Why are British kids fat?

[VogueVVague]

So time, two parents working, low budget/cost - all these things can result in ready meals being served up etc. but that still doesnt explain why, compared to the rest of Europe, our kids are the fattest.

So whats the reason?

Is it political?
Cultural?

Something must have changed for us and mot the rest of Europe in the past 50 years (doubt kids before 1960 were chunky).

they eat too much and don't exercise enough ...

I'm dubious about this. I don't doubt people are generally fatter and there are fat kids. However in reception class the kids get weighed and advice given if overweight. I know several very fit active kids who were ranked as "overweight" due to carrying more muscle. Their parents who were generally the more fit and healthy ones were devastated! So that experience made me wonder how accurate the stats are. Equally it bothers me talking about kids weight all the time. My extremely skinny 6 year old came home the other day saying her legs were fat, I have no idea where this has come from. I'm not saying hide from the issue but a less sensationalist approach may have better effects all round.

As someone else has said - it has to be multifaceted:
*High processed food is cheap. 6 nice apples can cost £3 in winter but I can buy 8 chocolate bars for a pound
*We have normalised cheap, shit food. Fizzy drinks, crisps, chocolate etc have become part and parcel of an everyday diet
*We are all so busy nowadays that cooking from scratch is hard. My DC do activities every night and fitting in food is difficult. I don't work in the day so am able to preprepare but if you are working it's not that easy

• There are no safe green spaces for kids to play out in. The roads are too busy and certainly where I live the parks are not somewhere I'd want my DC to hang out unsupervised

Sorry something of an essay!

Something I notice not/rarely mentioned on the thread - shit weather makes us less inclined to be outside doing stuff. Not temperatures because cold but dry doesn't put people off. But lots of rain does! Paired with lack of investment in indoor activities outside the home = less active kids. Soft play is a fairly recent development and there's still VERY little CHEAP accessible activities for ages around 8+ even less activities that mid-late teens WANT to do. Slightly better here in Scotland where swimming is free for school age children in many counties but that's sadly being lost gradually due to cuts.

"We don't melt, going out puddle splashing and nature trailing in the rain is good fun!"

Seen several comments like this - fine for little ones accompanied by adults (which limits to weekends holidays in reality) but do you REALLY think even a 12 year old would WANT to do this as opposed to playing on PS? I highly doubt it. The reality is we have shitty unmotivating weather and we do need something for OLDER kids to do that's cheap and fun not affected by the weather. Where I live tyres recently been built a laser tag place and a trampoline park BUT the prices are way out of pocket for most except for special occasions. There's very few sports clubs funded/run by the schools/council and not all kids are sporty. I genuinely think (tempted to copyright!) something like soft play for older kids would go down a storm, we had a youth club that's recently closed due to 'lack of interest' but the lack of interest was because it was in a small shitty hall and had too many rules so only the angelic kids even tried it! If they'd put it in a decent sized well maintained hall so the kids didn't need to be so restricted it would've worked far better. Hell when I was a teen my youth club had a weekly disco on a Friday eve! You can't tell me that wouldn't still

A be popular
B get kids out and moving!!

Even play parks now the equipment is designed only to fit/take up to around age 10 and high school kids are banned! I still 'hung out' at our park until I was 16! We wouldn't have admitted it but while we were on the swings/roundabout gossiping about who fancies who, we still used the equipment and therefore were active!

Waterrat I can't remember the last time I saw an adventure playground. Let alone one cheap or accessible enough to be used regularly. Just googled, nearest one 7 miles away not accessible by public transport on a private estate that only opens to public inc park may - October!

But I do agree staying in at playtime just because it's a bit drizzly is ridiculous! And I do think poor parenting is partly to blame. I was a bookworm and would rather stay in and read, but even though reading is seen as a virtuous hobby compared to gaming/Netflix they still recognised it wasn't good for me to be indoors ALL the time and would TELL me to get outside and play! Once I was out all my friends were out too and I was soon having too much fun to be annoyed.

