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).

There is a big eating culture coming over from the US. Every show has people shovelling food down their mouths with forks - not eating properly with a knife & fork.

Kids TV shows have kids sitting down eating popcorn, tubs of ice-cream, those massive packets of 'sharing' crisps.

My DD's have always had good, proper food, but are being brainwashed into eating crap. "Mum can we have Pringles/walkers sensations etc". The younger one (11) went to sleepover the other night - plaintive cry for 'sweets mum'.

People don't eat because they're hungry anymore, they do it for a hobby. It's horrible. 🙁

Some cultures love a chubby kid it is seen as a sign of a well fed loved child,

There's a general misconception that healthy food has to be expensive, and consist of salmon steaks, chicken breasts and blueberries, etc.

Of course that's rubbish, but too many people don't know how to cook cheap healthy food and don't want to learn, or don't think it's possible, or can't be bothered.

In any case I think a lot of parents now were themselves brought up on fatty takeaways/fast food/nuggets/pizza, etc., and don't actually like the taste of 'proper' food with plenty of fresh veggies. And because they've never been used to it, their kids don't like it/wouldn't eat it, either.

I don't buy that it's all down to poverty. There are plenty of times when I've been right behind a fat shopper in the supermarket queue, with fat kids in tow, and very often the trolley's been full of very carb heavy processed food - certainly far from the cheapest - lots of cakes, pastry, crisps, fizzy drinks, etc. with virtually nothing fresh or un-processed, except for maybe eggs or bananas.
And BTW it's not that I monitor anyone else's trolley, but when you're right behind them you can't help seeing.

You can tell when someone's either really hard up or very frugal - it's mostly the cheapest Smartprice brand, or else with reduced stickers. I do see that as well, but it's usually an old person who's far from fat.

No mom

Sugar is now in everything.... even savoury food. I'm not saying 'sugar' as in a packet of sweets

Smoothies.... sugar
Bread....
Sauces
Pizza
Breakfast cereal
Yogurt
Fruit juice
Cereal bars
Some foods marketed as healthy, but actually aren't

Our palates are used to it. A low carb diet is such a shock but once used to it the sugar in everyday food is so noticeable. I was shocked to find bread as sweet as cake!

Snacking being the norm nowadays rather than a treat at the weekend IMO is a big factor. Parents pandering to children and making different meals for their fussy children is another reason (obviously I don't mean children with allergies here). I don't think anyone is to blame other than the parents. You wouldn't look at a very underweight child and blame the government, supermarkets etc.

Poor kids eat bad food.
Better-off ones may eat better, but get ferried about in cars to school and all their activities, don't play out etc.

Junk food is readily available and cheap and comes in massive bags/tubs.

The Tories sold off all the school playing fields and swimming pools
🙄
Because many people have to blame someone else when it isn't that difficult to not overeat or go for a walk.

Off top of my head:
Too much processed food.
Childcare options expensive so only one income families/no time to cook.
Weather generally crap so easier to stay inside.
Possibly education regarding food too.

Tbh I ate utter shite as a teen but was a rake - always bough choc etc on way home from secondary (we all did), then had fruit and maybe bread and butter when I got home. My mum always cooked from scratch though and some of the school
Journey was on foot (used public trans sport). We def played out more too I suppose.
My DCs are super slim but a lot of it is genetics, but then again I cook mainly from scratch and don’t encourage fast food (as much as you can with teens).
I do remember that the ‘fat kids’ at school were and they have (as far as I know from FB and still seeing them around) they remained large.

People have a skewed idea of what a normal child's body should look like. Children that 30 years ago we would have viewed as overweight are now seen as a healthy size. There are many more VERY overweight kids about now so we have lost perspective of what a healthy child's body should look like. Children don't do enough physical exercise and eat a lot of sugar and processed foods.

I don't buy that it's all down to poverty. There are plenty of times when I've been right behind a fat shopper in the supermarket queue, with fat kids in tow, and very often the trolley's been full of very carb heavy processed food - certainly far from the cheapest - lots of cakes, pastry, crisps, fizzy drinks, etc. with virtually nothing fresh or un-processed, except for maybe eggs or bananas.
And BTW it's not that I monitor anyone else's trolley, but when you're right behind them you can't help seeing.

To be fair I have also seen thin people pushing trolleys full of crap.

We have allowed snacking to be normalised. From weaning it is perfectly normal to grab a pack of rice cakes or toddler biscuits to pacify children. People allow their children to snack several times a day. Snacks are almost always less healthy than meals. The food industry has encouraged the normalisation of snacking: huge milky coffees with a cake or muffin outside of mealtimes.

I never had snacks growing up. Three meals a day and bread-and-butter, cup of tea and a biscuit at 4pm.

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.

