to think this is the root of the obesity crisis?

[Somethingorotherorother]

It seems like on every single parenting thread, about bedtimes, sharing, behaviour, potty training etc there are huge numbers of people advocating bribing your child with food for good behaviour. Giving sweeties in the morning for every night a child stayed in bed. Sweeties for every poo on the potty. Sweeties for every day a child didn't bite their sibling. Sweeties for good behaviour at mealtimes. Sweeties for getting dressed in the morning.

Is it just me or is this absolutely batshit crazy!? People are suggesting this like it's a great way to get your kid to behave, but surely it just teaches them incredibly unhealthy eating habits (ie i deserve an edible reward for each unpleasant task) that carry in to adolescence and adulthood the idea that junk food is a normal part of the everyday diet?

It also strikes me as really lazy. Bribing a child with a pack of Haribo is much easier than, say, bribing a child with a fun outing or one-on-one time, which is what we used to get as kids for particularly good behaviour/achievements.

I read somewhere recently that 65% of UK adults are overweight, and tbh reading the way some people are bringing up their kids on here, i can't see that figure improving any time soon.

Yeah it’s just you. I’ve been here nearly 8 years and never seen a thread like that

No I don't think so. I've been struggling with my weight since my late teens and my parents never bribed me with sweets, they were actually fairly strict about sugar. My grandparents spoiled me though and when I was at their houses they would let me have pretty much whatever I wanted and I would over-indulge when I was with them. I always seemed to have a problem stopping eating certain sweet things and would have no concept of being full or having enough. If there was a full tin of chocolate fingers I'd eat the lot if no one stopped me. I'm now see the same tendency in my 8yr old daughter to be greedy with sweet things if she thinks she can get away with it. My son on the other hand will stop eating when he's had enough even if it is his favourite food. We don't bribe our children with food, we bribe them with goes on the playstation, they always get a dessert if they want one after their evening meal as long as they eat most of their meal. I do worry that my daughter will have the same struggles with her weight as me when she's older, I think when she's responsible for feeding herself she might struggle to make sensible choices just like I do.

which is what we used to get as kids for particularly good behaviour/achievements.

I read somewhere recently that 65% of UK adults are overweight

So in ye olden days (now) parents were rewarded with 1:1 time with parents,

But these days they're rewarded with sweets...

But 65% ADULTS are overweight

Do you see the complete failure in your logic here??!?!

A few sweets to encourage potty training or whatever is NOT 'the root cause' of obesity

Jesus Christ.

Mine had smarties ,one for a wee ,2 for a poo.When we first started potty training.
They are 6 foot /6 foot /4,and skinny as a rake ..definitely didn’t case them to be fat ,but did encourage aim in the potty

Have to admit that I'm overweight and shading into obese and neither of my parents used sweets as a bribe while I was growing up. Although they were definitely an occasional treat during the week.

Like many of the pp I believe it's down to a far more sedentary life & central heating - so burning far fewer calories, prepackaged food, cheap carbs, food additives to make crap food tasty and last longer, lack of exercise and my own lack of will power.

The obesity crisis is complex, but this could be an indication of part of the problem. Where food is seen as anything but necessary fuel for the body there is a potential to create unhealthy associations and habits.

Giving snacks to distract a bored child, if done regularly could create an association as food as a boredom buster, sweets as a reward might create an association with sweet foods are there to reward, regularly giving sweets to a child when they are upset might create a food as comforter association. But this is only one angle -our children are not Pavlov’dogs.

An hour in the gym can’t compensate for a generally sedentary lifestyle, increased eating out, over processed food (with increased calories and also affect on insulin resistance), hormones in food, potentially chemicals in non-food products.

Increased wealth in the West has contributed as non-Essential food items can be bought (coupled with the fact unhealthy choices are often linked to cheapness and offers).

Increased stress (with its multifaceted causes) affected hormone levels and eating habits.

Decreased time parents can spend with kids meaning quick snacks/processed food/less general activity.

Lack of competitiveness in sports at a young age might also have effects.

Like saving our plant from unhealthy toxic pollutants, we need to fundamentally change the way we live And our expectations to beat this crisis.

The root of obesity is too
Much cheap and unhealthy food and lack of education in healthy eating habits and cooking skills together with laziness and less manual labour.

Not Haribo for a potty poo, does anyone even do that seriously?

