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.

You shouldn't need a fire proof hat to take a concern in the health of our nations young. Their health should be something that is important to us all for the sake of our future. But I get your concern. Some people love a good online punch up and (in this case) call fat shamer. No one should be fat shamed. We are no less of a person who ever we are and what ever our shape and size. This is a message that thankfully is being better distributed. We are not all meant to be the same shape and size. What is healthy shape and size does have a bit of variation and doesn't often reflect that of the bodies portrayed in the media.

Having said that in the western world obesity is a rising problem to health. I seen a study the other day that said if you are overweigh but healthy (in terms of blood pleasure and cholesterol) you are still 49% more at risk from heart disease that someone who is healthy and within healthy weight limits. We must always remember not to make people feel bad about their appearance but we can not ignore the rising rates in obesity for fear of being ladled bigots. If we ignore growing obesity, censor the facts of its dangers and say being very overweight healthy then we do the future generations a great disservice and pay a heavy price on our collective health and the NHS.

This is becoming more and more of a problem, especially with low income families. And I say this as someone who grew up in poverty, was vastly overweight and who's child will be classed as being from an economically disadvantaged home - so not judging or looking down, just what I've observed.

I live on an estate in an area with lots of poorer families. Within a 5 minute walk there are over a dozen takeaways, the nearest supermarket is just across the way, but there's a McDonalds inside and a new KFC just built in the car park. Lots of the smaller chicken shops have lunch deals like a piece of chicken and chips for just over £1, McDonald's have a pound menu... it's just so cheap and right there in front of you. As an adult I find it hard to have the will power to walk past, if I was a teen with a spare pound in my pocket I'd be in constantly.

Mix that with the high crime and drug rate on the estate, proximity to a dual carriageway which means that it's not really safe to let your kids rub around all day, and you can easily see how obesity happens.

I ended up really overweight for a few reasons. One thing that sticks out is that when we were little we often went without food due to finances, which obviously destroyed my mum. When I was in secondary school things got better - and the cupboards were packed with treats. Lunch would be several rounds of bread with various fillings rather than a jam butty. We had takeaways several times a week. It sounds bad written down but it was my mums way of making up for the lack of food when we were younger and she thought she was doing the right thing.

That's a really interesting post aweewhilelonger.

I was just saying this to my DH yesterday at the splash park. I was the fat child, and so was DH, and we still are obese. Now totally our own fault but I really resent my parents for essentially ruining my childhood by allowing me to be the fat child, and will never forgive them. We have one DC and we watch his diet like a hawk so he doesn't have to live through the humiliation we did.

My DC are not overweight but it is hard to make sure they eat healthily and exercise enough particularly as DH and I both work FT and I commute. So if I didn't have to go straight to work after the school run, we would walk to school but there isn't time. So the busyness of our lives has contributed as there often isn't anyone at home preparing a healthy balanced meal for the family. I would love our school to do the daily mile - and my work!!

I was 'obese' at 6, by 7 boobs, by 9 my period. But I didn't look fat. I looked curvaceous and was a size 8-10. I then eventually grew a bit taller and by 16 was a 12-14. I really shouldn't really have been compared or measured against kids BMIs.

Demented - if you are cooking healthily at home, where is your son getting the calories from to be overweight? Does he have a job so he can buy unhealthy food?

I was a very chunky 9/10 year old, mainly because I used to eat about 3 bowls of museli - massive bowls - for breakfast.

My mother also used to bake several times a week, delicious - but also fattening.

I would eat seconds, thirds of lovely homecooked food because my parents always cooked enough for 6/8 for 3.

It's very possible to get fat on a healthy diet is what I'm saying!

I think upperlimit has it.

awee you beat me to it. I'm in France too and I also get a shock when I go back to the UK at the number of overweight people. Of all ages, not just kids. Especially young women and men. I agree with OP that it is depressing. Then I get another shock when I get back to France and notice how slim everyone is here, and how overweight people are the exception. Sorry if that sounds harsh and judgemental but that is what I see.

Agree too re school lunches in France. Chips etc are a treat every now and again. Don't think I've ever seen pizza on the menu. It's not all healthy - there are often meals like pan-fried chicken/fish but week-to-week, there is a very varied selection of foods with an emphasis on the healthy ones. French kids do tend to have a sweet afternoon tea after school. You will often see them tucking into a pain au chocolat, biscuits or some chocolate chunks in a piece of brioche/baguette. But then it's fruit after their evening meal. Another thing, snacking is frowned upon in France - so the norm is very much three meals a day with a snack for kids after school.

I cannot think of a single overweight child in my DC's primary school. It's not a huge school but nonetheless.....

