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).

I have really been thinking about the different types of fruit lately lweji - my DS eats loads, but it’s the apples/pears type. DD however eats virtually nothing from the fruit bowl, needs persuading to eat an apple if hungry, and would prefer to live on expensive berries, pomegranate, lychees, mango etc - generally the naturally sweeter stuff. I’ve stopped buying as much for her as it is so pricey and goes off quicker. But she loves veg so I don’t worry about vitamins/fibre etc.

@Lweji I completely agree. Fruit keeps very well in the fridge. It never lasts very long in this house though.

Interstingly Chingchok your post made me look at some of the wartime information films that we have on DVD. What is clear is that there was a very well-researched strategy to get the population eating well on what was available. We watched one on how to make porridge overnight in a home-made hay box and there was film of people growing all sorts of things in small spaces including mustard and cress on window sills. Of course they all involved a patronising male voice telling women what to do! There is film of children in nurseries preparing and serving food and eating "wartime steak" which were rissoles made of beef and oatmeal. Oatmeal seemed to figure rather a lot.
The planning for the strategy started in the mid 1930s apparently and the planners insisted that people were treated as consumers and helped to eat well on the rations. I think people ate better during the war and there were certainly fewer people living with hunger than in the 1930s.
What it brought home to me is how good public information can be when the welfare of the population is paramount, rather than the desire to cosy up to the food industry.
I still think Jacques Perretti's documentary "The Men Who Made Us Fat" explains much of the obesity epidemic very clearly.

Formula isn't that much of a faff. I switched to formula after three weeks as dd would just not stop feeding. She woukd feed for 2 or three hours then polish of a bottle of formula on top. I spent the time I wasn't feeding expressing. Took all day to get about an oz of BM.

I barely got to eat as preparing food one handed holding a baby isn't easy. If I had had another chikd to look after we would have been screwed.

Formula is really easy and no where near the faff people make out it is.

I've met breast feeding mum's who's kids were weaned on jars and only eat beige and I've met formula feeders who never used a jar and prepare all their own food.

It's what you do after that matters more.

No one's born knowing what a chicken nugget is. At some point it was a conscious decision to give these foods and to continue to give these foods when the normal toddler stage of refusing and throwing food on the floor begins.

I hope I'm wrong and I don't have children so can't be certain but from what I see in RL and read on here, kids seem to have sweets or a desert every day of the week. I had a desert when out for a meal and sweets once a week (1970's/80's). Please tell me having sweets/desert every day is not the norm?

@PlatypusPie - we were in the west of Poland. I don't know if that makes a difference but the schools we saw didn't have problems with obesity. We did notice the kids were given free fruit and veg during their breaks as well as milk and that the only snack machine in the schools had healthy snacks and could only be accessed by cards controlled by the parents through an online account. No cakes, just dried fruit and healthy snacks. Maybe it depends on the region?

dessert

Re ff & bf. I bf’d my eldest and ff’d my youngest (not out of choice) and they are both rakes. I really don’t think their first 6 months has much to do with it. It’s what you feed them after. I mainly did home cooked but also used jars for convenience when out or about or for cba days! I tried to stick to the organix ones as far as possible. They had a great diet until they realised they could say no!!
Re sweets a mine are teens now and yes, have biscuit or similar on a daily basis. Sometimes yoghurt or ice cream for dessert - not every day. I also ate rubbish after school most days although only had dessert on weekends. I don’t think even a bar of chocolate for a teen in a daily basis is bad if their diet is otherwise healthy as metabolism is high and they should be moving. For me it would be bad in my 40s as I’d soonest look at it and put on the weight!

I had a desert when out for a meal and sweets once a week (1970's/80's). Please tell me having sweets/desert every day is not the norm?

We had desserts every day at school growing up in the 80s. It was rarely something as healthy as a yoghurt either.

Children under the age of 12 do not have financial independence
so if they are eating shit
its because parents are buying it for them

This ^

It's very soul destroying seeing food you've prepared be chucked away. I try and make a home cooked meal my toddlers might like once or twice a week and they rarely eat it. We don't have a great deal of money and it's a bit depressing and often easier just to give them beige. I am wary of dulling their tastebuds though. It's hard.

I know it is. God knows we have all had many a meal rejected in favour of the cat food etc

But never under estimate how quickly they can work out that if they throw their food on the floor mummy /daddy/ nanny will make me something else.

We were all that toddler once the difference is 40 years ago our parents wouldn't put up with it. We'd have gone to bed hungry. These days for whatever reason we can't do that . We don't want to upset them or feel guilty or whatever but they are allowed to run rings around us.

Parents go to work all day then come home and cook multiple meals. We need to just start saying "No" again.

In European countries the kids eat what the adults eat; sushi, tapas, stuffed vine leaves, etc. Here, they have their own beige, shit menus and most have never eaten anything aside from sausage chips and nuggets

i wish people would stop spouting this bullshit. First, as if the whole of Europe is one homogenous mass, all the same, as if "Europe" does anything all the same! So stupid.
Also its just plain wrong. Italian kids don't eat the same as their parents a lot of the time. They get given a kids pasta, often pasta al burro, just plain empty carb pasta with butter. Same in Spain, same in France. Some parents give kids food, some don't. Same as everywhere.

The children having the free meals in ks1 at school always have dessert. They tend to eat that rather than the main meals. Many don’t eat the veg. It’s all wasted.
Ks2 fair better - they seem to eat most of it.

I blame sugar.

