To ask if you judge the parents of overweight children

[PaddleBoardingMomma]

At school pick up today I noticed a new girl in my daughters class was in the line waiting to be collected.

She is a very heavy set little girl, they are all in year 1, so still very young but this particular child looked far bigger and sadly really stood out. I found myself feeling so sad, wondering if she will settle in OK and then irrationally annoyed at her parents for putting her in that position.

I was quite a chubby child for some of my school years and recall the taunts vividly, it made my school experience pretty horrible so I think I have quite a skewed view on this in fairness, it hits a nerve.

I had a word with myself for being judgemental and not knowing the situation and I know it's non of my business, but I wondered if I'm just a horrible person or if anyone else feels a pang of sadness for these kids and (rightly or wrongly) finds themselves blaming/ judging the parents.

Obesity in adults is no more a ‘choice’ than being poor is.

What an utterly depressing idea. If you're telling people that there is no way to control their weight then you are being completely disingenuous.

Weight isn't magic. If you are overweight and put on a low calorie diet you will lose weight over time. It's just physics. There is very little difference in metabolic rate between people - in fact you'll burn more calories in a larger body than a smaller one.

Telling people that there is nothing that they can do about their weight is harmful. We all have agency and things are more difficult for some people than others, but everyone can learn to make healthier choices.

@azimuth299

Obesity in adults is no more a ‘choice’ than being poor is.

What an utterly depressing idea. If you're telling people that there is no way to control their weight then you are being completely disingenuous.

Weight isn't magic. If you are overweight and put on a low calorie diet you will lose weight over time. It's just physics. There is very little difference in metabolic rate between people - in fact you'll burn more calories in a larger body than a smaller one.

Telling people that there is nothing that they can do about their weight is harmful. We all have agency and things are more difficult for some people than others, but everyone can learn to make healthier choices.

Superbly put.

PCOS either causes or is caused by insulin resistance and a massive symptom of PCOS is weight gain.. if you knew anything about PCOS beyond what you just found on Wikipedia you’d know that.

Yes I do.
My friend's child is overweight- the boy is one year younger then my child and my friend thinks it's amazing how big he is.
And always seems proud that her boy is the sturdy one.
The boy eats proper adult portions, always snacking.
The sad thing is that whilst my son is having healthy weight and have no problem to endlessly run , climb on the climbing frames at the playground , her child is breathless, cannot climb, don't want walk etc.

@azimuth299

Obesity in adults is no more a ‘choice’ than being poor is.

What an utterly depressing idea. If you're telling people that there is no way to control their weight then you are being completely disingenuous.

Weight isn't magic. If you are overweight and put on a low calorie diet you will lose weight over time. It's just physics. There is very little difference in metabolic rate between people - in fact you'll burn more calories in a larger body than a smaller one.

Telling people that there is nothing that they can do about their weight is harmful. We all have agency and things are more difficult for some people than others, but everyone can learn to make healthier choices.

Who’s saying there’s nothing you can do to lose weight?? I’m certainly not having lost 8st over 2 years.

What I’m saying is the CAUSES of weight gain are wide ranging and not all due to moral failings or personal ill discipline, and that judging people based on their weight is grim, not that there aren’t solutions.

Yes I feel for these kids as there’s not just a lot of playground taunting but the risk of adult obesity which brings with it so many health problems. Might be a tiny minority with obesity caused by medical reasons but the majority they are eating too much and moving too little, which is something controlled by the parent

Kids like adults come in all different shapes and sizes. Some just put weight on easily eating the same stuff as another child who would burn it off more quickly. You can just look at a kid and tell if they have the 'fat gene' or not. I have it, my dd doesn't and remains svelte despite having a terrible diet. Judge away, except you wouldn't because she doesn't look at all fat.

