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).

Related to 'going outside to play'; I wonder whether the rise of effective central heating in houses ha s contributed to people's perceptions of cold weather and the likelihood they would still send kids out to play/want to take them to the park etc

Great point. The park round the corner to me only seems busy when the weather reaches 25degrees! I often take my DC to the park in cooler weather and we are the only ones there.

It drives me mad, that big business makes a fortune selling us poor quality food, and then the NHS have to pick up the pieces. We all need to get more critical and canny about what we are buying.

It's lifestyle. In the 1960s we played with out chums out in the fields and on bikes. Always came back for lunch and dinner and that's it. Played with skipping ropes and pogo sticks made dens and camps outdoors. In the winter played board games if weather appalling but still went for walks outside. No computer games etc and food was real home cooked whole foods with lots of veggies, meat only on Sunday with leftovers through the week. No packet foods no ingredients apart from the ones you could pronounce and we drank water or tea, no fizzy pop or brightly coloured drinks that look like loo cleaner. Less food as well as portions were smaller. People had less money and food wasn't an activity like it is today . In the 60s I had no chubby children in my whole school. In the 70s none either.

I'm in Poland at the moment. The kids eat bread with cheese/ ham for breakfast and will take a sandwich to school for second breakfast (mid morning snack). Lunch is around 3 or 4pm and it is a proper sit down meal like dinner. Dinner will be bread or soup or scrambled eggs around 7 or 7.30pm for the kids. The kids do eat sweets and snacks but they don't see them as a way to fill up here and most of the families I've seen are slim. Obesity isn't such a big problem here, though I wonder if it is because sweets are expensive compared to the cost of bread and potatoes. Also, if people want cake they will bake. If they buy from a bakery they expect a quality product or they will take it back and complain!! No one thinks it's ok to eat all day here and people rarely eat on the streets. It's more of a social event too.

I’m sure in some cases it’s in the genes as it were. But totally agree we are in the Isle of Wight for half term and the amount of overweight families/ children is really noticeable ...
But when you observe they do seem to eat far too much.
Ok it’s holuday so mine haveing a couPle of glasses of squash. Ice cream after dinner ..but that’s it ... I overbheard a lady saying to her son, about 4 ... no you’ve had 2 ice creams already today .... it was 1130. Surely that is crazy.

@soapboxmum
I was also asked by the nursery (private as well) to pack something for lunch that the children "fit in" with the crowd. Like a packet of crisps or a jelly pot. The key person suggested that I might consider consider "artisan" crisps or upmarket sweets - apparently, she thought that fresh fruit and vegetables in the lunchbox is my way of showing off.

Don't get me started on this one!
I rue the day when schools stopped teaching kids how to cook apart from one measly term. I learned from my mum and my daughter from me but of a parent doesn't cook/like cooking then it is harder to learn the basics.
I think kids spend too much tome on their 'phones / computers or whatever and are not up and out and active enough. If you don't burn more than you use, you get FAT.
It's the health bit for fat kids, as well as the bullying they endure and the low self esteem when they get body conscious that makes it such an important issue and it needs addressing sooner rather than later. The government, schools, media etc can only do so much.
Parents need to take control and say NO to fattening stuff and get their kids up and pout and doing!
There...rant over.

I think it’s down to snacking on rubbish food- and eating processed meals and fast food. Also after watching this new Hugh’s Britain’s fat fight or whatever it’s called we have all but cut out cereal- that stuff is just sugar disguised as food. Kids have just gone back on to packed lunch too to try and curb our calorific intake- someof the things they tell me they have at school no wonder kids are overweight. This is nerdy- but- I went through our kids school meal menu and estimated based on supermarket equivalents how much sugar they would be having and it was rediculous, some days they would have had their whole sugar quota in the one school meal. So I spoke to the school and said do we need to be having cake and custard or ice cream and jelly daily? Their response was that some children will only get one meal and they need to make the calories high for them- which yep I get; but these calories are empty no nutritional value. They said we could opt out though- and have our kids have no desert while all the others chomped down on chocolate cake! It’s deffo possible to cook from scratch or almost scratch from home with very little time have a look at slimming world recipes they are simple quick fresh food that are low fat and very easy to make.

It drives me mad, that big business makes a fortune selling us poor quality food

But why are people buying it?

Because basically Brits are lazy around food ( huge generalisation I know but true enough....)
And kids are largely sedentary.
We were always running around....now they're driven everywhere and parked in front of their laptops and tablets.
I don't think it's the same on the Continent.

As the OP asks about Europe and I have lived in France for 9 years and the Netherlands for 1...let's do a comparison.