Definitely agree it's NOT just uk!

In certain countries mothers don't work full time until children are older. This is supported by better maternity leave and pay laws. Eg in Germany up to the child is 3 your job is protected.

In Italy many women are delaying motherhood due to low youth employment and high housing prices. But having looked their maternity rights aren't great either AND there is an issue with 1/4 of working mothers losing their jobs within a year of giving birth - as soon as they're not legally protected employers get rid.

Also full time in U.K. Is often far more hours than full time in other countries. We average 43hrs per week the eu average is 37.

Lack of PE and PROPER cookery classes AND decent school meals that have been cooked from scratch by school cooks NOT "catering assistants" all contribute/have contributed, and come down to various govts (of all colours) not caring enough to fund these

"Orange juice is really just as bad of full sugar coke in terms of sugar load."

"But it’s true - Tropicana orange juice and Coke are nutritionally much of a muchness." No they're really not!

Coke - 29% sugar
Oj - 14% sugar so 15% LESS sugar

AND counts as one of your 5 a day due to high levels vit c, vit b9 and potassium.

And some fruit juices have even less sugar in.

"they're usually around 300/400. That's not going to make you fat." Actually most non veggie ready meals are more 500/600 cals unless 'diet' ones. Plus they're rarely satisfying. So people think they've had a 'meal' and so snack more (unhealthily) to fill the gap.

Also - and I say this as someone who tries to cook from scratch as much as possible myself - that doesn't necessarily mean healthy. My mother and grannies also cooked from scratch almost always in fact - but if you fed a family now on what they cooked they'd DEFINITELY be overweight and have high bp! Scots family so lots of salt, fried food (both granpas had a fried breakfast daily 'they need their strength' both died relatively young from strokes - but were slim due to manual jobs) lard regularly featured.

Packed lunches in 70's were ime: sandwiches, crisps (smaller bags then though), ski yogurt (prob full fat and sugar laden), penguin biscuit, mini carton full sugar squash.

My mum didn't use as much lard or fry as often or use as much salt as healthy eating advice came through (not all of it correct - remember the demonisation of eggs and butter?)

I was still skinny though until well into my 30's I think because - portion sizes were much smaller (just look at plate sizes, My side plates are almost the size of mums dinner plates!), I'd become a mum and then a student and then a divorcee so my finances took a MAJOR hit. Healthy food is cheaper but I was buying for one and it was short term (I was working week to week) cheaper to buy crisps and biscuits than loads of fruit and veg I'd probably end up throwing out.

FAR too many children are driven/bus to school than walk. I walked 1.5 miles to school and actually we enjoyed it! My dds generation seem to think walking more than 0.5miles ANYWHERE is a bloody hardship! Dd doesn't (mainly as we've never had a car since she can remember) and despairs of the moaning from her friends if they have to walk more than 5 mins!! I used to live near a primary school and regularly saw OLDER primary age being driven from less than 10 doors away!

"And the crap way in which it's taught."yes! Still too much emphasis on team sports and success or failure rather than fitness! I was skinny but crap at pe and always 'picked last' which is horrible. I said on a recent similar thread - we need PE to be more enjoyable (and given more hours in timetable).

Zaphods - re "breakfast biscuits" I get a similar rage re muffins - it's not a healthy breakfast bread it's a bloody cake! And usually quite a big one too!

"Parents are more neurotic about kids playing outside" unnecessarily too. Dd has played out since she was about 5. Has been perfectly safe aside from the odd scraped knee. And we definitely weren't in 'naice' areas.

"which you can’t really do to the same exten these days." Totally disagree. There's a perception this is true but it's not.

"I think the fact a lot of people live in flats now has a effect on the amount kids play out" dd has always lived in a flat not stopped her or most of her friends.

But she does have friends who are overweight, even obese and I think it is (put simply) that they eat more (volume and calorie density) and move less than my generation did. For this area I'm an older mum too and a lot of dds friends mums weren't taught to cook by parents OR school.