I wonder if it's all the shit, non sugary chemical crap they put in food? I have a hefty middle tyre and my kids are skinny skeletons. I think it's metabolism. One of them is so thin that I worry about being judged for being a negligent mother. I used to come home from school and eat 3+ packets of biscuits (usually giner thins). My teeth are great and I didn't put on weight, although I had terrible acne. I have many friends with plumpish kids. Most of the more 'well covered' ones are the better educated and more affluent. I actually think it might be a combination of our natural genesis given all this exposure to chemicals, as well as societal pressure for us all to be perfect parents. Who knows, but we do have a tendency to body shame. I still get awfully hung up about photographs of how I really look vs how I think I look (much wider in real life). I work with kids and the type 1 diabetics amongst kids are massively on the increase, and they are usually very slim with carefully managed diets. Something makes me uneasy here

Hardly anybody eats simple meals these days. There's an advert with a man on a bus who is planning to have a jacket potato for dinner but decides to phone for a pad thai instead. Suddenly his life is more exciting and glamorous. I think he'd have been better sticking to the potato and being healthy instead of ordering the fatty, sugary, expensive pad thai.

aweewhile

That article sounds really interesting and that would make a lot of sense.

Though, I used to live in Paris and was quite surprised to see a fair number of overweight adults there. Before I moved there, I'd really expected to see hardly any for some reason. I thought it was about the same as where I'd lived previously. That was a wealthy city in the south of England though.

Perhaps it's that Paris is different, as it has some of the fast food culture, which maybe doesn't exist at all in other parts of France.

Also - bread and dripping is pure carbs and saturated fat from natural sources. I wonder whether our dependence on synthetic foods is giving us an obesity epidemic - that was what I was trying to say!

I've said this before on here but I honestly think that nutritionally empty food is just not satisfying. If you eat crap you still feel hungry in a way you just don't when you eat healthy stuff. So you end up eating more.

It's a standard joke in our house: a big bowl of pasta and sauce has everyone raiding the cupboards an hour later. It just doesn't hit the spot in the way meat/fish and veg do.

I do think sometimes we focus too much on the weight side rather than the food itself too. Just because a child is a healthy weight doesn't make feeding them constant snacks or processed food any better.

My diet growing up was pretty bad (crispy pancakes for tea, jam sandwhichs and crisps for lunch type food) but I was a healthy weight because I was so active. Then teen years struck and between normal teen laziness and then a bad injury and illness spell from 13-16 I stopped being active. I carried on eating the same though and was comfort eating so the weight soon piled on.

It took me until I was 30 and had 7 stone to shift to finally take control and tackle things.

why are we not trying to re-engineer society in a way that makes the default position a healthy weight and lifestyle?

Because the monetary mark up is higher on things like sugar and junk and there is not enough profit in your (honourable) suggestion.

There are lots of reasons why individual children may be overweight for reasons beyond their or their parents' control and I'm sure the OP wasn't intending to make parents in these situations feel bad.

But the fact is - there are many more overweight/obese children now than there were 30 years ago, and being significantly overweight makes life harder for people. It is something we have to consider as a society (and I think we should direct our efforts at the food manufacturers and supermarkets, rather than parents).

The best documentary I ever saw about weight proved that the main problem is portion size. They analysed the diet and metabolism of a very overweight actress (Debbie Chazen - Google her, she lost an enormous amount of weight). She ate pretty healthily, but too much at every meal. They also showed that some people simply don't feel full, it was a genetic trait rather than greed. We now live in an obesegenic society and some people are much more prone to overeating and weight gain, hence many obese people.

I don't think it is a poverty issue. All groups are now affected by obesity.
If you go to northern Spain, much of Paris or Italy the kids aren't overweight.
Plus exercise/walking is 'prescribed' in many of these countries.
We don't have a good attitude to food.
When kids are little they will only eat beige food, given the choice. If they don't have the choice then they will eat vegetables. A bit of salt and lemon and oil and any veg tastes good.

Type 1 diabetes is not lifestyle-related, it's due to destruction of part of the pancreas so insulin can't be produced, it's not really relevant here. It's type 2 diabetes that is linked to obesity and/or lifestyle, though genetic inheritance is a factor for some too.

My sister lives in France and has done for 20 years. Her observation of slim French women (she is in Paris) is that a huge percentage of them smoke instead of eat.
Her local (private) school has a student smoking area in the grounds. It's jammed every morning with children smoking!

chirpy I totally agree.

Yanbu.
I understand there's a lot of junk food / snacks available and as an adult its hard to resist. But under the age of 10/11 the adults should be controlling what kids eat. My 10 year old has really started asking more and more for sweets / crisps / fizzy drinks now as everyone else has them more often than him apparently. I worry what he'll eat when he gets to secondary (and why on earth so much junk food is available there!) but in the meantime I can restrict the amount of junk food he has access to, so I do.
But as pp have said its so much part of our culture - e.g. whenever school invites parents in to see their work at about 2.30pm, they provide tea / squash and biscuits. I would go without the biscuits but eat them as they are there.

I think the Europeans are on the same path as us, just a few years behind. I see more chubby people now in Europe than I did in the past. Poorer regions of France definitely have plenty of chubby people.