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.

What is 'shaming' about stating a fact? As a nation we are getting heavier.

We are facing the situation where parents will outlive their children and diet & exercise is a part of this. There and more instances of childhood obesity and diabetes - the only 'shame' is that this is happening at all.

I echo the Wall-e comment. I was off out for a walk/run with the dog yesterday evening and a girl , probably around 10, was making her way along the street on a hover-board thing (the one with a wheel at each end, probably has a proper name...) and it made me think of Wall-e and the depiction of how people would move around in the future and inevitable get bigger and bigger .

Besides the food issues, I also think that joining any sports club for children is expensive. If you add up the insurance (£30/12 mth) special outfit (£35) and the weekly lessons (2x £4) plus tournaments it can be quite costly. (The example is my DS age 7 and the club is on the cheaper side of our area.)
This with the added pressure to "preform" rather than just having fun can put parents and children off any kind of physical activity.

For those determined to keep looking back at the past with rose tinted glasses.

This is a documentary on housing and poverty from 1972.

There are a few overweight people in it one being the social worker.

And those that arent are all smoking like chimneys.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p055vzj1/tuesday-documentary-the-block

We are facing the situation where parents will outlive their children and diet & exercise is a part of this.

I'd be very interested to see the data that backs this up?

It really isn't fat shaming. Not one poster has blamed these children or mocked them. The fact is they will probably die because of bad food. The stuff they put in their mouths is literally building their bones, their brains, their muscles and they are being fed shite. It's not just the fact they are overweight. They are malnourished in the sense they aren't taking in the nutrients they need for normal bodily functions. People need to wake up to this. I am reminded of a lovely woman I know who is never without an endless supply of sugary snacks, yet one of her dc is on medication for a problem which wouldn't have happened if he had a good diet.

Helena, can you give an example of what you think is fast shaming. I am genuinely confused. I know in all of the comments I've made on this thread, that is definitely not what my intention has been.

You can't silence people by shrieking about fat shaming every time anyone points out that it's less than ideal to be grossly overweight.
If you feel shame that's on you.
The fact is it's not a good thing regardless of how much campaigning there is to "empower" fat people. Anyone doing so is actually just supporting in abusing their bodies, not loving themselves. It's so fucking irritating. Fat isn't something you just are that you can't help like your skin colour or your sexuality. Your body isn't meant to be obese!

Just don't look

It is fat shaming because there are many many ways that people can be unhealthy. But none of these get quite the attention that overeating does, especially when dressed up as "concern". Will there be a plethora of similar threads about drinking to excess, smoking, drugs, baking in the sun?why dont some of you take your concern to those areas? Because this subject has been quite frankly done to death.

But other "concerns" are not such an easy target are they?

cowgirls you are 100% correct.

My children are slender apart from my 12 year old. He has autism and learning difficulties, as well as hypotonia. He eats compulsively and often searches for food when he has just eaten. I keep an eye on him and don't buy the food he mostly wants such as crisps and cereal bars. He wants them due to the texture. But he is still over weight. The hypotonia means he gets very tired very easily, and walking and movement cause him pain.
My 14 year old is also autistic, but is extremely underweight, because of his sensory and anxiety issues around food. For him I have to have treats in the house that he will eat. I need to make sure the kitchen is never out of bounds. This impacts on his brother and it is very difficult to manage the situation.
And it's not easy keeping my kids active, due to the face that society is largely not inclusive. And it is bloody expensive.

there's new threads about smoking on a daily basis. Literally every day.

People have posted pictures of children on here to prove their point! If that isnt fat shaming I dont know what is. Disgusting

Demented - don't speak as a parent here...but what's the worse that happens if he takes a packed lunch with no money to school and doesn't eat it for a week or so? Or a month?

YY Mysterious. I dont smoke or drink or sunbathe. So with the weight loss factored in i may well cost the NHS a hell of a lot less than some others.

When I went on holiday to a caravan park this month I too was shocked by the amount of very obese children. Some were so young and very obese.

It's sad but I try not to judge. Sometimes it is hard not to but I also know how tricky it can be dealing with it as I mentioned in another thread today.

When I was working in family support where the families had a lot of problems including mental health problems, addictions, poverty, neglect etc the children were either worrying skinny or obese.
Some cupboards were completly empty but in other houses it was just junk food. One mum with 5 kids was telling me that she would be glad the summer holidays would be over because the children ( aged 4- 13) had got through 36 packets of crisps since she went shopping the previous afternoon. There was plenty of litres of coke,and coco pops as well as other sugar loaded cereals. Nothing was cooked from scratch or semi scratch. It was ready meals or Maccies.
In my view the problem with the obese children and their parents is over processed food and easy options. We do run 'cook quick' sessions to try and educate but when we have gone back to evaluate after a year it is back to cheap burgers and chips again.

I can't find the paper I was thinking of but a quick google throws up this:

mobile.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/health/childrens-life-expectancy-being-cut-short-by-obesity.html

www.webmd.com/children/news/20100409/baby-boomers-may-outlive-their-kids

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.drcarney.com/blog/entry/today-s-children-not-expected-to-outlive-their-parents%3fformat=amp

I'll have another ferret to see if I can find it.

It isn't fat shaming. I was an overweight teen and it was a miserable experience. I lost it through moving to university and changing my whole lifestyle. I have to be conscious to stop the same happening to my kids as what I think of as the 'norm' for kids isn't that healthy.

There is nothing inevitable about being fat, but in our society, it will be a constant struggle to reprogramme ourselves as to what is normal.

I agree with what cow said re nutrition. I knew a woman who was grossly overweight, but also malnourished. She was told this after being admitted to hospital.

It's not that people are worried children don't look good if they're overweight. It's not even just that they're overweight (to me), it's also about nutrition, as cow already said.

Obviously there are worse things to be than overweight. It is not a moral issue at all or even a criticism of overweight individuals. It's genuine concern about the situation, what children are being fed and why.

The term 'fat shaming' is banded about to silence the extremely difficult and uncomfortable conversations surrounding obesity - especially childhood obesity.

I'm no slim Jim - I know I eat badly and do t exercise enough. I know I wouldn't want to be bigger than I am now at a size 14-16.
I know I'm overweight and feel bloated in clothing. Interestingly enough everyone tells me I'm 'not fat' or 'you're tall and carry it well'. The more people accept and ok it the greater the problem will become.

You can't silence people by shrieking about fat shaming every time anyone points out that it's less than ideal to be grossly overweight.

Nobody has said it's ideal to be overweight. For me, threads cross the line into fat shaming when the overwhelming content of the thread turns out to be a refusal to consider factors outside of a very limited range of factors that we all accept are contributory. When poster after poster comes on and equates a child being overweight with neglect (I've seen some very severe neglect cases...to lump all parents of overweight children in with those is grossly offensive). When a barrage of people pile on to tell us about their skinny children and about how their parenting is obviously why that is the case.

The only person who's replied to what I've shared here about my DD has actually completely ignored what I said about her. Scenarios like ours don't fit in with the narrative that gets used on fat shaming threads.