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).

Car culture must also be partly to blame, surely. Exercise seems to be something that you go somewhere to do now, as opposed to something that just happens as you go about your day. People drive rather than walk or cycle, and of course the more that people drive, the less inviting it is to walk or cycle.

I live rurally and cycle as often as possible with ds in a toddler seat, but I know for a fact that some people on here think that makes me an irresponsible parent. I've also just spent a week in the town where I grew up, where everything was within walking distance, but the pedestrian experience was awful! Loads of cars, awful air quality, and either no safe crossing points or traffic ligts that took ages to change and were clearly phased for the convenience of drivers rather than walkers. It was appalling, really - a smallish town should be a great walkable place, but it was as though it was actively discouraged. So people don't get that incidental exercise that just happens as you walk or cycle, and children grow up thinking that if you want to go somewhere, you get in the car.

I'm in the US, it's like putting a magnifying glass on the worst cases in the UK extrapolated over an entire nation. But I think most of the below holds for the UK too.

There's an entrenched expectation that kids won't eat "adult" food so they are served variations on processed frozen meats and deep fried carbs for many meals. Next to no vegetables or fruit and a general expectation that kids won't eat them. Way, way too much sugar- squash being seen as the default "healthy" drink, sodas, "healthy" snacks which are basically fruits refined into candy, sugary cereals, chocolate milk.

Drivers including the time constraints of juggling work and family, childcare (whether formal or informal) not serving proper meals, lack of exercise/little walking, and a distorted view of what a healthy child looks like. Also, the culture of food being an important part of family life seems diminished- e.g. all sitting down to a meal and talking about the day. Advertising and marketing seem to normalise bad diets/snacking too.

I think the ready meal thing is wrong as reasoning for our obesity. Look at the calories - they're usually around 300/400. That's not going to make you fat.

If you split between 2 as intended but not if you eat it all. Some have over 1500 calories in the tubs (M&S are awful)

I have 1 child who was very large at birth (biggest baby for a year at the hospital) and has remained so not obese but chunky and 1 who is probably underweight. Brought up exactly the same. The larger 1 is more more like my side of family who are generally overweight that DHs who are generally leaner.

it is very tricky Minifingerz.
My son became obese, not because of what I was feeding him at home but because of what he was consuming on the way to secondary school. In the summer holidays I got him a bike, and he went everywhere on it, and lost his weight.
Then the HOY said that he must be on drugs and demanded he see the school nurse..
As a parent you cannot win.

A lot of it is attitudes and what people are used to I think. I remember getting to choose a piece of fruit from the greengrocers after nursery when I was younger, and the experience of all of the bright colours and smells was fab (usually opted for a tomato which I would eat like an apple...); and people used to say my parents were cruel and should let me have a packet of buttons or something which was weird. We only really had chocolate if we were making cakes or something, and takeaways for special occassions- now it seems a lot of things revolve around food and sitting indoors.

When I first went to the USA 30 years ago I was shocked at who fat the people were. Now people are at least as fat if not fatter in the Uk.

My mother was considered overweight in the 1970s- looking at pictures she wouldn't be by todays standards.

sospboxmum

I share your frustration. Why do nurseries insist on giving babies, toddlers and children sweet puddings after every main meal? I’m one of the few mums at my daughters’ nursery that won’t allow them to have sugary puddings. It means they are treated differently to the others which is unfair (they do get fruit or yoghurt as a substitute).

The culture needs to change.

OP why do you keep conflating France with the whole of Europe? You've even admitted your experience is limited to France. Just because France is on the mainland does not mean it's representative of the entire continent!

Obesity is a growing trend across all developed countries. OECD data from 2017 puts the UK near the top in Europe but still below Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary and Spain.

The reasons are myriad and probably include cheaper costs of processed food, larger portions, more sedentary lifestyles, more "hidden" sugar in foods, etc.

If you think about animals, they spend hours each day searching for food.

In comparison we spend a fairly small percentage of our incomes on food because we prioritise other things. It's often not a choice (e.g. housing costs etc).

Let's be honest.... this isn't a new thing

It's already visible in our young adults. So many are overweight. This seems to be where the 'fat shaming' dialogue has sprung from. Also lots of young women on YouTube with channels aimed at plus size fashion and how to dress a larger body. I never saw this 5 years ago

"I think other countries expect their children to be way more active."

Post after post after post suggesting that higher levels of activity = lower levels of childhood obesity.

Everyone ignoring the lack of scientific evidence that increasing activity doesn't have any significant beneficial impact on weight.

Ignoring the fact that the people with the most physically gruelling jobs in the UK are also those most likely to be overweight.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3925973/

"Based on the present literature, unless the overall volume of aerobic ET is very high, clinically significant weight loss is unlikely to occur."

Snacks.

Nobody ever starved to death on three meals a day. People have lost sight of what 'hungry' feels like, and at the merest hint of a tummy rumble everyone is shovelling down biscuits, crisps, all those things marketed as 'snack foods'.

If it's less than five hours since your last meal, you are not going to starve.

50% of food consumed in the UK is highly processed. 15% of food consumed in France is highly processed.

A lot of it is attitudes and what people are used to I think.

Yeah. We have an 18 month old and constantly have to refuse people offering him chocolate biscuits and things like that. People regularly express surprise that he doesn't ever eat chocolate or cake or sweets... He's 18 months old!! Why would I give him chocolate or cake???

Its not just children though. I visited a town at the weekend and I was amazed at the junk food on the high street and I also was shocked at how obese the women were there.

