that was it.

He was really angry with me afterwards and felt humiliated. I need to take him back to the GP because he's put on much more weight since then, but it was so crap I'm reluctant to do so.

It's so hard with an autistic child. He comfort eats because he finds school so stressful. He'll eat in secret until he feel sick. He's obsessed with the act of exchanging money for goods and Isco stanly up badgering me to allow him to go to the shops. It's exhausting.

Gosh mini

Massively unhelpful for you all.

You'd think the sooner something was dine the better and that a parent with their eyes pen would be a refreshing change. Afterall you want to keep him fit and healthy so you dont have to bother the drs later on. Or have to deal with something your ds can't manage independently.

Do you have any other parents you are close to you can ask what they do?

Afford a private appointment?

Im.sorry it's so tough for you

I considered starting a similar thread myself a few days ago but reconsidered as I was worried I would get a lot of people calling me judgy.

But I took DD2 and her friend to a huge lido last week and I have honestly never seen so many morbidly obese children. Not a bit tubby or a bit of puppy fat but seriously obese, waddling children. Now you might think, ah but the parents have them at a swimming pool! But then you see mum and all three kids waddling along with huge bags of chips :(

When you see boys of 11, 12 who are too embarrassed to go in the water without a top on because of their fat and girls who won't go in at all and would prefer so sit fully dressed then it does become a real issue and it is horribly sad.

I'm overweight, partly because of my disability but mostly because I love food. DD2 is skin and bone and muscle. DD1 is also overweight. She is 19 and I managed to keep her weight under control until she took control of her own food habits and eating. It makes me sad to see her down about her weight but despite cooking healthy food when she is here, it doesn't stop her buying crap and eating it in her room or eating whatever she wants at uni.

I have tried to always have my kids eat healthily and I feel like I've failed with DD1.

'Snake food' had me genuinely baffled for a moment there.

Severe stress and poor quality food have a damaging effect on gut flora which may be implicated in obesity. I was effortlessly slim until the age of 43 when I went through two years of severe anxiety and a clinical depression. I lost a stone in 4 weeks, my thyroid went gippy, then I put on three stone over the next three years. I'm not three stone overweight and really struggling to lose it.

It's not being active that stops kids becoming obese (or adults to) it's what they eat. Exercise has a totally different effect on your body from that that good has. Unfortunately those with low level income end up using cheaper usually less healthy food leading to obesity. Sign of how bad things are for some folk sadly.