I played out from same age and from age 13 was disappearing for the day with a packed lunch and large bottle of squash to park or beach or woods with friends. Dd did similar. Except those places now often have a 'corner shop' very near by to stock up on crisps/sweets/fizzy.

Eg We've just had a very lovely (weather wise) bank hol weekend here. The young couple upstairs who have a toddler haven't been out for more than a couple hours the whole 3 days! There are numerous lovely parks near us absolutely no reason they couldn't have taken him there for at least a while. This is normal for them at weekends. To the best of my knowledge they are fit and healthy (he does a manual job, she works in an office part time). At the moment he's "just" a bit chubby but, mum is overweight and dad is not skinny despite the manual job.

"I always say how sad it is to see empty playing fields in the school holidays" yes - school facilities are completely unavailable during weekends and holidays now. When I was a kid we used them (respectfully) then they were just seen as part of the community facilities.

The80'sweregreat - I usually agree with you but obesity and anorexia/ED aren't mutually exclusive, there seems to be a correlation if anything. Plus we don't know how many of the obese are suffering an ED because it's not taken as seriously when it's overeating.

JaneyE yes! And I've been unwittingly guilty of that except dd didn't eat the too large portions I was giving her and food was wasted. Then a few years back I went ww and learned that what I was serving her was what I should have been eating and serving her HALF! Result - happier dd, less food wasted, less heavy mum (but still overweight - long story). However there's also a lot of studies that show that we all generally eat the same MASS of food but obviously if you eat 100g of chocolate that no of calories is more concentrated than the same no of cals in eg lettuce so if you eat the same mass of choc you're consuming FAR more Cals (I'm not sure that makes sense? Hope it does).

My gran (early 60's age at the time) walked 7 miles each way to do her grocery shop as there wasn't a bus from where she lived and she wouldn't have paid 'extortionate' taxi prices. Admittedly she'd treat it as a 'day out' and run other errands and have a cuppa while out but still...

Both grans didn't wash clothes in a machine till after I was born (and had big families AND jobs) I even remember one gran getting her twin tub and trying to climb in it! There's photos of me with their handwashing tools in the background (scrubbing boards, mangles).

My mother until she had my brother and they got a car walked 4miles each way for same reason. Using my pram as a shopping trolley! She had a twin tub too until my sister was a toddler.

My dad only got an electric mower after he retired.

Myself - no dishwasher or tumble drier. Not only can't afford the initial outlay, nowhere to put and though I had a drier in the past I remember it cost a fortune to run! No car since dd little as can't drive on my meds.

I must say as a non car owner myself a lot of the car owners I know are incredibly lazy, even during good weather. I know plenty that will drive literally to the end of their (not long) street, drive from a to b around ridiculous one way systems when it would actually be quicker to walk!

Minifingerz - builders etc aren't doing the right kind of exercise for weight loss though, it's not high speed, high heart rate exercise which is what children especially if left to their own devices will do. Especially younger ones, they'll run around like mad things. In addition if they're busy being kids, being properly active - they physically can't eat so that's reducing how much they eat and reduces snacking.

I never bought into 'kids' food v 'adults' food but that was partly down to dd hating 2 foods seen as very popular with children - chips and choc! She still hates them both, when she meets new people they don't believe her (and when she was younger I was accused of all sorts!) but she's always hated them. When weaning I just gave her what we were having, sometimes puréed sometimes as finger food or a combo depending what it was. Her favourite food is admittedly pizza 🙄 but she likes lots of veg on it and other favourites inc stir fry, 'chicken' casserole (I'm veggie so use Quorn for this), pasta with my homemade sauce.

And yes was a huge pain when eating out too. Mainly as far as I was concerned because restaurants are ridiculously inflexible! I'm certain it's not harder to leave the chips off her order and just not waste them! Or even better let her have a little pasta or noodles instead.

Re children (usually high school age) going to chippy etc - big issue where I live. But when I was at high school UNLESS we had a letter from parents to give permission to go home for dinner we weren't ALLOWED out of school during school day so we either had packed lunch or school dinners (which were cooked not heated pre-prepared meals) AND there were NO vending machines, tuck shops etc. Also if you didn't eat all your main you couldn't get pudding!

