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 was on holiday this summer in a holiday park type place, and was really shocked at the number of overweight kids around, ranging from slightly to plump to very obese. But many of them seemed to be eating/drinking those giant frigging slush puppy things, sweets, fizzy drinks, lollies etc.

I'm really not a 'sugar free' parent and my kids have plenty of chocolate, crisps, cakes etc. But I would never feed my kids the crap that I saw those kids consuming at that rate. It's just so unecessary.

Call me judgemental......meh.

My older dc are now old enough to swim alone and have recently started, but I always watch from the gallery.

When I take the dc swimming, i'm pretty oblivious to others as i'm concentrating on the dc. But watching from the gallery is an eye opener. The first time I did it, I really noticed just how many overweight kids there were...probably one in every three. Not massively so in many cases, but definitely overweight.

Unfortunately not everyone has the space to grow their own veg and I'm not convinced home grown tomatoes are cheaper than a tin of chopped tomatoes.
For every working mum dropping th the kids before work there are also sahm who still drive the kids to school.
Unfortunately our culture is very car centric thanks to the government over many decades. I wonder what obesity levels are like in countries like Holland where cycling is much more the norm.

Yy flanders

Swimming is definately an eye opener. But it's good they are there getting the exercise rather than at home, at least when you see them at these sporting sessions they are having that example set to then and that's great.

But at 20-25 quid a month for swimming lessons and double if you have 2 kids they really are a luxury :(

To the pp who was telling is about their 14 year old that's really encouraging. I know on one hand too much discussion about food and people worry about giving their children hang ups but I can't see how you can teach children about why they need to do these things and why you are saying no when all the people around you are doing something without explaining the very real consequences of bad choices.

It's not like crossing the road where they can pretty much figure out that stepping out will result in a very obvious immediate consequence.

Weight creeps on gradually. By the time it's become obvious the habits could well be set and food is often what they would turn to to make themselves feel better about looking different

I've tried to have a sensible age appropriate discussion with Dd explaining how eating well is good for the body and will make doing all the sports she loves easier as her body won't be working to hard etc

She is already a little bit hung up on her height as she is amongst the smaller ones of her class. But honestly o think some of those children are showing the whole overweight/ovetall thing

I've just explained that growing to tall to quickly would put strain on her body and she will grow eventually and catch up.

So hard it really is

Giles all the council run leisure centres in my County offer a free daily swim for under 16's in school holidays, once a day, same hour slot every day. Mine usually swim at least 3 times a week in holidays but only because of this.

It's worth looking at leisure centres in case this is offered in your area, I went for years without realising free swimming was on offer as it's not well advertised.

They already swim for free where they have their lessons which is handy.

Your right though should be made more well known as I've paid countless times for then to swim and not once did the local pool mention any free time!