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).

Mine isn't fat and never will be. She will most probably get some stick for being skinny though. It's what you feed them. It's about eating three balanced meals a day. And not being lazy. Sorry but it is. Oh and getting out in the fresh air every now and again.

I agree with the snacks thing...How many threads are there about travelling with children and people are advised to take books, crayons and SNACKS. Why would they need snacks unless the journey is so long that a child would be missing a meal? I only had sweets on a Sunday when growing up. Deserts were yoghurts unless we went out for a meal or it was a special occasion. I certainly wasn't deprived as a child. Had plenty of fruit and veg and was a very slim as all children should be. You should be able to see their ribs, that is normal. People have lost sight of what children should look like.

On the juice thing a "portion" is 100-150 mls, not 200mls or even 330mls and definitely not 500mls - that's half a litre. Milky sweet coffees and sodas are all sold in these sort of sizes- it's crazy. Juice/coffee is a food not a drink. I say to my dcs water for thirst fizzy or juice for taste.

It is one of the cruellest thing a parent can do is to allow their child to be overweight. Same as allowing a child to be underweight. That is how it should be viewed...with the same level of disgust.

Mine isn't fat and never will be

How can you say that? With the best will in the world it’s impossible to predict.

I was stick thin up to the age of 14 then a series on injury and illness problems led to me putting on weight and getting into bad habits. By the time I was late 20s I was morbidly obese. I have managed to tackle things now and I am back to healthy weight and very active but nobody can know what will happen down the line

Supermarkets may be well stocked but that’s only any good if you can get there. Not everyone has a supermarket on their doorstep, not everyone can access home delivery. Some people rely on the poorly stocked coop type shops.

Yes that’s is what I meant when I said upthread about people living in food deserts.

There are more and more fat people in France especially in the less affluent areas, but a recent report found a decline in childhood obesity. School dinners are balanced and there is no choice until high school. Packed lunches not permitted either eat at school or at home.
In the UK it seems that most people think they will pass out unless they eat something every 2 hours. A cinema or concert outing is unthinkable without food and drink. Why?

A cinema or concert outing is unthinkable without food and drink. Why?

I think venues now help create this culture for revenue. I've been to two concerts recently and both had intervals. There was no need for an interval in either, but they do it so people will buy food and drink in the intermission, creating profit for the venue. One of the artists had a dig at having to have an interval as the band were building momentum and had to then take a break.

The walls of sweets at multiplexes are just scandalous.

We used to eat before we went to the cinema or a day out or eat our own sandwiches brought with us which were nice and squishy and warm by then with a flask of tea.

reluctantly ,my mum did buy me a Wimpy once for some reason - she sat looking bemused at my burger and chips whilst having a cup of tea and ignoring my attempt at pushing it for a doughnut or a ice cream afterwards, which i didnt get.

As someone said up thread, going to the cinema now is an excuse to eat more food it seems rather than watch a movie.

When looking up some links earlier I spotted some graphs showing a marked difference in obesity rates among women according to education.
It was much less pronounced in men.
It varied across countries, but it was noticeable in all.

IIRC, the levels in women with higher education between the UK and France were more similar than for women with lower education levels.
I'll see if I can find them again.

Thanks to this thread I just weighed my kids for the first time in ages and plotted their weights on the chart in the back of the 'red book'. It goes all the way up to age 20 and is a good way of keeping track, if anyone else is interested.

All the comments on here about snacking have made me think about the snack foods available in my house. I'll be buying fewer from now on and limiting sugary treats after school.

I'm not surprised that obesity is rising in the Mediterranean as fast food overtakes the traditional diet. Wherever the western burger and chips diet moves to, obesity quickly follows. Just look at the Pacific islands - the most obese place on earth - traditionally they lived on fish and coconuts and were slim and healthy - since the US influence took hold of their diets they're the fattest people on the planet.

The ability of 'feeder' DPs and GPs to overfeed DC has grown too. In the past, their ability to 'treat' their loved ones was limited by money and the availability of treats, now it's not. Interestingly, two of the chubbiest kids I know have very slim DMs, but they feed their DC absolute rubbish - their kitchens are full of crisps, chocolate, biscuits and sugary drinks - which they never touch themselves - yet they push them on their kids and any visiting DC.

Also I find it frightening as it is relatively easy to stay thin when young. I was a size 10 (proper pre-vanity sizing size 10) until I hit my late 30's without any real effort, just eating normally. My eating habits didn't change but my metabolism must have slowed down and I gained a couple of stone over a couple of years. My point is, if you can't stay slim when you are young, fuck knows what will happen when these obese children's metabolism slows down.

My teen nephew and niece are hand French and raised in France. They are both very slim, as are their peers. My experience of the French attitude to food is completely different to ours - tonnes of fruit and veg, fresh everyday, meals bought every day (even with 2 working parents). Very few snacks. Smaller portion sizes than we would have. Children taught about cookery (rather than nutrition) from a young age.