"British cooking doesn't celebrate vegetables, rather they are an afterthought." Definitely! The best veggie dishes are non British.

"He's 18 months old!! Why would I give him chocolate or cake???" Totally agree! We were advised to not give dd any refined sugar until she was at least a year old due to blood sugar issues at birth. You'd have thought we were starving her from some people's reactions!! Even after a year we kept it to rare occasions/treats eg cousins birthdays. She still ate plenty of healthy food. And while always very slim she's rarely been underweight (only on 2 occasions when very ill). She's slim now and people think she's underweight, she's not she's slap bang in middle of healthy bmi range, eats loads and is very active (despite a disability).

Angularmerkel - overfed children are taller than expected as well as chubbier. The charts for children already take that and genetic height into account.

"Kids are generally getting bigger, so many seem much taller than my generation." Over feeding leads to increased height too. Especially in very young children.

I see frequently very young children and babies given food more often to literally 'shut them up' rather than the parent - or caregiver its not always parents that do this - actually giving them attention or finding out what's really wrong eg child is tired or teething

Because their parents feed them chicken nuggets and chips.

I'm overweight (I think) due to a combination of poor portion control, I like creamy sauces etc, but also meds I'm on mess up metabolism, health issues (agoraphobia plus physical disability) makes activity difficult. And I won't be in a minority eg there's a lot of people on steroids and similar.

I too think there's a few things we're going to find out are contributing to obesity that we think are slimming or not harmful. In particular I'm thinking sweeteners - I'm not saying sugar is good for us but I always think nature knows best, not a lab! And we should be looking to de-sweeten our tastebuds rather than switch one sweet tasting product for another.

I also think we need to address the issue of certain highly prescribed meds messing with metabolic rates. It's no good treating one condition to only end up with another due to struggling with obesity or even "just" being overweight. Why aren't they developing meds for these conditions that DON'T do this? Or prescribing them? Or looking at other treatments?

Also I wonder how many of us that are overweight/obese have issues with food relating to mh issues? It's certainly an issue for me but more as I can't eat when my anxiety is bad then my body wants to make up for it when it eases so the yo-yo-ing probably messes with my metabolism too. Plus I think there are people with overeating ED or bulimia which can mean they're not underweight.

I also think there's under diagnosis of conditions that affect metabolism.

I also hope the ridiculous demonising of food groups stops! All food groups are necessary for health, they each have different benefits for us AND work together eg to absorb iron best, consume with foods rich in vit c, to absorb A D E and K best you need fats. No food GROUP is bad for you. They work together. Some foods are less healthy for you than others but there are very few complete foods which are completely nutrient empty and no naturally occurring complete food item is. It's all about balance.

I think it's rude for random adults to comment on weight gain BUT we're now at a point where people complain if a health professional tells us!

Frequently on mn threads about op's specific overweight issues (theirs or Dc's) they'll list WHAT they or DC eat but repeatedly avoid answering "yes but how much?" Questions! I ask this myself and also "how was it cooked? Did you add butter/milk/cream to it?" Then when you eventually get the answer it's BLATANTLY obvious.

Birdsgottafly love your post at 20:56 spot on!

Sorry warned it was an essay

Snacking
Or “grazing” as it is euphemistically called .

And not letting oneself get hungry.

It starts with parents carting small tubs of snacks round with them all day to give to their toddlers if they appear in the slightest bit restless

Portion and movement is certainly an issue.
My mum was and still is a size 10. She never eats more than one slice of bread. My packet lunch was the same one slice of bread with whatever filling and a plain biscuit. But OH No the horror of a Child going ALL Day with just a sandwich.

Children need a proper nutritious cooked meal at lunch time as well as dinner! Sorry Jamie you got something wrong there.

