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.

Some observations about portions that occurred to me. In my student days in the mid 90s when I was out with my then boyfriend and we got takeaway post pub/club, we used to share a pizza that would probably be classed as medium now. Or our portions of chips would fit in a smallish tray. That was for a stodgy meal after a night out too. People have a pizza each plus sides or large chippy meals now. There was no competitive under eating for us and money wasn't an issue as he was working, it was just the way we had grown up. You just wouldn't have bought more than one pizza to serve two people. Going further back my grandma used to buy 1/4 lb of mince to serve two in a cottage pie or similar. Her traditional dinners were seen as pretty generous but by today's standards they were probably small. Could have been a hangover from rationing but no one ever complained of hunger at her house. People (myself included) definitely eat more.

I agree about parents making exercise a priority. We would walk to thr shop, walk to the park to play on the swings and run about and then walk home. Same with swimming etc

Yes let’s all bury our heads in the sand and pretend there isn’t a problem that needs addressing 🙄

Tbh, the central dish would probably put my ASD DD off.

Ageee. DD does 2 x double games sessions, 2 x double PE sessions plus 1 x single activity per week. Her stamina and fitness since starting Yr 7 has increased massively, she struggled at the start but now runs 800m as a warm up before the sport they are doing in that session!
She then rides and does watersports outside of school on a weekly basis.

Statistics say that obese children normally end up being obese adults.

But that's easily overcome if you tell the host. We are talking in general averages here, at the moment , whenever there's a problem that's general, a very specific scenario is cited as a strawman reason why it can't work. We keep doing it at work...not sure where it has come from

I agree so much.

Once you recognise that for decades we've been primed to follow the USA's lead rather than the European one it explains many decisions and results.

I learnt how to cook from books from the library at University. My parents couldn’t teach me as I’d gone veggie at age 14 and they only did meat and two veg. So I taught myself.
Not everyone needs their hand held and tbh taking a little personal responsibility would be a good thing. No one to blame then.

Yes to whoever talked about pizzas in the 80’s.

We used to split a medium pizza between 4, have with a baked potato and a salad. That was fine.

Now people eat an entire massive pizza to themselves.

It was definitely the 80’s when this started! I remeber going out one night and someone wanting to go for a burger after the pub, and l was thinking ‘but I’ve had my tea……’

That was 1982

'A portion controlled dinner'?! They don't get a portion controlled dinner - they can choose to buy what they want. A waffle in the morning, a couple of doughnuts at break and a couple of cakes at lunch! That's the equivalent of your 5 jam doughnuts! And they can buy as many soft drinks as they like too. It's exactly the same!

Honestly, no wonder the parents are your problem if you think the current fare in school is ok.

Lots of parents are teachers or ex teachers too. Doesn't mean we agree with junk for lunch. We know that what the DC eat affects their learning and so are actually concerned about it!

Same here, top percentile for height but dead middle for weight. My DS could eat for England but he eats healthily and snacks on fruit so he's under the average for his height. He's perfectly healthy.

Some people do need their hand held though, and there are many reasons why that may be the case. People can continue to castigate overweight people, which is not having the desired results from the look of it, or seriously look, and do something tangible to help. When Jamie Oliver was doing his ministry of food, I remember watching a woman who had no idea how to cut/ dice an onion. Another woman did not seem to know how to recognize when water was boiling, and had never boiled an egg. These women were mothers, raising children, who, not surprisingly were being fed nothing but real poor quality food. The cycle is likely to continue without some form of intervention, which thankfully Jamie was willing to help with.

What ! Regularly ?!
but that’s very expensive I thought the problem was cooking from scratch was too expensive so people buy processed pre made ( I’d question if this is cheaper anyway but OK ) ……not takeaways.
So..How are takeaways cheaper than cooking yourself ?
That doesn’t make sense at all

No none of that is true for my school
Our hot offer is all boxed up in portions. If its a meal , it comes with either a fruit, a bottle of water or a homemade cake.
We don't have vending and we have no packaged snacks. It's still far from perfect, but that doesn't mean the other option of the doughnuts is any more ok.
With utmost respect, you've extrapolated loads I haven't said. Parents are not an issue because we think our food is fine. Parental interaction is a nationwide concern in teaching at the moment also I've said several times, our school food is NOT OK. It's OK ish but like all schools we could do better food wise

Because my DC eat much healthier than the average DC. Hence why I'm not happy with junk for lunch at school. Their dad has put on weight due to medication - obviously it doesn't help that he eats unhealthily.

But no it is not my job to get their dad to understand about nutrition. I spent the whole time we were married doing that. It's not on me now. He has to take responsibility for himself. I mitigate the effect on my DC by him literally only having one meal with them. Even with that they eat much healthier than most of their friends.

I said why I didn't think it would be them. Because they don't live with him or eat like him except one meal a week. They eat very healthily. Which has taken huge effort from me.

I wouldn't do what with passive smoking? Or another health risk? Do my utter best to avoid it for my DC you mean? Or do you mean I'd enable an adult and parent not to have to take any responsibility for themselves or their kids?

Apologies for taking it too literally! I'm autistic and don't always realise.

Sorry but I'm calling bullshit on this. No where near half of kids are obese. There's a handful of fat kids at my kids primary school (out of 200 kids) oh and no I do not live in a rich area where everyone pays for expensive exercise clubs.

I don't dispute that there's people out there who give their kids way too much junk food and they shouldn't but the exaggeration on this thread is insane 😂
Oh haven't been to France but I've been to Germany and saw roughly the same amount of chubby German kids as I see chubby English kids in England. Typical Mumsnet thread where the rest of the continent apparently does everything better

They are quite extreme examples. Generally speaking the majority of the population knows that an apple or some nuts is better for you overall than a marsbar

And in terms of castigating, there is an uncomfortable truth that societies where being overweight is looked at badly, have in the past had less of an obesity issue, France and Spain come to mind. We have Spanish family and health professionals dont pussy foot around like they do here about weight.

But as their own societies become more snacky and americanised, they too are tolerating higher levels of weight so the effect of judgement is wearing off.

I would say that the reason we have got bigger and bigger is through acceptance of obesity, normalising of it, normalising of the bigger portions and snack culture. Think of the difference in how smoking or not wearing a seat belt was seen. People think smoking is disgusting and smelly, thats castigation and people dont want to be seen as smokers. Its not cool anymore.

@BrownTroutBluesAgain boarding school food has declined in quality (a lot) & older kids send out for takeout more than parents would like. Across the 3-4 schools I know well. It’s a bone of contention.

That’s why I said ‘not everyone needs’.
I do however believe almost everyone is capable of realising and taking personal responsibility to make their situation and health better, if they want to.

Haha yes that's true, I suppose! But they take after us in being very slim. Their dad only put on weight due to illness. Yes, they could get ill of course. But we can't mitigate for everything. They eat healthier than most DC.and get lots of exercise. Not sure what else I could do other than ban them having that one meal with their dad.

I think the poster meant about the smoking is that if you were told that because your ex was a smoker, that your child had a 50% chance of becoming a smoker themselves,,,, that you wouldnt argue with that statistic, despite the fact that you dont smoke

The stats are the stats, they dont change according to individual circumstance. Your child may well be one of the 50% who dont become obese because of the work you're putting in

I just think it is not as simple as some make it out to be. Why would anybody want to be hugely overweight if it was so easy to not get like that in the first place?