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.

Judge people in the street, etc.? No. I have extended family with a very overweight child though and I do judge them. Both parents are overweight and seem to take pride in never cooking. It’s all takeaway food or microwave or frozen food. They have a huge amount of rubbish in their house. A cupboard full of crisps, chocolates, sweets and biscuits with lots of fizzy drinks constantly on the go. Their daughter was a heavy baby at birth but looking back at photos, by three months she was huge. She’s two now and is wearing age 6-7 clothes. She’s got breasts, a huge tummy and can’t run around like her peers. It’s really sad. They live an incredibly sedentary life. Their house is almost sterile and they don’t allow her to play outside in case she gets dirty. They came to visit us for Sunday lunch one day. They were about an hour early and she was hungry. I offered fruit as a snack because we’re not really a snack household but that was rejected. She wanted biscuits or ice cream, which I didn’t have but I caught her father going through my freezer in case I was hiding some.

I caught her father going through my freezer in case I was hiding some

🤣😂🤣

A two year old wearing age 6-7 clothes ??? That's shocking

I was thinking about this thread yesterday.

Dd is 8, her best friend at school is very overweight. She struggles to keep up with the other children in the park, her mum is always saying how she has to buy her adult size
clothes (she’s a very tall child too).

He mum started walking to school this week instead of driving as she wants some exercise, they live about ten mins further away than we do and pass our house on the way, dd loves that she can now walk in with her friend.

Only, when we get to the playground, her mum dishes her out a bar of chocolate to eat to get her energy up for school after the walk.

I don’t judge her mum. She clearly adores her daughter and thinks she is doing the best thing for her. Shes not had the best or healthiest up bringing herself from what she’s told me, but I see that other parents in the playground do judge.

It’s hard to know what to say really.

I was very overweight child myself, my mother over fed me.

She was obsessed with children being “big” and healthy. She used to weigh me and always wanted me to be heavier.

But then she would belittle me and embarrass me in front of people for eating too much and being fat (I was a child, she was making me eat).

So I always have that in my head. some parents don’t know any better, some parents are just fucking weird.

I am sorry but how soft do you want it to be when sending a fucking letter telling parents 'hey you have a problem' sets off 'there's nothing wrong with my child' nonsense

I think letters should start with a case study of an obese child that has type 2 diabetes and is in the process of loosing a limb or their eyesight. To many people think diabetes it can be easily treated and therefore has no consequences for their childres health! And yet, reducing weight can revert type 2 diabetes.

My son is overweight. It concerns me. He is given the same food as his sister who is tiny and has abs of steel. He's also constantly hungry and is constantly wanting more.

She does do more exercise definitely (she's a gymnast) . He does football and swimming.

He's at that point where he looks fine dressed (just looks sturdy) but with clothes off there is definitely fat. I constantly worry about it.

DH was fat as a child. I wasn't. DH says he's got his 'build' and natural tendency to put on weight just by smelling a piece of toast!

@whatkatydid2013

So I am very overweight and I have 2 daughters. One is comfortably in normal weight range and always has been. One is overweight and has been getting there since she started school. She grew without gaining weight through lockdown 1 and was getting to a healthier weight but has reverted since. With both children I was very careful about what they ate when smaller. I ensure we always have 3-4 veg in dinner they can help themselves to with a portion of potato/rice/pasta and a portion of stew or chicken or fishfingers or whatever we are having as the protein element. We generally have snacks of fruit, oatcakes, veg sticks & baby bell. A couple of times a week we will have a puddding or sweets/crisps as a snack and a couple of times a month we get takeaway pizza or go out for a meal. Differences I notice between my kids are that one will sometimes eat dinner, sometimes not and if there is pudding will leave her main so she can eat all the pudding. Overweight one pretty much always eats all her dinner and often says she is hungry and asks for more. This is fine at home as we just direct her to the vegetables and tell her she can have as many as she likes. It’s not fine in other situations (asking for more food at school, at friends house if invited for tea, at her grandparents who won’t accept they are hurting her by giving her whatever she asks for, at birthday parties with a buffet etc). I really don’t know how to fix it. God knows we have tried as I was also an overweight child and it’s not something I want for her but short of banning her from doing anything with her friends, making a huge fuss at school, falling out with my parents horribly what else can we do? I can’t make her not ask for food and if I try and explain people should say no it’s all gone now &/or only offer more greens etc then they think I’m being mean and in some cases make a point of offering her crap because she’s so deprived by me. It’s not like she is sedentary either. We always walk to/from school, swim twice a week, she does sports session as after school care once a week, goes out on long bike rides with her dad and we are regularly out for long walks and go to play park or play out in the street. I know people judge me but honestly suspect they assume she eats nothing but junk or is constantly being offered snacks/allowed to do nothing but watch tv. I really sympathise with her as I always used to feel hungry when I was a child as well. I’ll be reading back through to look for any helpful suggestions someone has left but suspect it will be the usual pile of comments about how people can’t help not knowing how to feed their kids as they are poor/ill educated (I’m neither) and accusations of abuse (always nice to read)

As regarding the exercise it sounds like you’re over-estimating how much she does. Is the walk from school a long walk? Unless she’s exercising most days, enough to br out of breath, she’s probably not doing enough to counteract the extra food. Rather than saying no to food what about talking to your family about portion sizes and no-one has extra?