I try not to judge. I was an overweight child and was always so cross with my parents as a adult for letting me get like that and wouldn't believe my mother when she said she tried her best but I always found a way to eat. I vowed to never let it happen to my children so I got help from health visitors to make sure I wasn't over feeding and was giving the correct portion size, we don't have junk food in the house, every meal is cooked from scratch and treats e.g cake or sweets are for after school on Friday or special occasions. We are a active outdoors family and the children all play hockey, netball, swimming, and cricket and yet somehow one of my daughters is getting bigger and bigger, she is obsessed with food, I found out one of her friends (who is morbidly obese at the age of 9) is bringing food into school for her, one day she ate on top of her packed lunch a full size twix, two snicker bars a bag of pop corn and a kinder egg. She also has no stop button and if she's left to her own devices she will eat until she vomits. I am literally at a loss with what to do and feel judged.

I should add my other children are slim and are on or just under the 50th percentile.

@TakemedowntoPotatoCity

Kids like adults come in all different shapes and sizes. Some just put weight on easily eating the same stuff as another child who would burn it off more quickly. You can just look at a kid and tell if they have the 'fat gene' or not. I have it, my dd doesn't and remains svelte despite having a terrible diet. Judge away, except you wouldn't because she doesn't look at all fat.

This is exactly the problem with the attitudes here.

You’re not judging someone for making poor choices in what they feed their kids because in most cases you have absolutely no idea what someone is feeding them. What you’re actually doing is looking at an overweight child and making an immediate assumption that the parents are feeding them pizza and chicken nuggets and nothing else. Although not if the parents are thin, apparently. If the parents are thin then you assume it’s a medical issue with the child and that’s fine. Fat parents don’t have children with metabolic diseases, they just mainline them sugar from birth. Nothing to do with the overwhelming evidence that metabolic diseases affect 1 in 4 and are genetic...

Absolutely batshit.

I don't think badly or judge the individual parents, mainly because if I don't know them I won't know their situation, and if I do know them well I would probably know or at least be able to take a guess at the reason behind the weight.
I do however judge society, as in I am unhappy that the changes in society have meant that the type of food we eat and the amount we move/exercise are not in balance and therefore we are creating an unhealthy generation.

What I’m saying is the CAUSES of weight gain are wide ranging and not all due to moral failings or personal ill discipline, and that judging people based on their weight is grim, not that there aren’t solutions.

But I don't think that anybody is blaming the child's moral failings, just saying that 99 times out of 100 a child is overweight because they are overfed. Nobody is judging the child, they are judging the parent who is overfeeding the child.

@Slowfoxfast

How do you know they don't have a medical condition like Prader-Willi Syndrome, for example?

From the website for the Prader-Willi Syndrome charity: "Every year in the UK, there are about 35 children born with PWS."

So yes, they could, but it's vanishingly unlikely. There are roughly 650,000 - 800,000 children born every year in the UK (it's been quite up and down in recent years, understandably). That's not to say that it's not a terrible disease for those who have it (and their families), but it really isn't a likely explanation for childhood obesity.

I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been obese really can understand how truly hard it is to change. I agree for a lot of people without underlying medical conditions it -is- a choice to be obese when you’re an adult…you choose what to put in your mouth….but it’s not as simple as just eating less and moving more. It’s a mental challenge….the hardest challenge of your life and I think for me it’s almost like being an alcoholic….if you’ve been conditioned from childhood to over eat everyday is a battle against your own negative thoughts and it’s a lifelong problem because you can’t just stop eating food or cut ties with all your friends / relatives who feel better about their weight problems by trying to get you to conform to their way of eating.

Judge away, except you wouldn't because she doesn't look at all fat.

Well... Yes.... That's sort of the point. Without getting just plain stupid and trying to guess how healthy someone is on the inside, this is clearly about obesity. Identified by said person looking obese.

If your DD was obese, most people would judge.

Because most children are obese because their parents control their food and exercise, and the combination the parent is providing, is resulting in an obese child.

Your DD isn't judged because she's not obese. If you continue with her "terrible diet" and she becomes a little overweight, would you address that? Or just keep plying her with this diet until she became obese. If you choose the latter, you don't think people should be judgemental about the health implications you are deliberately inflicting on a child and their future?

