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).

We're on holiday in the Med at the moment, all inclusive family resort, full of Brits. I have been really shocked seeing so many obese and overweight people in one place - and the fat kids are the ones with fat parents, it's as starkly obvious as that. There are depressingly few normal weight people around.

I really feel for those children, they don't have a choice, they are being taught to be fat by the, frankly, disgusting eating habits of their families. If their parents can't keep themselves at a healthy weight, what chance do they have? Anything they hear at school about healthy eating will be completely lost in what they are seeing at home and getting served up by Mum & Dad. It's so depressing.

I agree this is the responsibility of parents but schools need to play their part too as this is where kids spend most of their time.

• Primary kids do not need flapjacks, chocolate muffins or cake and custard as a pudding with school dinner, especially when these things are on the naughty list for packed lunches.

• Stop doing endless cake sales at school to raise money and perhaps do a sponsored walk or run to raise funds instead. Cake sales are a false economy anyhow - especially when they sell stuff for 50p ans it cost twice that to make.

• Stop selling junk food to kids at secondary schools.

• Prioritise PE and activities at schools and make it part of the Ofsted inspection and criteria for school performance data.

We have a really low breastfeeding rate in the UK due to lack of support and poor regulation of breastmilk substitutes. We have a similar rate to other countries of women feeding first few days and then a rapid drop off. Women don't fail to breastfeed here society fails to give them information and support whilst formula companies give out free gifts and poor advice.
We don't even get proper advice about paced bottle feeding. Which all new families should know about. When I am abroad I notice kids look healthier.

Well fruit is expensive on a school budget, needs loads of time preparing it all, goes off relatively quickly and needs fridge space to store it, whereas cake is almost none of this. Also many kids probably won't eat it

I get the cost issue . But we really need to stop making these assumptions kids won't eat Stuff. Why are out expectations of children so low that many MNetters even have a drawer full of crap on the freezer for visiting children. And anyone who refuses to offer multiple choices to said visiting chikd who decides they will only eat one kind of pizza and only if its not been kept in the same fridge as a lettuce is seen as mean and unwelcoming. We have zero expectations of children eating food that's fresh, home made, nititious and doesn't need deep frying.

No one dropped dead in an afternoon. They eat what you are serving or go without.

It might take a while but these kids need to learn that this is what's on offer at school/after school club/day care. They are lucky to get anything anyway frankly amd of they were genuinely hingry as opposed to bored or eating out of habit they'd eat it. Staff can just bring home what isn't eaten for their kids. It's just something you need to.play the long game on.

Thanks for your story, Emily. That sounds like all my fantasies of food foraging and famous five-esque feasts! I wasn’t around then, so I only have what I’ve read and been told to go on. My son was just learning about the Dig for Factory campaign and I know people did have to get resourceful, and even with a tiny plot of land, my Gran was growing food. On the other hand, they really were very poor, even pre-war, living in an urban area, and I think had a very different experience to their own family living in the countryside. I’m also thinking of my dad’s aversion to things like aubergines and peppers because they were new and scary, and the tales of endless root vegetables and cabbage. Bread and dripping for example was a huge treat. My mum came from a family with more money and closer to the countryside, so doesn’t remember this at all.
But I do think scarcity affects the next generation and the one after that, if only psychologically. There is an interesting body of research on the long term impact of starvation, although I’m thinking here of horrific famines like in Ireland. It’s thought that later generations are far more likely to suffer from obesity. Anyway, with you on the butter and cream - my Gran was always mad for it!

Yes higher breastfeeding rates would be a good start

Tilly - France and Ireland have lower breastfeeding rates than the UK and have significantly lower childhood obesity rates. I am saying that breastfeeding is not important for other reasons, but it is not the key problem.

Maybe it's genetics. You notice that sisters and mothers often have the same body shape. Maybe genetically there are more predisposed slim people in other countries than here.

Agree that BFing rates are a problem but it’s really interesting that they are lower in France, I had no idea.

I also wonder about weaning practices (spoon feeding vs finger foods/“baby led”, age of starting and the types of food eg baby rice/weetabix or just having family meals etc), and how that differs to other countries.

Weaning/breastfeeding my arse. Probably the sort of people who breastfeed are the types who care about nutrition and food anyway and ensure their older children do not eat crap.

Dh is packing an extra pound or 50 and mil was a campaigning 1960s breastfeeder. Dh went off the rails when he discovered the joys (?) of real ale and curry houses.

I have 2 daughters. One is 8 and one is almost 5.

My eldest from weaning age point blank refused any sort of fruit and vegetables! She is the laziest little blighter I’ve ever known and even now will only eat ‘beige’ foods. She will occasionally eat an apple and will eat broccoli and cauliflower now but it’s taken a lot of time and effort to even get those three foods into her. She is built like a stick. Very tall and slim and always has been.

My other DD however was the dream child for weaning, she would eat anything and everything you put in front of her however she hates bread, pasta and potatoes of any sort. She also refuses to eat butter. If you put a plate of pizza and chips and then a plate of fruit and veg, she would chose the fruit and veg every single time. She’s always on the go too, she doesn’t walk anywhere, she runs yet she’s definitely ‘chunky’ in comparison to other kids her age. To me, there’s no real rhyme or reason to this. The mind really does boggle. I do however think it’s unreasonable to put a label on children who are so young.