My kids were snacking constantly. I cut their sugar intake right down (including processed carbs that quickly convert to sugar in the body, ie pasta, bread). Their incessant demand for snacks has stopped. They still snack, but far less (and behaviour has improved). They have all slimmed down.

It is very hard to adaopt a low sugar diet for kids. I read that anything below 5g sugar/100g is considered low sugar. This rules out so many commercial snacks. Kids parties are a nightmare if I stick to my guns; kids menus in restaurants are usually rubbish; and don’t get me started on kids being given sweets at school. I have to make so much myself (lollies, cakes etc). Even fruit is now bred to be sweeter.

Giles - I was trying to point out that having other children is not a reason not to breastfeed for some of us

We didn't have 24 hkur shops back then. If it wasnt in the fridge at home you didn't have it

There was none of this driving round to Tescos to go get some fish fingers . And there wasn't money or space in the freezer for back up food that wasnt going to get used

If a child eats a sensible amount of food, all the XBox in the world will not make them fat.If a child eats masses of food, all the running around in the world will not keep them slim.Its physics

Is it now? Then explain my children who eat masses of food and are very slim, with a regular amount of exercise?

low breastfeeding rates. lazy parents. parents unable to manage money. cant afford it. bad time management. parents not working out in front of children/going out enough. technology addiction. ipads and phones under 13 years old they dont need them dumba them down, bad communication, unable to deal with being bored, stats have nothing but negativity with this especially with future relationships.

I can't believe a thread on something so simple has reached almost 1000 posts. Parents of fat children are not feeding them properly. Fuck sake. If a child was too thin it wouldn't be a big debate - blaming government, food industry etc. It is simply bad parenting.

Drinks. Mine drink water, a pint glass of tap water always by them at home, by the computer, by the homework, by the TV. that works very well.

Also not having jukn food in the house. Years ago i had small children's friends here searching my cupboard and hardly believing their eyes that we were not lying when we said there were simply no chocolate biscuits, no crisps stash, no hidden cakes here at all nothing, nada. If you wanted to drink there's the tap.

And stop using the word 'exercise'. Just playing out, cycling, running around is a normal part of being a kid. It isn't exercise FFS.

I really don't believe that bf has anything to do with childhood obesity for 2 reasons:

1. People who bf are now likely to feed dc healthily afterwards
2. One of the most common reasons for people I know giving up bfing was mega-hungry babies who presumably naturally self regulate less well (as ff babies also self regulate usually) and are therefore going to be prone to being fatter.

And anecdotally we are a family of 4 slim ff people. It's about what you eat now not what you ate 10 years ago

Just wanted to slip in and thank OP and all posters for this thread as I’m only on page 20 and it’ll fill up soon! It has been really thought provoking. While I think the body positivity/acceptance movement has a lot going for it (in terms of normalising non insta-perfect bodies, cellulite, normal non-smooth skin, disabilities etc) it definitely has an incredibly toxic core at the centre which calls itself ‘fat acceptance’ but in reality is more like ‘fat promotion’, seems totally unwilling to engage with science and medicine (‘healthy at any size! Doctors who suggest you lose weight are fat shaming!’ etc) and I’m not sure that encouraging already obese people to remain that way because it’s easier than striving to achieve a healthy weight (if that’s what they want for themselves) is doing anybody any good in the long term. This thread has been full of really good points and got me thinking a lot about my own relationship to food and our cultural approach, as someone who recently nudged almost into the overweight BMI category for the first time in my life and decided to do something about it. I don’t want to evangelise like an ex smoker (I’m that too haha) but even a month into being more thoughtful with my diet it’s shocking to think of the amount of food I used to put away, 700 calories of snacks between huge massive meals etc, no wonder I put weight on. And I’m vegan, which people seem to think protects you from weight gain, it really doesn’t 😂

It’s been heartening to see people point out that it’s complete nonsense to say that it’s more expensive to eat healthily when you consider the cost of junk food and takeaways compared to cooking basic healthy meals at home. Ultimately I think the problem lies in our culture prioritising the shovelling of food and calorie laden drinks into our mouths at every single opportunity and event, people have lost sight of a normal healthy diet and portion sizes/see food that would be fine in moderation as a daily thing rather than the occasional treat. And in being fat being so normalised now, people are in denial it’s a problem. Lack of personal responsibility is an issue too.

I know people who are so conditioned to ‘need’ a dessert after every meal they can’t rest until they’ve had ‘something sweet’, they’ll eat their meal and then literally scavenge around for a biscuit or chocolate, as they don’t feel right just finishing their meal and being done. The amount of extra calories that adds onto your day! Funnily enough though it’s never fruit, which is sweet.

DD however eats virtually nothing from the fruit bowl, needs persuading to eat an apple if hungry, and would prefer to live on expensive berries, pomegranate, lychees, mango etc - generally the naturally sweeter stuff. I’ve stopped buying as much for her as it is so pricey and goes off quicker. But she loves veg so I don’t worry about vitamins/fibre etc.

Have you tried buying frozen fruit? The supermarkets all do frozen bags of frozen berries, mango, kiwi, I even saw frozen pomegranate and I’m sure you can get tinned lychees! I buy frozen berries so I can defrost them in the fridge over night and have them for breakfast every morning. So delicious and low in calories (33kcal for an 80g serving which is around a fifth of the bags I get from Tesco), and they never go off :) I wouldn’t be able to eat those kinds of ‘exotic’ fruits daily without the frozen ones being so readily available as they do go off fast and seem to cost sooooo much more fresh.