To be shocked at the level of obesity of British children?

[MEM00]

Having recently come back from holiday I found myself really shocked by the size of so many other British kids at the resort we were at. It was mostly a mix of British, French and German families and I found it impossible to not notice the difference in the British kids compared to others. DD is 8 and I would say average sized, by no means skinny. She made friends with another girl the same age by the pool, and i'm not joking when i say the other girl must have been twice the size when they were next to each other.

Am i overthinking this? Because it really makes me worry for the future.

This isn't intended by be 'fat shaming' in any way btw.

Yet the op saw these children on holiday along with French and German children which suggests she was abroad.
So it sounds like these parents have their priorities wrong if they are spending money on foreign holidays not proper food.

PE has not been 'cut' in schools. It is, generally, the lack of activity outside of school that is the issue. Not enough playing out, not enough walking, not enough sport/physical games.

Schools are not responsible for everything.

Just got back from Spain and I thought the same. Also I live in a cul de sac and see my neighbours children playing out the front, most of them are very overweight.
One neighbour I speak to who is overweight herself buys her primary school age daughter a kebab or KFC every weekday for her dinner, she has said it's down to lack of time but I think it's neglectful, the daughter is 10 years old and a adult size 14.
I don't think it's down to money either, I was a single mum on working tax credits for years so very little money, my son's diet looked like...
Banana and yogurt for breakfast
School lunch or sandwich/fruit/biscuit
Dinner spag bowl or jacket potato and beans.
Snacks Fruut/cereal bars/ice lolly.
A cheap diet that keeps you full and doesn't take lots of time to prepare. We also walked everywhere.

Or just scrambled egg on toast with peas/sweetcorn/fruit/yoghurt? Which is even quicker than a pizza.

i saw a load of secondary schoolers with short skirts and fat legs, however the following day i saw another load with skinny legs.

I saw so many obese children on holiday in Cyprus. All inclusive and they were allowed to fill their plates up with pizza and beige food and go back for seconds/thirds. Parents need to be the ones to regulate the food, children can't do it themselves.

A first school? Is that a Primary school? I mean I thought the food was bad at Primary but at least there was some salad and veg included with every meal. And they had one dessert.

It's a whole new ball game at Secondary. I've looked on the menu and they do as an example of main meal offerings over a week:
Bacon baguette
Pizza
Sausage and mash
Chicken goujons
Burgers
Macaroni cheese
Pasta Bake
Spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs
Chicken and rice
Chicken curry and Bombay potatoes
Breaded fish
Fish fingers
With sides of:
Garlic bread
Seasonal vegetables
Spring rolls
Chips
Jacket potatoes

So junk food heavy. But what you don't at first realise is this is only offered in one area. There are multiple places they can get lunch as too many to go through the main canteen. At these places everyday they offer:
Cheap pre-made sandwiches
Sausage rolls
Pizza
Cheese paninis
Hot dogs
Chips (and cheesy chips)
Doughnuts
Brownies
Cakes
Cookies
Waffles...all of multiple kinds!

Then the vending machines are full of soft drinks!

And these 'grab and go' options are not just available at lunch but at break too and some at breakfast too!

It's a scandal!

I think nutrition knowledge is seriously lacking across all layers of the society. Feeding yourself properly is a life skill but it's not being taught well at school. In most grocery stores junk food section is bigger than fruit and vegetables section. Fast food / easy food is typically high sugar / salt / calories and not nutrient dense. Lots of attractive packaging with superheroes appealing to kids on junk food, but none or very little of that for healthier food.

Yep.

My DD gets picked on for being skinny.

By NHS calculations she's a healthy weight and has never been in the underweight category.

She's hard to buy for as she's tall for her age but also pretty narrow. Unsurprisingly we do well for her in European clothing shops.

In her class photo for the year now while there aren't any children who stand out as 'fat' there are plenty who I'd class as overweight/chubby and I'd say the majority are 'well built' which in reality is overweight for kids they should have visible ribs etc.

That being said I'm overweight (size 14) and a lot of the kids in DDs class have mums who aren't overweight so it's not necessarily down to overweight parents = overweight kids.

At my DD's school lunch us at 12.50 so it's not late but they still have loads of junk available at break and before school for breakfast too.

See this is why I'm thinking it makes more sense for a bigger meal at lunchtime. Smaller lighter meals are easier to quickly cobble together when it's the evening and you're knackered.

Quite. The point is that the availability of these foods are in abundance, and lots of children are more likely to respond more favourably to the pizza, if that is what they are accustomed to, in the first place. And some parents who are time poor are more likely to purchase these things, with scant regard to the nutritional content. How many times on here have I seen "fed is best" etc..

