About childhood obesity?

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I was reading an article in my closer magazine (high quality reading!) about childhood obesity. It had a section about 'what can you do to help your kids'. It was ALL about diet. Didn't mention once about exercise and activity levels!

I think this is the main problem. I was brought up in the country and we were on the go all the time! Yes we had home cooked food but I had my fair share of fatty chips, Chinese and sweets as well. I was thin as a rail as were most of my friends.

AIBU to think that although diet is important, actually activity levels are mostly to blame? I'm all for a bit of screen time but along with a walk / scoot / bike ride / Bounce on the trampoline etc etc. That they need every single day, multiple times if possible?

Yes you a bu, totally agree you can't out run a bad diet.
Also it's easy being smug over thin young children, it's when they get more freedom with school dinners at secondary then problems can happen. It's like freshers flab, each year I see year 7s who make poor choices and put weight on by the end of the year.

Kungfupanda67 maybe make up is the wrong word, sorry!! I do know that I have 4 kids, 2 that will more than likely be underweight for most of their life, and two that will have issues at some stage, as they are broad, but kind of broad shouldered. The kids i described as toddlers would have been a step on from my kids. My bro was like this and now is a gym bunny and health food fanatic as he found over youth that any junk food at all caused him to get much bigger than it would me. So make up isn't the right word but all kids aren't equal in size but I honestly do get this isn't the case in most cases. I was just telling her not to assume in the same way a slight build wouldn't get a reaction eating some junk food but a bigger person would get a look

I agree that diet is the main factor. I was at softplay yesterday and there was a very overweight mother with 3 very overweight kids. They had a couple of large pizzas between them, ice creams and fizzy drinks. That just wouldn't have happened when I was the age of those children. There is so much junk food everywhere and the portions are massive.

There are so many kids around nowadays who are clearly severely overweight. It's awful to see. On holiday recently I saw children who were really struggling to take part in activities as moving was far harder than it should be. Often, though not always, the whole family would be overweight. In that situation do the children then think having that body shape is "normal" I wonder?
I agree portion size is a big issue. My children are perfectly able to eat an adult sized pizza followed by a pudding when we're at a restaurant. They would never be given a meal of that size at home though.
I'm no skinny minnie, but I know why I'm a bit fat, it's because I eat too much.

Most kids would have to do a lot of exercise to burn off the excess calories. So many kids at my school eat an entire tube of Pringles for brekkie for example. That’s a lot of cals!

The huge rise of snacks can't help. I don't remember snacks being a thing in the 80's. Of course they existed but they weren't viewed as a necessity. In fact at school they were banned, you had your meal at lunch time and that was all. A couple of days ago I went on a bus trip with my DC. Within minutes of the bus leaving the station people were opening huge bags of crisps and sweets for their kids. My DM just wouldn't have allowed eating in public like that, it was seen as bad manners. She still doesn't get coffee out, popcorn at the cinema etc because she eats at mealtimes at home (or maybe a proper meal out but not casual snacking). I am not actually a meals at mealtimes person as my DC are naturally grazers but I'm not going to cart round enough food to feed an army just to get round Tesco or complete the school run!

It's not always about poor diet. It's often about the sheer volume of food kids are fed from weaning stage onwards.

Some of the threads on here detailing how much 1yr olds are fed for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are mind boggling.

And many 4/5 year olds are taking a bigger packed lunch to school than a lot of slim adults could eat.

Then again, many overweight parents can't recognise that their own portions are too big, so I imagine it's even more difficult to recognise when they're overfeeding their children.

The missing point in the above, is that exercise impacts diet, a fit human will rarely overeat, an unfit human will almost always overeat. That's because the hormanal triggers for hunger are related to the fitness, so whilst it's the calories that make a difference, it's the fitness that prevents the self regulation.

And of course, if you're fat and fit(ter), then you get quite a lot of protection from the disorders that you get from being fat.

So whilst (lack of) exercise isn't the cause of obesity, it certainly shouldn't be neglected.

Food is much more important than exercise in healthy weight unless you’re going for it with hours of exercise a day.
As a child/teen your metabolism is high though so you can generally get away with eating much more than an adult even if you’re doing a normal amount of exercise/movement. If I ate now what I consumed as a teen I’d be obese! Teen boys need well over 2000 cals a day, I need about 1500. So those children who are obese must be eating a horrific amount and not moving at all (driven to school, sitting in classroom, not moving much at break, driven home, TV/computer).

This made me laugh, KungfuPanda - "...you don’t see a 30 year old climbing up the back of the sofa and jumping off just because!"

I didn't climb up the back of it but I did jump on and off once or twice or ten times at least the other day. I was waiting for a conference call and on my own in the house. so nobody saw me do it...

Tim Minchin here explains it beautifully.

I'm not trying to be smug at all. Just trying to figure out what to prioritise myself for my own kids.

When I hear about portion sizes doesn't really apply to my kids as they just don't tend to eat much in one go, at the moment anyway. My friends toddler is very active and super healthy diet but she just has a huge appetite, she will easily polish off an adult size portion, given the chance. She's only young but she is a bit overweight, I think.

