To think we’ve lost sight of what a healthy child’s weight should be?

[Winniethepoohandtiggertoo]

Walking through town today as kids were leaving school and I was quite shocked by the size of them (primary kids). But then I noticed that so many of them were overweight that in a way it isn’t surprising that maybe their parents haven’t noticed or realised there is a problem? When I was little kids were skinny things, now it seems the norm for them to be built like shot-putters! I know a few parents with overweight children but they insist they’re ‘strong’ or ‘solid’, or ‘they run around so much they just burn it off’. When so many kids look like theirs it probably isn’t surprising they think that?

I hate threads like this, they always descend into a smug bashing of parents who let their kids get overweight, as if it's just a case of shit parenting rather than a societal problem.

Nothing will change until people can afford a healthy balanced diet and have enough time to even think about what their eating and cook from scratch. If you are skint/time poor the cheapest/quickest way to eat is lots of processed white carbs and sugar.

It is really sad and it is definitely getting worse (the stats are clear). On a societal level it is not an easy one to fix as the problems are nuanced and complicated and involve societal forces and powerful industries.
And it's very easy to blame individuals rather than the snack/sugar industry, the supermarkets, poverty and inequality etc.
Of course there is some individual responsibility (and that is a tough one to crack) but the way so many deeply unhealthy snacks and foods are deliberately targeted and marketed at children is abhorrent. They are literally marketing disease and they hide behind phrases like 'should only be eaten as part of a balanced diet' or 'enjoy responsibly'. If we genuinely only ate highly processed/sugar laden food once a month the rates of type 2 Diabetes would plummet - but then so would the business models of Walkers, Cadburys, McDonalds, chicken shops, the big supermarkets etc.

It also applies to adults.

I am short, and small framed.

I have had some comments about being 'too thin' yet I'm the same size I was as a teen (now in my early 60s.) I also have some belly fat, so I'm not skinny.

Any weight I put on would be fat and round my middle.

I also get fed up with people saying I am 'lucky' (to be slim) when in fact it's just hard work, not over eating and doing exercise.

I agree with you OP.

When I was at school, there was usually one 'fatty' in the class of 30. And yes, that's what they were called as they stood out as being the odd one.

Things have changed.

I think exercise is a misconception. It doesn’t have anything like the effect people think it does on weight - a kid can ‘run around all day’ but if they’re eating too much food, the wrong food or snacking, they can be overweight. Food is the main issue here, exercise is very much secondary to that.

It’s something I’ve been more aware of since my older one hit puberty. He was never overweight in primary school, and really quite skinny at times, but he gained weight over the last year or so and doesn’t like it himself. He is by no means huge, and many of his friends look bigger or the same as him, but he goes to the gym now and is reducing unhealthy foods. He doesn’t find it easy.

My younger one is still in primary school, and is among the slimmer kids, but I know now that can change fairly easily and am more mindful of exercise, snacking and poor food choices.

I hate threads like this, they always descend into a smug bashing of parents who let their kids get overweight, as if it's just a case of shit parenting rather than a societal problem.

well, given that parents are buying the food and giving it to their kids, it IS their responsibility!

You see them in the supermarket, with litres of coke or fizzy drinks in the trolley and a load of processed crap.

It might be lack of education behind it, but there is so much out there on healthy eating, it's hard to understand why so many people just 'don't get it'.

Why do these posts always say "WE have lost sight of what healthy weight looks like" when what you mean is "YOU are all greedy disgusting pigs and I am soooo healthy."

@Rememberal do they have the same portion sizes though? Do you give her the ice cream? Another issue is portion sizes, kids don’t seem to have ‘child portions’ any more.

And yes I agree about the snacking there always seems to be an endless supply of babybels, bananas and grapes on hand!

I've checked and my son is at the top end of healthy BMI but he's off the scale for height and wears age 6-7 at almost 5. He's very long torso and you can see the outline of his ribs. He tipped I to overweight after mil started having him a day a week while I worked

Normal day he has

Bf- toast, fruit, milk
Snack- yoghurt
Lunch- cheese sandwich, carrot sticks, apple
Snack- fruit and biscuit
Dinner- homemade chilli, rice, few tortilla chips
Suoper- milk and banana

Nursery days lunch is a hot meal and snacks are pretty similar.

When she has him if left to her own devices

Bf-toast, cereal, box of raisins, offers a croissant
Snack- crisps, chocolate, biscuits (not either or, all)
Lunch- McDonald's AND not just a happy mean she also orders extra fries, extra nuggets so he has extra and offers ice cream
Afternoon- takes him to a cafe for cake
Dinner-if we've left a healthy lunch and insisted on it she gets h a McDonald's so he's had that before we can offer dinner

He literally is turning down snacks and 1 days she gave him 4 fruit shoots. We've had a serious chat with her and proof shall be in the pudding next week This kid on à normal day if he gets sweets it's 3 jelly babies, she'll hand him a sharing bag. She's seriously obese (and I'm overweight so I'm not criticising but it's relevant). We're hoping nursery will have the extra day available soon and thankfully either way he'll be at school in August but if a child was fed like she feeds him every day they'd be massively obese.

I’ve got a 6 year old who looks like the class TA. Over 98th centile for height, size 3 shoes, wears 8-9 clothes. Doesn’t seem fat but is just enormous. Teeters on overweight BMI. I do watch it with him. My brother is 6ft 7 and has a similar body type so assuming it’s genetic. Then the 11 year old who has always been a bag of bones except now he has become very muscly. Defined abs etc. Low end of normal BMI. Fed and raised the same.