I bribed my kids with chocolate for every wee and poo that they successfully produced when potty training. I can happily announce that the bribed ended about 3/4 weeks after starting and they are all slim adults

I think seeing food as treats and putting moral worth on foods creates problems in later life but is is not the only thing that makes a relationship with food unhealthy

If there's a criticism to be made about the method it's that animals are trained in the same way and children are obviously not humans.
My kids are teens and I'll use the "go and do 30 mins of revision while I cook dinner" incentive but my brain works like that too. I'll do 30 mins of tidying up while the dinner is in the oven and then stop

Nope. Obesity is caused by eating too many calories in general, eating a small pack of haribo a day isn’t going to make you fat.

The holy trinity of fat, sugar and salt widely and cheaply available and cleverly marketed is to blame.

Is it possible that we worry about our kids food intake too much and coax them to eat another bite when they might genuinely be full? I'm not advocating that we starve kids but they might be full at the point where there's only one or two bites of a sandwich remaining and is adults might tell them to eat one more bite because it's wasteful rather than accept their judgement.

I don't remember being bribed with sweets as a child.

I do remember being told off for leaving food on my plate, and that I had to finish my main if I wanted my pudding. I have a sweet tooth, so of course I would power through a main I didn't particularly have room for.

As an adult, realising I can leave food on my plate (or better yet, make myself a smaller portion) if I'm not hungry has a game changer.

The attitude of offering high energy foods as treats/snacks/bribes is one factor but by no means the root cause. Obesity is extremely complex and can be broken down into the following sections and subsections:

1. Biology - broken down into 25 subsections, including genetic predisposition to obesity; the digestion process; fat metabolism; side effects of medicines.
2. Activity environment - 13 subsections, including access to opportunities for physical exercise; costs of physical exercise; dominance of sedentary employment; perceived danger in environment.
3. Physical activity - 11 subsections including degree of innate activity in childhood; parental modelling of activity; level of occupational activity.
4. Societal influences - 17 subsections including availability of passive entertainment options; education; exposure to food advertising; peer pressure; perceived lack of time; smoking cessation; social acceptability of fatness.
5. Individual psychology - 10 subsections including demand for indulgence/compensation; food literacy; stress; self esteem.
6. Food environment - 17 subsections including cost of ingredients; female employment; standardisation of food offerings (similarities of processed foods).
7. Food consumption - 15 subsections including alcohol consumption; convenience food offerings; food abundance; fibre content of food and drink; portion size; rate of eating; tendency to graze.

All in all there are 108 contributing factors to obesity, so no wonder it’s so difficult to solve.

I did use chocolate as a bribe for the potty.
I gave dd1 the massive amount of 1/4 of a chocolate button each time. She is now pretty much on perfect weight.

I didn't after the first day for dd2, who mastered the 2 drops of wee at a time to maximise her chocolate consumption. Dd2 is underweight. Maybe if I'd persisted with the 1/4 of a button.

No, it isn't.

Do you need some help getting down from your soapbox?

You are right that habit-forming around snacking and sweet treats isn't a good thing

Root of the obesity crisis? nope

IMO its caused by the unique conditions of late stage capitalism that we find ourselves living under

Massive availability of crap food from a profit-driven food market, poverty and specifically food poverty and fuel poverty, mental health and disordered eating at crisis levels (stress and anxiety).

I honestly think obesity is more to do with processed foods, lack of exercise, convenience type food and shopping and above everything I think people these days often work relentless hours, often all adults work so it's hard to make healthy unprocessed meals regularly and we end up with food on the run

Alcohol, fizzy drinks etc don't help either

I think the obesity crisis is a complex issue including lack of knowledge about cooking healthily, availability and pricing of fresh food, availability and pricing of processed foods on offer, marketing of 'healthy' foods like cereal bars, culture, people being busy and stressed, people using food to deal with other issues, lack of time for exercise, etc etc etc. I dont think giving chocolate buttons when potty training is the single root cause

Cakes. Bake Off. Cooking programmes. More cooking programmes.

I think the root of the obesity crisis are far too complex to be condensed into one simple explanation.

Poverty, eating disorders, other MH issues, medical conditions whose treatment and effects cause obesity on the rise... There are myriad reasons and there is no one handy explanation.

Cooking programmes. More cooking programmes.

The numbers actually cooking anything based on that are low, so I don’t see how that has much of an impact.

All the convenience food is far more problematic.

@LaurieMarlow
Is that a fact or an opinion? If it's a fact could you reference your sources?