My family are all 'naturally slim' where as DH family are all a bit bigger, not huge but a bit overweight. I have noticed that if me or my mum do something with the kids (or just by ourselves)
it tends to be some kind of physical activity, walking, park, swimming etc. Where as if DH is planning it tends to be baking, cinema, shopping. But they would just just say we are lucky and naturally slimmer.

With the portion sizes, do you think something is going wrong to make these kids want to eat too much? Weaning? The old bottle vs breast?

Stats on childhood obesity are very inaccurate though in my experience. I got a letter from the local school nursing team to say my 5 year old was significantly overweight - near the top of the obese category nearly into morbidly obese or whatever the top one is. They hadn't measured his height correctly so I queried it. They measured him again and this added about 4 cm to his height. That 4 cm meant he went from near the top of the obese scale to the middle of the normal. At this age they don't grow consistently, they put on weight and then have growth spurts. Only measuring children on one day and declaring from that who is and isn't obese when a small error makes such a big difference is ridiculous.

With the portion sizes, do you think something is going wrong to make these kids want to eat too much? Weaning? The old bottle vs breast?

If you regularly pack a lot of food into a baby/toddler's stomach, it stands to reason it'll eventually take more to fill it, so it can become a bit of a cycle.

My kids would've just stayed in the highchair eating whatever was put in front of them for the sake of it, if we didn't signal the end of mealtimes, give them a drink and then do something different with them.

Obviously if they were still hungry they would've let us know but more often than not, they'd just go about doing something else.

Only measuring children on one day and declaring from that who is and isn't obese when a small error makes such a big difference is ridiculous.

They measure in Reception (age 4/5) and again in year 6 (age 10/11) and the obesity rates are always higher the second time, so I wouldn't say they're 'very inaccurate'.

Add to that over 64% of adults are overweight/obese and you can see the rising problem.

Is there I link between early weaning at all?

I know of a couple of children who were weaned at 16 weeks because they were ‘super hungry’. Their lovely mum is now working with health professionals due to their weight.

They were always being fed from an early age, be it solids or milk. Also their mum is overweight.

I do wonder if there is a link. Although it’s obviously none of my business.

I weaned my eldest 2 from 6/8 weeks, as was pretty normal over 20 years ago. They've never had any weight problems and child obesity didn't appear to be as problematic back then as it is now, so I don't know about early weaning really.

Come to think of it, lots of generations before us didn't have any guidelines at all to follow. They just weaned whenever they thought the babies were ready.

My 3yo eats until she's full and stops, regardless of what the meal is. My 5yo eats more, he will finish what he's given most of the time. He loves food. We have to be careful to balance what he has over the day. It's so hard, I want him to enjoy food, but also to make good choices. We are helping him, we talk about not eating too much sugar, if you have an ice cream now, no ice cream later etc. He's a good size at the mo but I can definitely see him putting on weight when he can make his own choices if we don't play it right while he's young.

As others have said, it needs to be a good balance of BOTH healthy food and lots of exercise.
One of my relatives is one of the most active children I know, never sits still, and does a lot of sport. Yet she’s 7 years old and in age 10-11 clothes due to not the best of diets.

I think there are lots of factors at play. I do think some people are naturally stockier just as others are naturally small. Could be to do with ethnicity as well.
Also where you put on fat is genetically determined (hello Apple shape😭) and I would imagine ease of putting on fat is probably genetic
None of these things would make people obese if we were still swinging from trees, however.
I believe the problem may be that we have not evolved to eat large amounts of sugar and starch and these are playing havoc with blood sugar and causing insulin resistance, overweight and eventually diabetes. But someone is obese we think they are broken. They aren’t broken, the way we “do” food is broken. Their bodies are reacting exactly as they are designed to in the face of such foods which, to add insult to injury, are highly addictive to some of us (🙋🏻‍♀️).
I recommend WHY WE GET FAT (Taubes) and THE OBESITY CODE (Fung)

I think the 80 / 20 rule is bollocks and activity is far more to do with it. I'm very overweight, my diet isn't awful but following a bout of very bad depression I've become extremely sedentary..........I was 5 stone lighter on the same diet a couple of years ago when I was out cycling and walking every day.

I know of a couple of children who were weaned at 16 weeks because they were ‘super hungry’.

So as I said above two of my kids are skinny, two ave sized but broad shoulders so you can tell they'll have to work at managing their weight in later life. ( Both horrendously active, live outside!!) Both were weaned at 4 months because they were super hungry so I think size is an indication: when one was born he was 9 10, the other was 9 8 . The other two were 8 and 8 5

I don't think there can be a link with early weaning as such, because previous generations weaned much earlier and didn't have the child obesity problem. Much more likely to be the bit in your post about the mum being overweight herself and feeding them a lot, Wingbingo.

Too many snacks and too large portions are the problem.

Children do seem to eat (or be expected to eat) far more now than when I or my DCs were children and yet they are far less active. A recipe for problems, imo.

I agree, they are expected to eat loads and given snacks as well.

Interestingly obese mothers are more likely to have low birthweight babies and low birth weight babies are more likely to be obese. You’d think it would be the other way around

My DD goes to a crèche sometimes between 930-1100. You have to provide a snack. As if they can’t cope between meals. But we have a snacking culture don’t we?