Children also move less, I don't know about other parts of the country but where I am rural schools have closed and children are bused to bigger primaries in towns (with tiny play-grounds). .
Playtime seems to have been renamed snack-time.
Lunch times have been cut from an hour to 40 minutes. 20 minutes less maybe doesn't sound much but really it means by the time all the kids have been served and eaten their food they have little time to actually play or run around.

I know when I moved jobs to an out of town industrial estate and bought a car giving up my 4 x 10 minute walks per day to / from train stations I gained a stone in 3 months. Its scary how easy that is to do.

Taken from an article this month.

"Severe obesity rates are highest among children living in the most deprived towns and cities, and those from BAME groups, prompting the Local Government Agency to suggest more targeted interventions are required."

Despite budget reductions, it said councils are spending more on running effective prevention schemes to help children stay healthy.

"But the LGA said such prevention work, including the ability of councils to provide weight management services for children and adults, is being hampered by a £600m cut to local authority public health budgets between 2015-16 and 2019-20. It called for the government to reverse these reductions and bring in further changes to tackle childhood obesity."

“Cuts to councils’ public health grants by government are having a significant impact on the many prevention and early intervention services carried out by councils to combat child obesity. This shortsighted approach risks causing NHS costs to snowball due to the ill-health consequences of obesity in our younger generation.”

Also, this is quite scary : Leading obesity experts are considering litigation against the food industry in the light of emerging research suggesting that junk food marketing could hijack a child’s brain.
Neuromarketing is of growing interest to food companies. Some are beginning to probe further, gathering information through brain scans about how unconscious decisions are made to eat one snack rather than another and targeting people’s susceptibilities.
Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is one of those known to be taking an interest. It hired a neuromarketing firm to explore what happened in people’s brains when they ate Cheetos. Research has also shown that it is possible to train people’s brains to prefer one food over another.

This isn't just about individual choices, just as an over reliance on Alcohol or heavy smoking wasn't.

Ive found many articles where social housing tenants have been living on ready meals or takeaways due to going through a refurb (it should not take two months + to put in a kitchen.

One minute we are telling poorer people...............its not expensive to eat healthily.............you dont need to eat junk,

then in the next breath its "suck it up and shut up. Its no big deal to live on takeaways for weeks/months. At least you are getting your refurb for "free"

So we are basically telling poorer people to eat healthily ............until and unless it inconviniences the landlord/sub contractors working on the property ........then you will have to live on junk food.

So its fine and dandy telling poorer people to eat healthily but then gaslighting them and moving the goalposts when that inconviniences someone else. Hypocrisy.

Last refurb there were people on my estate who went without kitchens for NINE MONTHS.

They are not pulling this stunt again .

Ive also checked the co. they want to use and they have a habit of removing comments from their fb page Not a good sign.

Have not read the whole thread, but agree with the comments on snacking and portion control. Where has the obsession with snacking come from? Also takeaway food.

My DDs grew up in Belgium and France. Apart from our local Frituur (chip shop), which closed early, there were no takeaway restaurants in our town at all in Belgium. There was no pizza delivery, or delivery of any other fast food - if you wanted pizza, you went to a local Italian restaurant and sat down to eat. In Paris, the only takeaway food near us was Chinese, or falafel if you didn’t mind a bit of a walk. There was not the sea of chicken shops, kebabs and burgers that you get in London.

Obesity is an environmental issue - a form of pollution. You would need an iron will and an awful lot of time to feed your family a healthy diet in many places in the UK.

I agree heartedly with the PP who mentioned a lot of activities and lifestyles are based around food.
Some morning passes at playgrounds near us include a breakfast with a character- so again,based around food.
Even a trip to the shops now usually includes a trip to Costa at the minimum , maybe lunch at a cafe. I don't think we did that as much 20, 30 years ago .
A trip to the cinema used to be a bag of popcorn , now it's meal deals, huge portions of snacks and then probably next door to Nandos after the film.
We have more access to fatty foods so inevitably we get fatter.

