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.

Yes, it would be amazing.

My DD's school has a full hour lunch and this is still a problem. The schools have had to take on too many pupils.

It's so simple to solve and again is due entirely to the government prostituting itself to global food giants.

In other European countries they actually have laws on where junk food restaurants can be built. They are frequently off the beaten track and out of the way, and also there are rules on how many can be built in a certain area. Their mars bars are also smaller, all dessert portions are smaller. Coffee is a normal size and doesn't contain twice your daily sugar intake. And they don't tend to have KFC.

In 1999 when the Starbucks global expansion started, people gradually started getting fatter.

Here in the UK we do the opposite and actively encourage KFC & Co to keep destroying greenbelt and opening more "restaurants" serving obscene amounts of very low quality food that gets people addicted to junk and doesn't meet their daily nutritional requirements so they're always hungry but don't know why.

Then we wonder why there's an obesity epidemic.

A lot of primary privates in London have extremely limited outdoor space and a lot less than the nearby state schools but they do often have a deeply engrained culture of sport and prioritise it so there are at least one or two afternoons a week dedicated to it. I don’t like the whole state vs private aggressions - our local state would do things with the local private prep and each would bring their strengths. Collaboration not competition!!

weekend sport clubs can be dirt cheap and life changing for kids. Often diverse in many ways and teach life skills only sport can teach and fun! Only thing that used to mar the little league matches were the over competitive parents who seemed to forget they were watching 7 year olds play.

£250 a week to spend on snacks? That's more than most people's budget for all food for the whole family!

I really feel that the whole fruit and veg aisles need to be free or incredibly low priced.

Then put the prices up on packaged foods, unncessary foods like crisps and biscuits.

You can make a good argument for keeping prices unchanged on ready meals, they are necessary in a way to have your dinner, you might argue that, some of them are not too bad health wise.

But snacks are not necessary, they're not a dinner or a meal. They are sundries. So crisps, biscuits, chocolates, sweets.

I wouldnt put the prices up on nuts or dried fruit

It is!!

Carrots 35p
Apples £1.05
Pears £1.29
Broccoli 79p
Cauliflower £1.19
Parsnips 75p
Cucumber 89p
Sugar snap peas £1
Swede 62p

How much cheaper do you think they should be?

So kids at boarding school can eat as much junk as they like and there's no limits on this?

I mean one Subway a fortnight ok. But are the parents really happy with their DC ordering takeaways on the regular?

In the early 90s I can remember being really shocked when a friend of mine ate 2 chocolate bars. It had never even occurred to me that this was a possibility!

I agree , I don't think it's cost. I think we are all sugar/upf addicts

And the quality of school meals is probably a factor too.

Well its about calories in. If you need to feed kids you need to buy a lot of fruit/veg/pulses (if you cant afford meat) to get the calorific intake that you could supply easily with less nutritious food

So you can give an apple as a snack, but thats only 60 cals. You can make a child a salad but thats going to be very low cals. Despite needing to make sure children are not overweight, you still need to ensure they eat enough, so often its cheaper and quicker to buy something calorie dense but full of rubbish

I know veg is 'cheap' in that way but I meant in terms of getting people to buy it

As an aside we spend a lot of time in Spain but although they do have processed foods and snacks, the processed foods are really really high prices compared to fresh foods. Here its the other way round, calorie for calorie.

And I paid £2.50 for a cauli the other day at the greengrocer. I think they're 89p in Aldi

I don’t believe German primary schools have lunch - the kids go home

But snack foods like biscuits/chocolate are still cheaper.

Slightly off topic but I have a client who is a gynaecologist/obstetrician. I was visibly shocked when he told me he is lucky to see a patient these days who isn't obese, and also how much strain it puts on him when delivering a baby by c section as he has to use all his strength to both hold the flab back out of the way and pull the baby out at the same time. He also says that he wishes obesity was publicised more as a known link to cancer, because of the effect fat has on oestrogen levels. He's quite amusing with his stories!
Back to topic: I always notice obese dogs usually have obese owners.

I think we have allowed ourselves and therefore our children to turn their/our noses up at fresh food.

Im not convinced its outside of our control

Germany has a massive obesity problem- very close behind the Brits.

Yes I was saying this about fat owners and fat pets

There are posters in the vet tha tyou should be able to see the ribs of your cat or dog. My OH refuses to believe this, he over feeds the cat. She knows I wont give in so she doesnt try to pester me, but she will pester him.

She does not live in a toxic food environment, she is not addicted to UPFs, she does not have trauma or hormone problems. She is like most animals (and humans are animals) who will take advantage of too much food if it is there and plentiful

We used to have a dog that was about 5lbs overweight as well, that was OH too, feeding titbits from the table.

We don't really have much choice really. Evolutionary biology means that we always want to eat more than we need. In the days when we had scarce days/months/years, those who consumed more than they needed when food was plentiful, would fair better when it was scarce. That's why it takes on average 20 minutes after eating to register that we are satiated. Appetite and hunger is an autonomic response that we have no conscious control over, just like we don't have control over the sensation of needing to empty out our bladder. Fighting against autonomic responses is incredibly difficult and generally not advised. That's why the health advice is always eat healthy, low-calorie when hungry instead of any type of restrictive eating.

French kids do not exercise more. We have way too much schoolwork to do.

It is the food. We despise snacks, we don't even have a word for that. We don't eat between meals, we don't keep food in bags, cars, office drawers, we call UPFs "cochonneries" literally pig-food. Crisps are party-food, not a daily thing. We don't do takeaways of greasy, fatty, fried food, we go to restaurants . And I could go on and on.

Good point! I have a very healthy friend who delights in finding a greengrocer , and she acts like a peach or some cherries is like a big bit of cake (as in she is excited to get one) I need to be more like her!

Yes there are a lot of overweight British children, more than ever and it is concerning. But I suspect it is this governments fault for causing so many people to be unable to buy healthy food. They can't be gone soon enough.

The vast vast amount of overweight people didnt get that way by eating because they were actually hungry!

Its because we like the sensation of the eating.

Smaller portions are not restrictive eating by the way. Its just eating what you should.

From what I see with my multinational employer it is different in France. Unions there are much more effective and there is less of a culture of presenteeism, which leads to a lot of the stress and time pressure felt in the U.K. the US is terrible for it and seem to have same issues. There will be lots of reasons but I’d agree this is one.