In the U.K. I was one of the last years to have compulsory Home Economics, even if only for a year.
3 years later, my sister didn’t. We can cook, we were taught at home, but there is nieca generation of parents who can’t and so can’t teach their children. As a Cub leader I have been surprised at how many children don’t recognise veg other than carrots and potatoes, even corn on the cob (rather than a tin).

What I have noticed from my dc’s schooling so far (they are 9 and 6) - lots of teaching about heathy/junk snacks, nothing about preparing healthy meals from fresh, raw ingredients.

Pages back posters were mentioning white bread. French bread is made with a different flour, T55, and the loaves and sticks made daily in the local boulangerie are a world away from supermarket bread we get here. Ever since the sixties, (anyone remember Wonder Loaf?) the industrial production of bread has meant an increase in coeliac disease as well as other gut problems. Bread only needs flour, water and yeast, plus some salt. Supermarket bread will contain sugar, fat, L-ascorbic acid, emulsifiers, preservatives and a range of enzymes. All designed to bulk it up and look more than it is.

Wheat has twenty natural vitamins and is highly nutritious. Unfortunately, the milling process reduces those vitamins; Vitamin E by 86%, iron by 76%, Vitamin B1 by 77% and B2 by 80%.

No doubt this 'refinement' of our food takes place across the range so it's difficult to know what we are putting into our digestive system.

Professor Tim Spector head of the Department of Twin Research at King’s College London, also leads the British Gut Project, sequencing the genetics of the microbiome. He reckons our bacteria are unique to each of us, so eating the same food will result in entirely different reactions from different people. As an experiment, his son agreed to eat nothing but fast food for ten days. The bacterial species in his gut reduced by 40%. Dad’s part of the experiment involved three days living with a hunter/gatherer tribe in Tanzania (son obviously drew the short straw!) and his gut diversity increased by 20%.

As others have posted, there isn't a single factor creating the rise in obesity. The fried breakfast of days gone by was needed because most people had physical jobs and/or a mountain of tasks at home. It didn't take long to burn off those calories!

As kids, the point of this thread, we then walked to school, for Primary we walked home for lunch and back again. We waited for tea until Dad got home. There were no snacks. Holidays were spent playing outside - all day. I'm not suggesting we should go back to those days, heaven forbid, but rather stating it's no good using examples from the past because everything, everything was different.

@juneau
Mu french SIL has skinny kids and they only get one "gouter" (snack) a day at 4pm and heres what they get:
A single glass of squash
A small torn off piece of baguette to eat with 2 squares of chocolate
A piece of fruit like tangerine

Other than that they drink water and just wait between meals!

Kids clothes sizing in shops like M&S is a reflection of how big kids are getting. I went shopping with DD recently and was amazed that tshirts and clothes for girls age 10 would easily fit a grown woman. My DD is average size for her age but some of this stuff was just huge on her. We are loosing sight of what a healthy sized child looks like.

Its not always an exact science though - some people can eat what they want and not gain loads of weight, some of it must be genetics? as i said on here yesterday, meds also cause weight gain or thyroid problems.

smokers also tend to be slimmer and nobody would say they are ' healthy' - i agree we all eat too much and I am overweight myself etc, but there are other factors involved as well the usual ones that have cropped up. lots more additives in food as well these days , they probably do not help either.

Easy answer - not enough exercise and too much processed and sugary foods. When did it become the norm for children to need a snack at school break or as soon as they come out of school? Why not wait until proper meal time?

Yeah - snacking is the biggest problem I reckon. I mean, there are lots of reasons really - as there are with any huge problem - but if you removed all snacking from every Brit's diet right now I reckon this problem would massively reduce. There would still be people who overload their plate at mealtimes, but in terms of childhood obesity I think the biggest change since the 70s/80s is snacking. My DM (who raised five DC), is horrified at the constant snacking of our DC's generation.

Anecdotally I’m on holiday in France and the only fat kids round the pool are English/Irish.

Lack of activity,
Too little variety in diets
Too much prepared food & hidden sugar
Too little home cooked food
Too little fruit & veg
Too many cakes, biscuits & sweets
Emotional distress causing comfort eating

The children at the primary where i work have fruit as a snack at break, but the school meals are a mix of good and bad - they used to promote themselves as healthy eating ' jamie oliver' food, but the last few months i've noticed the chicken burgers are back on the menu ( with veg, which most dont eat) and dessert is a cookie or cheap ice cream or waffles which they do eat. some of the mums remarked that its changing and going back to less healthy meals, probably cost related.

We have jam on offer on the toast at breakfast time and cereals which have sugar in them, although they have tried to pick the least offenders to offer them. Mums have to work these days though. you cant be there 24/7 regulating their diets ( esp teens)

Children are fat for the same reason adults are fat. Eat too many calories and take too little exercise