@Startingtomoveon

Yes and no. If it was my DC becoming overweight I would be seriously overhauling their diet, if need be, and ensuring exercise was a priority as a family. A girl my DS(6) went to nursery with is in his class and she was very overweight at 3, and is still very overweight at 7. Her mum said she has always been obsessed with eating, whereas her two older DC aren’t and are a healthy weight. If it were me I would have tried to address this at 3, and sought GP help if necessary.

Maybe I’m biased because I was a skinny child who suddenly blew up like a balloon at 10. I was never bullied by anyone except my parents, whose relentless bullying about what I looked like have affected me throughout adulthood. They just piled the blame on me, when they did nothing to help - they were the ones providing all meals, and never encouraged exercise.

When it’s children who are overweight I believe it is the adults around them who need to guide them to healthy choices, and ensure that they set an example themselves.

Do you realise that GP's literally don't care? I've lost track of how many doctors I've spoken to about my son's weight (he has numerous medical conditions) Each one is disinterested and just says, well, he's tall, he's not massively overweight, he will grow into it etc etc.

Even my son asks me, Why am I constantly hungry? He's literally obsessed with food whereas I have to almost force my daughter to eat.Every day I"m battling with what to give him that will satisfy his hunger without adding too many calories . It's exhausting.

He's a good 2 stone heavier than his sister who is a year older. He's also significantly taller, size 5 feet. He's 7. I haven't weighed him for a while, but would estimate he's at least 6 and a half stone.

I would imagine most people who are judging have only children like my daughter, lovely and slim and never puts weight on. It's easy to say what you would do unless you're actually living it.

@LexMitior

Its easy to forget just how unusual it was to be overweight 40 years ago. It has been totally normalised in the UK, but I remember the jokes about the Americans and the Germans. Augustus Gloop as the boy who could not stop eating and was punished.

You see other new problems too - eating out is one.The portion sizes are bigger and bigger. People actually eat all of what is on their plate; that's likely to much more than you need. What is the purpose of these places?

Get you fat, you will come back.

That is literally the business model of McDonalds, dunkin donuts, KFC et al. They know. They know that most of their business comes from repeat customers. Not a few people that have takeaway as a treat. Regular customers of these places end up with fatty livers, like foie gras. No you can't see it but it is inside you. It exploits people but once you know about it fast food should be shunned. Its designed to exploit people, really.

Talking about Augustus Gloop - this really surprised me when I saw it recently

@ihavespoken
I reckon that’s bit tweaked a little though.
The original Augustus was clearly overweight, if you watch the original footage.

That is shocking @ihavespoken

[quote lightisnotwhite]@ihavespoken
I reckon that’s bit tweaked a little though.
The original Augustus was clearly overweight, if you watch the original footage.[/quote]
I think that’s the point though! He is overweight but to todays eyes he doesn’t look out of the ordinary

I try and focus my energy on teaching my child to be kind and never bully others rather than focusing on judging other parents.

@ihavespoken sorry I meant that photo has been tweaked because he looks sturdy not particularly fat there.

In the film he has definitely has double chins and chubby thighs. Clearly not on the scale of the modern film but no doubt he’s the fat kid. Also the old Augustus is meant to fit what was the prevailing German stereotype ; over fed, over indulged but physically big and strong ( he’s tall)
He’s not meant to obese and out of control like the modern Augustus.
The American is a boy is obsessed with TV not food. The problem with American kids of the time.

@lightisnotwhite ah I see - that makes sense ☺️

I do, yes. The young children I know who are overweight have at least one vastly overweight parent. It’s so sad though because I find the parent probably has such a skewed idea of portions, diet, weight etc that they don’t realise their child is overweight. They see it as “puppy fat”, “cute belly” etc, and to be honest it’s not so noticeable when the child is 4, 5, even 6. But it starts to be noticeable, by which case it might be too late.

“ As regarding the exercise it sounds like you’re over-estimating how much she does. Is the walk from school a long walk? Unless she’s exercising most days, enough to br out of breath, she’s probably not doing enough to counteract the extra food.”

Well to be honest however much or little exercise she is doing it clearly doesn’t make a difference. We walk 10-15 mins each way to school depending on route & then she has PE Monday, Wednesday and Friday, an hour in the park or running around one of the houses or between several with friends on Monday & Thursday evening, swimming Tuesday & Friday evening (stage 5 so swimming lengths all 4 strokes), ball sports for an hour at after school club on Wednesday. One weekend day we will have an active day. Often we go all together to a national trust place or the beach and have a long walk (typically a couple of hours). If weather is awful we go to soft play and then to the climbing wall or for an extra swim. Once or twice a month she does a bike ride with her dad (they do a route of anything 8-15 miles). If not going on a long ride we all do a shorter one (about 3 miles round trip) along the coast together as long as it’s not awful weather. If it’s awful weather then we do nothing on a Sunday bar having a bit of dancing along to Disney or some hula hooping. I think it’s a reasonable amount of activity and certainly it’s more than many of her friends do so I really think the issue is always wanting something else to eat vs activity. Maybe I’m wrong and others are doing lots more clubs and things. Sadly that’s just not a viable option as by the time we collect them we only have an hour spare and then it’s time for tea, bath, schoolwork and bed