First, I think the problem with junk food is not that it is full of “toxic stuff” - it is not or else would be illegal, but it is devoid of good stuff. It, on it’s own, is not “poisoning our DC”, but the lack of the additional nutrients which were stripped away due to having to make a palatable product for a cheap price is the problem. Cheap, healthy items are readily available. They just are not seen as being desirable by the target audience. In terms of cheap access to sport of fitness - walking and running are cheap forms of exercise - are they really as difficult to access as you are insinuating? I lived near one of the poorest estates in London when I arrived. It was a bizarre area with million pound flats by the river and the poorest areas of London just on the other side of a park. I would take my child to the park daily and would never see the local children there. The facilities there were very good, and there was not physical impediment - something else was preventing those children from accessing those facilities.

lack of sport in school

And the crap way in which it's taught. We've really not moved on from the old days where the "fat" kids were ridiculed and excluded. Even today, we have the "wait of shame" whilst two of the school's best select their team from the rest of the class, and of course, it's always the fat kids and disabled who get picked last.

Still far too much emphasis on team sports, which basically exclude the unfit/unable, so does them absolutely bugger all of good.

We need PE/games teachers to be more amenable to offering different kinds of exercise, including solo exercise such as gym workouts, jogging, even just walking around the playing fields. But, no, we still have the sadistic games/PE teachers who seem to get a buzz out of ridiculing the unfit/unable ones.

I'd really have expected things to have moved on over the last 40 years, but no, from what my son says, it's still the same. Luckily, he's not overweight and fairly fit, so he's not stigmatised, but he'd still prefer not to play team sports that he's not particularly good at.

Just back from France. No 'kids meals' in restaurants. Just the same food served to adults but smaller portion sizes.
Mind you the supermarket shelves have as much processed foods and sugary cereals as you will find in other Western European countries.

I think a lot of adults just go into denial about their children being overweight too - no idea why.

Interesting comment earlier about parents giving their toddlers constant snacks - most children with adults on the buses I get do seem to be given snacks to do them through the journey. I wonder where this fear of a child being hungry has come from?

Yes, Lola, but an awful lot more food shopping in France takes place in (healthier) street and farmers markets than it does in the UK.

So we all seem to be in agreement really:

Sedentary lifestyles - being driven rather walking, sitting playing computer games inside, kids not playing outside very much, helicopter parenting keeping them in.

Ready availability of junk food and constant snacking.

The Hugh F-W obesity thing was good and he was right on the money. I tweeted WHSmith after he pointed out their sugar and sweet laden checkouts. I'd been offered huge bars of chocolate when all I'd gone in for was a packet of biros and been irritated, but it really is part of a much more insidious, junk-pushing retail culture.

I think part of the reason kids in Southern/Poorer European countries are getting bigger is that there is more choice of processed food than there was even 20 years ago.
I remember the first time I go a small individual chocolate bar for myself...the gp gave it to me for being good after my preschool jabs! Our local supermarket in Italy didn't sell anything like that 28 odd years ago. It does nowadays.

It's also classed based, I'm from the 'rich' Northern Italy and I cant think of a single of my cousins/cousind DC that are overweight. Also, When my cousin (boy aged 9) got a bit chubby from eating different food doing a term abroad his DM went to the dietician and put him on a diet till he was back to his before weight.

" Even today, we have the "wait of shame" whilst two of the school's best select their team from the rest of the class, and of course, it's always the fat kids and disabled who get picked last. "

do teachers really still do that? good grief, imagine if maths were taught that way...?

At the last school I was at, the less sporting types were quite welcome to go off and play table tennis..

And don't get me started on kids' menus - fucking chicken nuggets and chips, sausage and chips, pasta or pizza. Argh!!!

Obesity is a global problem.

Lots of reasons for it:
Aggressive marketing
Affordable, accessible 'junk' food high in energy/ sugar / fat
Lack of physical activity / sedentary lifestyles
Poor nutrition information / lack of education on the subject
Lack of cooking / eating together at home

It is difficult but surely there are some 'quick wins' eg. Walk instead of using the car, drink water instead of fizzy drinks, have fruit or veg as snacks instead of chocolate or crisps, cook more from scratch, watch less TV...

Eat less, move more won't solve everything but will rely really help. It isn't rocket science. And yes, the Government/ schools etc should do more but parents/ individuals need to take responsibility.

And I hear people saying it is more expensive to eat healthily but surely a bag of (wholewheat) pasta, a tin of tomatoes, an onion & a pepper cost less than a McDonald's meal....
You can get a banana from Aldi for 13p. Bet you can't get a Mars bar for that.

And also people believing adverts.

Can't believe how many packs of 'breakfast biscuits' we sell in the shop (there are even 'breakfast flapjacks' fgs! 'Well, they're oats, so it's practically like porridge!' Is it bollocks, they're bloody BISCUITS!) I know people are in a hurry and sometimes skip meals, but those things - and a lot of so-called 'Low Fat' foods - are not real food, they are snacks masquerading as a proper meal.

oh yes kids' menu's - where they get to eat some processed crap and then a pile of sugar...

‘Oh marilyn monroe was a size 16’

I have a 1970s M&S suit. It is a size 12. By todays measurement the jacket would be an 8 (34 inches chest max) and the skirt a 6/8 (25 inch waist).

Portion control, constant snacking, takeaways and eating out more prevalent, sugary drinks, lack of exercise, lack of nutritional guidance etc.