There’s a lack of funding which leads to a lack of education. I also think that a lot of parents don’t realise that their children are overweight.

I definitely think the acceptability of being overweight doesn’t help. I see young girls out and about with rolls of fat hanging over their trousers. Now, if that had been a couple of decades ago that would have been nothing to be proud about, but if your mates are all wobbly, and your mum, sisters etc, then it’s just normal.

There are also “curvy” ranges of clothes in every shop. It used to be that you had to go to Evans Outsize or nothing. And I think the elasticated waist is no one’s real friend. It is the friend that tells you what you want to hear, rather than the ugly truth. (Btw I love pyjamas and own more of them than any other garment...)

But being overweight isn't a label it's a fact. And instead of trying to find loop holes and makimg excuses as to why your child was classed as overweight when it isn't surely it's better to just try and change things.

While they are children you can do from what they ear and you can control what you buy. It's far far easier than dealing with it 20 years down the line when you are doing shift work and struggling financially and caring for elderly relatives and that time to cook yourself a decent dinner just isn't there.

There is a lot of unemployment here and lots of families on low incomes and there are lots of parents who don't know how to cook meals from a thatch so I think it's a lot of convenience and processed food plus nowadays there are a lot of sugary drinks etc so easily available and inexpensive. I also think advertising has a lot to do with it. My girls were brought up on healthy homecooked food and very rarely had any fizzy stuff and we don't eat out the freezer or convenience foods. I also ensured they got exercise. They're neither fat or unhealthy.

From *scratch

Weaning/breastfeeding my arse. Probably the sort of people who breastfeed are the types who care about nutrition and food anyway and ensure their older children do not eat crap.

Or maybe the people who breastfeed are able to access alot of help from breastfeeding professionals and have loads of family around to help look after them and the older children whilst they are pinned to the sofa 24/7 cluster feeding. Many people don't have that option so formula feed so that they can have the time to look after their other children.

Parents choosing bad food and poor nutritional education mixed with low activity levels is going to make kids fat. Also I think that convenience and speed comes before cooking from scratch. If you start looking at what's in processed food it's shocking.

Absolutely, I agree of course there is no cut and dry rule and correlation =/= causation etc. I am interested though how children are introduced to food in other countries where, as others have said, the ‘food culture’ is so different. Wondering if all the MNers living overseas on this thread could tell us.

It’s like sleeping - according to most parenting guides, I was making a rod for my own back with my DS by letting him feed to sleep, feed on and off through the night etc well into toddlerhood, whereas DD was in a good sleep routine from fairly young.

Guess who is my good sleeper now

Similarly my EBF DS is the one who has all the eczema, had issues with glue ear and respiratory issues as a toddler... mix fed DD never had any of those. The only way DS is healthier really is that he virtually never pukes (not that DD does much, but DS always fared better with bugs).

DS is also going to have to be more careful with what he eats I think, DD is naturally skinny. I had undiagnosed GD with him, he was born at nearly 12lb! Perfectly healthy weight now though but he is definitely more ‘dense’ than DD, plus he craves carbs constantly and is fussy so much harder to get veg into him. Both are very active. I do wonder how pregnancy affects them, I had GD this time too but DC3 was a healthy weight as I was diagnosed and kept my blood sugars controlled.

There are so, so many factors that I don’t think will ever be really understood. But anything to improve education, obesogenic culture etc has to be worthwhile if it helps at a population level. It’s too complicated to really know though.

@Cantusethatname genetically I have the same metabolism as my grandfather on my dads side we gain weight very easily but I look like my mum who gains weight slowly. I

Well fruit is expensive on a school budget, needs loads of time preparing it all, goes off relatively quickly and needs fridge space to store it, whereas cake is almost none of this.

How much work does it take to eat an apple or a banana? Grapes?

Cake doesn't last as long as fruit. It goes dry or mouldy.
Fresh fruit lasts at least a week.

At parties we always put all the usual savoury and sweet snacks, along easy to eat fruit.
Also juices and plenty of water.
The kids often start off with the sweets and juices, but most parties tend to be active and soon they're all drinking water and the fruit goes very quickly.
If allowed most children will eat a balanced diet.

Schools are - in my experience - very unhealthy places. We have meetings with mounds of horrible cakes on offer, and young people offered chocolate when they're feeling upset. It all sends out awful signals. I'd like to see a ban on energy drinks in schools and some education on how much sugar is in the drinks they buy.

Definitely agree about lack of BF support kpo there is often not enough. I had next to zero when I had my eldest, completely different story when I had DS in a different county.

Kpo- it's easier to look after other kids if you're breastfeeding - no formula to faff about with etc

@Gileswithachainsaw that’s fair enough but with my youngest I can’t see what I can do differently. She eats very healthily and is always outside running around. I’m not looking for loopholes, if there was something I could change then I’d be trying to do it. As I’ve said, my eldest daughter has about as much go in her as a snail and would never eat another piece of fruit or veg in her life if we allowed it yet she’s very slim!