One thing is I did have GD in my second pregnancy and I do sometimes wonder if it has an effect on DS2. It’s getting much more common now.

People definitely have no idea what's normal or healthy now. A lady I know tried to insist to her 4 years old was healthy sized. He weighed 4st at 4 years old and was stuffing 2 ice creams in his mouth at the time. He is now 8 and so fat he can't run and wears adult clothes. My eldest is under weight, my middle and younger a healthy weight but I know the middle one could get podgy if we didn't monitor and limit his mindless eating. They are all active kids but me and DH are active and within a healthy BMI.

I see so many kids and young people who are seriously over weight though and the body positive movement has done a huge disservice to our health and mind. I am prepared to get flamed for that but hear me out.

Body positivity is wonderful and I fully embrace it. I wish i had more body confidence when I was younger but obesity is not body positivity. It is dangerous for your health, costs the NHS millions a year and kills people. Body positivity to me is about healthy and active bodies, embracing our stretch marks, our scars, our cellulite, eating healthy to let our bodies run well and exercising so we let your bodies burn fuel and support our mental health. It is not getting so fat that you can barely move and are going to die young. Woman in general have curves which are beautiful and how we are built but obesity kills and there is a huge difference between curves and layers of fat.

I hate threads like this, they always descend into a smug bashing of parents who let their kids get overweight, as if it's just a case of shit parenting rather than a societal problem.

I wouldn’t call it shit parenting but ‘society’ doesn’t cook your meals every night - if you’re a child then your parents do. There has to be a bit of personal responsibility somewhere, it serves nobody for everyone to just blame each other but essentially only the parents can do something about it.

I don’t think it should be normal or acceptable to be overweight - I think it needs open discussion and not the be the elephant in the room that it is.

@Forgooodnesssakenow see to me even his diet when he is with you has too many snacks and carbs. BMI takes height into account so will be adjusting for that, so a ‘top end’ yet tall child is still in the same position as a shorter ‘top end’ child.

My daughter definitely flirts with being underweight. She's usually somewhere between 2nd and 5th BMI centile depending on growth spurt phase. The problem is that the healthy eating talk in school means (at 7) that she asks if her food is healthy and will happily leave half a portion of cake... I can always tell when she's about to shoot up as she suddenly starts eating all the food and demanding more!

DS eats more and I'm always surprised he's not overweight - his hips are narrow compared with his shoulders and ribs (broader than 7 year old) so we keep an eye on him far more than her.

“I don’t think it should be normal or acceptable to be overweight - I think it needs open discussion and not the be the elephant in the room that it is.”

yes worried OPs of threads like this always think it’s now “acceptable” to be overweight. Everyone knows it isn’t. Everyone who is overweight knows it isn’t. It’s ok, you don’t need to worry that all the overweight people out there think it is acceptable, they know everyone thinks it isn’t

there are millions of threads like this, they are all the same, there is no elephant in the room here

Yabu for starting yet another thread on it and kicking off all the wailing about how to be healthy kids have to be rake thin.

Dd2 is in year 6 has just been weighed/ measured and her bmi percentile is 50%. She isn’t skinny at all, but nicely rounded and muscly but slim, obviously. Dd1 has always been skinny and was more like 25%. If your child was 85% and within healthy then I doubt there would be ribs on show unless your child was a particularly odd build.

@BiasedBinding I don’t think ‘everyone knows’ it is unacceptable to be overweight (but in particular children). That’s what this thread is about, that there are so many overweight children now I can see how it must be hard to spot or accept your child is overweight when they look like most of their friends/peers.

Maybe stop staring at and judging other people’s kids?

We already have - it’s so normal to be overweight nobody stares any more. That’s my point!

YANBU. We've lost sight of what a healthy weight is for children and adults.

All this body positivity of morbidly obese celebs and influencers.

What's positive about wrecking your heart and joints.

I have to wear grey trousers to work and often buy kids school ones. They are getting bigger and the correct height ones for me are too big on the waist etc now.

I think it's really sad. I see a young boy who lives down my road walking to school. His Mum is obese, as is his Dad and so is he. He tries to run down the road and it looks so hard for him and he can't run far. I feel so sorry for him. He's being set up for a life time of issues.

I've checked and my son is at the top end of healthy BMI but he's off the scale for height and wears age 6-7 at almost 5.

It quite clearly as a measure doesn’t work properly for very tall kids as they will be wider, basic maths. It also doesn’t work for girls who go through puberty early.

BMI isn’t the precision tool you think it is. Again with the judgy comments.

Can we stop apply MN competitive under-eating to kids now too?

It’s even worse in the US. We were there recently and I couldn’t believe the levels of added sugar in so-called baby and toddler food like yoghurts etc. We are definitely going in that direction.

The kids centile calculator isn't quite the same as an adult calculator. Being over 91st centile for weight means you're overweight regardless of height. Try entering details and even if your child is the height of an 8 yr old they're overweight if they're 5. But if you change the age to 8 they're fine

I was in school in the 60s and it was very rare to see a fat child, I can recall one.

Being a teenager in the 70s was definitely different to now, snacking was not a thing, our family had sweets only on a Sunday, and my friends and I were all about a size 10/12, an overweight teenager was seen as an oddity, for want of a better word, in those days.

I read an article long ago somewhere that statistics showed that when McDonalds arrived in the UK (mid 80s?) that was the start of the change in how we ate and it snowballed from there until where we are now.

When you think of how a whole aisle in some supermarkets will be dedicated to just crisps and nuts and our sburys has the longest aisle for biscuits - it’s a lot harder these days to ignore the treat stuff, shops are just full of it. I have no idea what the answer is.