I don't know if anyone else has seen the ads for On the Beach holidays? Family of four, 2 kids, girl about 8 and brother probably around 10. Girl is slim. Boy obviously overweight, but focus is on him. They show him practically drooling over the free buffet in the private airport lounge. Double chin. Then in the next ad, his sister drops her ice cream and he's rubbing it in by making a show of how much he's enjoying his, right in her face. Parents are a bit overweight but not as much as the child, and when the mum strips off to jump in the pool the dad has a look in his eye to show he still fancies her.

I thought they were going down the Dove route, not choosing the most photogenic family, with perfect physiques, but the way it's coming across is that the boy is overweight because he loves his food, but that's OK because he's got a great personality and isn't self-conscious about how he looks.

Can't help thinking they've got this wrong. That's going to be a v unhappy teenager if he's allowed to carry on like that.

@DollyDingleberry so you think that rates of metabolic disease have soared over a generation and account for the rapid rise in childhood obesity? Give over.

Some children are actually overweight due to medical reasons. I know of two in my children's classes. One is on medication that is keeping them alive and weight gain is a side effect. I wouldn't judge to be honest.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@DollyDingleberry so you think that rates of metabolic disease have soared over a generation and account for the rapid rise in childhood obesity? Give over.[/quote]
I know, she also thinks you have no choice whether you are obese or not.

@azimuth299

What I’m saying is the CAUSES of weight gain are wide ranging and not all due to moral failings or personal ill discipline, and that judging people based on their weight is grim, not that there aren’t solutions.

But I don't think that anybody is blaming the child's moral failings, just saying that 99 times out of 100 a child is overweight because they are overfed. Nobody is judging the child, they are judging the parent who is overfeeding the child.

But that’s exactly the point - you have no idea if the child is over fed or not and your assumption that 99% of fat people are just over eating is wildly inaccurate. 1 in 4 people are affected by metabolic diseases at some point in their lives and they are genetic. Largely, weight directly correlates to the level of reaction in the production of insulin in response to the consumption of carbohydrate. Those who produce more insulin in reaction to the consumption of carbs are genetically predisposed to put on more weight. This was researched and irrefutably proved in the 1930’s, 70’s and again in 2010, 2015 and more recently in 2018. It was on the cover of Time. Our modern, carb rich diets are killing us.

What do we tell parents to feed their overweight kids? High carb, low fat diets. Calories are only a very small part of the problem, hormones are the rest.

Seriously, Taubes.

@Mariposista

I judge without shame. It's disgusting when an adult buys and eats junk and does no exercise and ends up with health problems that the good old health service has to mop up, and potentially leaving them vulnerable to covid too so we healthy people all have to shield them, but to allow a child to get fat is unforgivable. YOU buy the junk as the parent, YOU allow screens, YOU allow TV, YOU are to blame.

Agreed! It’s utterly shameful!

[quote Porcupineintherough]@DollyDingleberry so you think that rates of metabolic disease have soared over a generation and account for the rapid rise in childhood obesity? Give over.[/quote]
YES. Exactly this. The predisposition to metabolic disease has not changed, but our dietary changes since 1964 have meant a massive increase in symptomatic metabolic disease (t2 diabetes, PCOS, dementia etc etc) because when our diets were largely low carb, lower in sugar and higher in fat the manifestation of metabolic diseases was far less prevalent.

You need to research Ancel Keys, the 7 countries study and how flawed it was at the time and now. You also need to look at how our diets changed based on it and what a terrible decision that was.

Honestly, read up. It’s really interesting stuff and you’d really benefit from better understanding how metabolic disease causes obesity and vice versa.

Believe me I have tried giving 're a better diet,seen nutritionists etc. But she will only eat a few things (ASD). Luckily she does have some veg (lettuce, carrots) and a little fruiting not much. I try....

I think you have every choice whether you are obese or not. I don’t think anyone actively chooses to BE obese.

Those 2 things are very different.