Is your kid fat?

I never seen that! It would be the size of their head! 😂 I'm probably not observant enough. But it was always a mini milk for a toddler when mine were small...and beyond, tbh. Me and my friend's teen kids always joke now how we only ever got them mini milks even when they were way beyond toddler hood!

That's not necessarily true. H and I are both overweight. Not hugely and definitely not obese but could definitely be healthier and we're pushing eachother to work on it. Combination of sloppy eating, poor sleep and bad choices to fuel us through the sleepless baby nights.

I'm back to work now after natbleave and the weight is falling off.

Point is ... while we are overweight our children are not. Dc1 in ordinary school is underweight for his height and age and fit as fuck due to sports training that he's in. The baby is a perfectly chubby 50 centile for weight and 98th for length. I'm sure baby will shed that puppy fat once more mobile and running.

We consulted the gp after the primary school bmi check as dc1 was charted as below the 2nd centile for weight. Gp dismissed us with laugh saying he was healthy and children are meant to be lanky and skinny. We've lost sight of what's normal for what children should look like.

Just because H and I are overweight doesn't mean we are raising unhealthy or overweight children. We've both made bad choices (and that's literally on us) as adults but ensure our children are fed and are having the right amount of exercise and very limited screen time.

I think we have all come to think that every meal should be a feast too. It's now totally normal to have fajitas with the tortilla chips, guacamole, dips, etcetc
also think curry with naan bread, poppadums etc

When I was growing up, having all the sides was probably just a christmas or special occasion thing

Basic meals like egg on toast, or beans and Jacket potato , soup, are seen as too simple or light, when in fact, scrambled egg on toast is the right amount of calories

sounds like senior school dinners are appalling,
they did away with proper meals when i was about 12, in 1978,
such a bad decision

Agree it’s portion size. Quick meal night for me was a shop bought pizza and veg on the side. Kids would have a pizza each but would eat no more than half and the leftovers were my dinner!

I found portioning hard as my kids hovered around the lower end of the centiles and it took me a while to work out a reasonable portion and not stress they weren’t eating enough

I always grew up with elevenses and tea (as in snack between lunch and dinner). We were always slim and healthy. I don't have a snack in the morning anymore although my DD (12) does at school not at home, though. DS (17) has no morning snack. But we do all sometimes have a small afternoon snack.

It's not guaranteed but there is a very strong correlation. A child with one obese parent has a 50 percent chance of being obese. When both parents are obese, their children have an 80 percent chance of obesity. Given they are eating the same food as their parents it's hardly surprising.

Er yes in some schools it has and where did I directly blame schools?
For some pupils PE at school is the only exercise they get.
We have a real issue with a generation of children doing little, or no exercise or activity. I am not blaming schools but I'm saying that any reduction in PE in the timetable (due to having to squeeze in the schools are targeted for) can be detrimental.

But it is a systemic and social problem. Obesity is a huge cost to the NHS and the country. As one of the one-third of the population who pay more in tax than they receive in benefits, I am considering a move to Portugal and paying my taxes there. It's not that I resent paying tax, I don't, but I do get the hump when I the taxpayer is expected to pay the bill for someone else's bad life decisions.

They are taught. I taught Dt, but my colleagues taught food tech. They have to teach nutrition and food prep. It’s a national requirement.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with this. It’s to do with culture. We eat on the go, people know it’s bad for them, but still can’t resist it. We want easy solutions.

A proper meal at lunchtime like French kids have where they sit down for adults and children would solve a lot. Secondary kids get 30 minutes. This is why hand held food is so popular as there is no time to eat it

If we focused on eating properly at lunch time and filled up properly, people could have much easier and lighter meals in the evening instead of take outs.

After l’d done 11k steps at school the last thing l wanted to do was cook when l got home. People are knackered after work, and both parents work.

Its lack of time plus over availability that’s causing the problems.

We had some ready meals when l was little. None of my family were overweight. Although the girl up the road who’s mum was at home all the time and cooked from scratch including cakes etc was very overweight.

That's fine but they'll not take you seriously so you're wasting your time. This isn't something new was exactly same when I was at school. Hypocritical teachers lecturing us. We had no respect for them so ignored their advice. And the parents will think you're hypocritical too. Not just the DC. You may be adults but very deluded ones if you think anyone will take you seriously about eating a healthy diet when you work at a school full of junk food!

You said 'we have to do something' - we absolutely do! But telling teens not to eat junk then offering them an array of it at every break and lunch is clearly not the way!

I think it would make a massive difference to give our DC a healthy meal at lunchtime. You have to model how to behave - not just tell them not to eat cakes while serving up every kind known to humankind in the canteen!!