In France mealtimes are very strict. Breakfast, lunch, one afternoon snack, and then dinner. If you're hungry in between, TS. No eating in front of screens. Less 'kiddy' food about; children tend to eat the same food as their parents. People also have a greater connection to the land and just generally a better idea about where their food comes from. The level of education is important and I generally think this is lacking in the UK.

In the Netherlands they do like their junk food more than the French BUT this is hugely counterbalanced by a very outdoorsy culture (including, of course, lots of cycling as a means of transportation). They also eat their evening meal much earlier than the French (say 5pm as opposed to 8pm) which possibly also aids digestion etc. NL is also a much more egalitarian society with a much smaller gap between rich and poor - so less of a difference between what different 'classes' of people eat. Inequality is probably greater in the UK than in any other European state.

In France they have about 4 flavours of crisps, that's it.

In the UK we have a whole aisle dedicated to crisps. it's mental.

Other European countries do not have as high a obese or overweight rate as Britain. Go to any European city Copenhagen Amsterdam Prague , you will struggle to find a local fat person. Something definitely wen wrong . I think it's just way too much food on our shelves and greed.

I really don’t know. I was born in 55 and like most working class families, we ate potatoes and white bread every day and had two teaspoons of sugar in our tea, drunk in copious quantities. Yet when i look back at school photos and examine my memory, there were no fat kids and rarely fat adults, and the adults we considered ‘fat’ were by no means obese by modern standards. My mother was stick thin and never went on a diet in her life. She would have laughed at the idea. But we didn’t have a car, my mum walked to the shops every day for fresh food and we walked three miles to school every day and three miles back. Food wasn’t fetishised either, and people didn’t drink alcohol in the same quantifies. We played outdoors and rode our bikes. I don’t know what the answer is. It’s almost certainly more complex than calories in/calories out.

Actually good point about inequality. I suspect this is actually more about inequality than anything else

I am in Ireland, but there was serious excitement when Iceland opened a few stores here, well I nearly ran out of the place, full of processed shite, ready meals, huge giant bottles of cola, etc. The tinniest fresh fruit area I've ever seen.
Some people just want to feed their kids shite cos its easy, it gives them more time to smoke fags and drink cans of lager. It is so quick and simple to even make a fresh pasta sauce with loads of veg in it for kids and costs about 2 or 3 quid. I don't know, Ireland is full of fatties too in fairness. Parents are also happy to leave kids sit in on computer games etc

OH and the drinking culture in Britain is HORRIFIC compared to mainland Europe. I return for friends' weddings etc and there's just no way I can keep up.

Why should schools teach kids to cook?
No school I ever went to had cookery lessons (private)
Kids have their supper and their weekend and their holiday meals with family
FAMILY should teach them to cook

stop blaming everybody else

seren
The fact that the 250 ml glass is shown on all menus
example here www.carluccios.com/menus/main-menu#drinks
when even the 125 ml is half again as big as a "green shield" glass
says it all

Yes I agree, and I hate the thing many pubs do which is “Have two large glasses and we’ll give you the rest of the bottle free” which is one extra large glass....

I think it starts at pre-school. I can only remember having snacks as a treat, yet there my dds got in to the habit of thinking they needed a snack every morning and afternoon and a pudding after every meal.. surely not necessary every day and even at 9 and 11 am still having to persuade them they don’t need a morning and afternoon snack and 2 puddings every day...

Because their parents feed them and inculcate food habits.

It's a lifestyle thing I think. I remember in the 1960s making 'picnics' and setting off on mini adventures - we used to put the water in the fridge and make believe that it had come from a spring lol - and the most fav and fattening treat was Sindy wedding cake - three Marie biscuits sandwiched together with butter and sugar. Mind you I did pass these bizarre habits on to my own children.

@roseb

I’ve just come back from Poland, well Warsaw, and had slightly different observations from you. The young women were slim - very few ‘muffin tops’ on display and equivalent age young men seemed averaged sized as were older women though older men were much heavier set than here. Our daily route took us past two schools and I did note, to my surprise, how many overweight primary age children there were. We live, in London at the confluence of three primary schools and I haven’t noticed the same thing about them. A snapshot, hardly statistically viable, but it was something that struck us.

Portion size increase started with McDonalds pushing the large sizes as normal.
And plates have got bigger. I use plates from the 1960s and the dinner plates are noticeably smaller.

Smudge... I think your post actually is about calories in vs calories out.
And basically that's it.. Generations before maybe did eat as many calories but were significantly more active generally.
Maybe you had sugar in your tea and white bread was all that was available.
But you burnt off those calories easily as you weren't driving everywhere or sat in front of a screen.