Ceebeegee - that’s what I mean by an environmental issue. The environment is absolutely full of opportunities to eat total junk and often eating the junk is central to participating in a group activity. A generation ago life did not revolve around junk food.

FAR too many children are driven/bus to school than walk. I walked 1.5 miles to school and actually we enjoyed it! My dds generation seem to think walking more than 0.5miles ANYWHERE is a bloody hardship! Dd doesn't (mainly as we've never had a car since she can remember) and despairs of the moaning from her friends if they have to walk more than 5 mins!! I used to live near a primary school and regularly saw OLDER primary age being driven from less than 10 doors away!

I was bussed to school both primary and secondary in 60s/70s. They were both too far away to walk. I had to walk to where the bus picked me up but that wasn’t that far. I wasn’t fat. But I was more active than kids today anyway.

I agree heartedly with the PP who mentioned a lot of activities and lifestyles are based around food.
Some morning passes at playgrounds near us include a breakfast with a character- so again,based around food.
Even a trip to the shops now usually includes a trip to Costa at the minimum , maybe lunch at a cafe. I don't think we did that as much 20, 30 years ago .
A trip to the cinema used to be a bag of popcorn , now it's meal deals, huge portions of snacks and then probably next door to Nandos after the film.
We have more access to fatty foods so inevitably we get fatter.

It is not inevitable. If you are going to a playgroup with breakfast provided, just don't eat breakfast beforehand. If you are meeting someone in costa, just order a tea or filter coffee, or even just a water. Meeting someone for lunch? Well just order appropriately and going to the cinema - you are not obliged to order food, and it is not inevitable to get fatter.

We do live in an obesogenic environment - this does mean that the individual lacks any power whatsoever. I grew up in the US where this sort of environment existed much longer than here. My family and my friends were slim because a) were were all comfortably off with professional, educated parents, b) we grew up on home cooked foods normal portion sizes, and c) my parents molded my taste buds so that I did not have a taste for junk and found the taste of greasy fake food to be disgusting.

Place culture and environment all contribute. I went to my local prep school for an open day and there wasn’t a single overweight child that could be seen. Those children were doing sport every day, had huge grounds to run around in during break time, had nice food at school and I suspect have parents that have the money to take them to activities and provide a healthy diet. Their lives will be very different to a poorer child living in a towerblock whose school has limited outdoor space.

Around us lots of people have large gardens and there are multiple playgrounds within easy distance. I could get to at least 6 within a 15 minute drive and I can walk to one in less than 2 minutes. I think that access to space to play makes a massive difference to activity lessons.

At a toddler age it is suggested that they need to be moving for at least 3 hours a day. Mine would easily get that as she never sits still and loves running around outside but the guidance wouldn’t be in place if there were lots of kids that didn’t. It is far easier for me to provide that level activity because we have a garden and her nursery has large outdoor space. That doesn’t mean people without their access can’t do it- but it is harder for them to do so and requires more effort and thought.

I'm not sure why everyone is claiming that French people are thin. Just back from France and there were plenty of pudgy people of all ages in evidence.
To be fair, no morbid obesity as one frequently sees in Scotland though.

I definitely think that children being ferried everywhere by car/unable to walk because of perceived safety issues is a problem. I appreciate that many parents drop children off at school on their way to work but it shocks me how many children are driven to DS's school when they live fairly close and their parent is not going on to work. School is 1.5 miles from our house and DS manages the walk home no problem (he's 6 and did sometimes find it quite tiring last year but is fine now). I've had several of his friends' parents say they're impressed that he manages the walk because their DC wouldn't. As I tell them, he doesn't have a choice because I don't drive. But I really do think 1.5 miles shouldn't be beyond primary school children.

I have to pick ds up in the car, he can manage to walk there but not back (he is disabled). He finishes school 10 minutes before any other pupils yet I can’t park outside the school because so many parents are already parked up Sat waiting in the cars. Before now I have had to pick him up 30 minutes early for an appointment and people are already parked to get the “best” spots!

Where I park is about a 3 minute walk away and I know of people who live closer to are amongst the drive and park early people