It's not just about children being obese. In order to get to that size that child will have consumed a massive amount of sugar and other toxic stuff found in junk. The long term health effects to that child are terrible. It is a travesty how we are poisoning our DC. There is no one reason for it but a good start is the government making it easier for people to access cheaper healthy items and have cheaper access to sports and fitness.

ladyMonica

I agree, it's the constant snacking . When I was a child we ate breakfast, then lunch at school and tea at home (not usually a cooked meal either, something like a boiled egg, bread and butter and a bit of cake if there was any) and that was it. We had a tiny amount of pocket money which we spent in the sweet shop on a Saturday and scoffed the same day. No other snacks, crisps,sweets, biscuits, fizzy drinks kept in the house. No snacks in school apart from school milk.No snacks on the way home from school either . A small packet of crisps was what your parents bought you if they took you to sit outside the pub on a Saturday lunchtime. And icecream was something you ate at the cinema, or at a party, or sometimes Sunday afternoon tea if there were visitors.

And strangely none of us starved, you could probably see our ribs, but we did not suffer from malnutrition,

It is the grazing that adds the calories, even tiny kids in buggies are constantly nibbling and chewing and slurping .

I am not advocating a return to the food of my childhood, we have a greater choice and range of food now, and that is something I really appreciate and enjoy, but I do think the idea of eating constantly has gone too far and parents need to rein back and stop doling out unnecessary calories.

Portion sizes and snacking.

Apologies as I haven't read the whole thread but I think it's interesting that cookery in schools was reduced and I think that means that some people are less able to cook / don't understand how to make a simple meal / don't know where to begin.

I also think that if you look at supermarket offers they're usually on either crap - crisps, choc, biscuits or on stuff that you could make at home but it's easier and cheaper to buy a jar which might be more calorific - dolmio bolognese sauce, korma sauce etc.

But I do also think that there may be a need for the expectations, charts, centiles etc to be revisited. My friend's daughter is a tall 6 year old who cycles, swims, eats hardly anything (fussy) and she was classed as obese. I do wonder when the charts were last updated - if they're working to post war charts where families were struggling for food and to make ends meet I wonder if there's a case for seeing if that's really realistic too.

Have a look at the budgeting threads. Lots of posters here take pride in minimising the weekly spend on food, and are shocked when reading about high food budgets - while spending on multiple holidays a year (cheap all-inclusives are apparently a human right - with more crap food), disposable fashion and gadgetry is seen as normal.

Healthy, good food costs more, either in terms of time (at least for sourcing and preparation) or money. It tends to be less of a priority over here than, say, in France.

"My son became obese, not because of what I was feeding him at home but because of what he was consuming on the way to secondary school."

My children's weight gain has occurred since they've been of secondary school age and able to purchase and consume food outside the home.

It's very, very hard as a parent to police your teenage children's food intake and puts you in a hideous dilemma if you have thin AND fat children. What do you do about pocket money? Do you allow your thin child to have control over his pocket money, even though you know he spends a lot of it on sweets, but refuse your other child the same access to money because he also spends it on sweets, but he's fat and you want to stop him consuming empty calories outside of the home.

It's so, so hard.

Probably too many snacks and treats: When I was a kid, the only time we had cakes was if mum had baked some (not often - maybe once a week ) or if we were asked to a birthday party (also rare, as parties tended to be at home, so only had 7 or 8 guests). Crisps were an occasional treat if our parents took us to a pub with a garden on a sunny evening. Chocolate was quite pricey, and sold in individual bars from newsagents, so we didn't have it often at all. Ice cream was from the ice-cream van and I can only remember having one on Sunday afternoons. Biscuits were generally saved for if we had visitors. Basically we had 3 meals a day and a fruit bowl that we had free access to, but it generally only contained apples and oranges.

Children today (adults too - me included ) seem to have snacks and treats several times a day, and do less walking and playing outside so it's only to be expected that they'll be fatter.

I'm not originally from Britain,but lived here for over 6 years,with my 2 kids. Things that shocked me when I first moved here was high school kids every day going to 'chippy' for their school lunch. Another thing was primary aged kids are allowed to bring whatever they like for school lunches. Sweets,fizzy drinks.etc and lastly families having pudding everyday after tea.

angularmerkel

Similarly, people are less likely to cook from scratch due to lack of time, what with women now much more likely to work, and everybody working longer and longer hours (there was a thread on here the other day about how many people think you simply MUST stay at work late)

Processed and ready made foods are cheaper both in time and expense than others. Many children aren't brought up learning to cook from scratch or even to cook at all so everything is for convenience that gets banged in the microwave or oven for dinner.

Food nutrition advice is scarce. We're taught that fats are bad and carbs can be too without understanding between a properly balanced diet. Too much emphasis is put on calories in the media without focus on portion sizes and control and balancing our intake of good and bad things.

Far too much emphasis on not going hungry and snacking. People are afraid of hunger and allow their children to graze and snack on things that should be considered part of a meal or downright crap.

We move less. Cars, tv's etc.

We see things as treats and overindulge when we can as it's a 'special thing' rather than a normal part of eating so we end up craving and treating ourselves to them more.

We live in a reward based society and often see food as a reward and a social activity rather than just meals.

We don't respect food. Its there, we eat it. No focus on quality, just quantity and cravings.

Government cuts to projects in schools that promote healthy eating and activities.

Poverty that makes many of us shop in Iceland/Asda/food banks where food is cheaper if it's processed and fast and we take what we can get, even if it isn't healthy.

bad food is quick and easy

lack of sport in school - most sport is now done via private clubs and you need money to join them (and time to take the dcs to them)

online games/tv - we had tv when we were kids but not wall to wall 24 hour kid friendly tv and if I look how much time my dcs sit in front of a computer screen/tv compared to me, it's exponentionally different