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.

Exactly.

Does the nursery not specify what food is allowed. At DT’s school snack food, crisps and chocolate items were not allowed

It's not just navel-gazing for most, I would have thought. We have DC that we're trying to bring up healthily. For me as a nurse, it's part of my work too.

My dd 12 gets comments from a relative about how skinny she is. She is a healthy weight but lean and very fit. She does eat some junk but mostly freshly cooked food. I'm a single working parent, for reference.

In her Year 6 class, about a third are noticeably overweight or obese. One child in Year 5 appears morbidly obese and was cheered on last sports day as he tried his best to finish a running race. He struggled so much and it was hard to watch. This boy has large "moobs" and his knees looked like they were buckling inwards as he tried to run. He was by far the only one struggling due to his weight though.

The class PE teacher has received multiple complaints this year from parents of the overweight kids as she apparently was harsh and told them they should be able to jog for ten minutes round the field at their age and made them continue when they cried. There were defensive and horribly vitriolic FB posts about the teacher from the mums of the overweight kids.

I've read Ultra Processed People and can see that this is a complex issue and the government do need to act with regards to availability of UPFs.

That's shocking! How do you even fit all that in the average lunchbox!

Yup to the parents.
Like i said , at least a third of every pe class have notes from parents. If you dare to tackle or even comment, it can spark off DAYS of abuse on Facebook, awful emails etc. **

Would a croissant or baguette with chocolate not be considered a 'treat'? Or do you try to stay away from calling food a 'treat'?

My fear with Brexit is that we will have to lower our food standards as part of a US trade deal.

@Riversideandrelax yes no one eats those things every day.

Interesting about the word treat, I agree that's not really a concept except for perhaps taking an extra helping at a meal (je me fais plaisir). "Celebration" is used a lot for food though (and alcohol!!!)

That is really sad to read.

I think a lot depends on area/demographic.
I live in a fairly MC commuter town and rarely see an overweight adult and I can't remember seeing any overweight or obese children among my DC peers.

At a family event yesterday and there was 20+ people there and I'd say 4 or 5 (adults) were overweight. My DC are teens and were the youngest there

Im not uncomfortable with your post dont try to mimic me

The irony in saying that Im telling you not to post when you sent a lenthy post to everyone on this thread saying that it essentially was a poor thread because no one is doing anything and people are just talking about it. Yes people are talking about it, there are a lot of interesting pieces of information that have come out if it, certainly for me and perhaps for many others.

But essentially if you understand this is a forum then people will raise topics and talk about them, it doesnt have to lead to a full scale campaign to have any validity.

A lot of other European countries aren't far behind us (France, Germany etc).

I recently watched it again, and loved it just as much as I did when it was first shown.

My 5 year old has just taken part in the child measurement programme and was really interested to see they’ve got rid of the letters telling you the bmi. They emailed height and weight with a link to the NHS calculator to check. I don’t know if they’ve done this to avoid the sad face pictures in the mail but I was quite surprised. I presume the health visiting service would then get in touch separately if they thought it necessary.

it is quite shocking to me that 1/4 of reception kids are overweight/obese. Vast majority of the kids in my daughter’s class are skinny little things and I’d be surprised if there were any more than 5% hitting the overweight category which means that some schools must be having closer to half of their reception kids being overweight or obese.

it is quite shocking to me that 1/4 of reception kids are overweight/obese. Vast majority of the kids in my daughter’s class are skinny little things and I’d be surprised if there were any more than 5% hitting the overweight category

Same in my son’s class. They’ve all got skinny wee noodle legs even now, at 9. I assume it’s linked to wealth, we’re a state school but in a wealthy area. DS is only just in healthy range BMI and he doesn’t look out of place in his class particularly.

My DD was weighed in Y6. We weren't told anything.

I've just remembered my DS was weighed at this age and we got a letter saying he was obese. He ate pretty healthily and he's never had a sweet tooth. We concentrated on building in more activity rather than changing what he ate.

Both my DC were pretty chubby as toddlers but DD grew up and thinned out aged 6 or 7. And DS did the same. Now he's 14 and barely into the healthy bmi because he's very slim. It's almost impossible to get trousers to fit him because his waist is small.

Poor eyesight is also hereditary in my family.

But other factors contribute to poor eyesight on a population level. Spending too much time indoors is bad for eyesight, especially children's eyes. We need to be looking further away more often, or we are far more likely to become short-sighted.

I'd probably have needed glasses in any case, but I suspect that a very indoor-y childhood made it worse.

My children will probably need glasses too, but we spend so much time outside that I hope they won't need such a strong prescription, and won't need it so young.

It just comes down to shit food. Supermarket bread is really bad and most people consume a lot of it. Few slices daily.
Fast food, frozen food, processed snacks.
That's the diet of a lot of people in this country. Along with a sedentary lifestyle that involves staring at screens constantly.
This leaves us unsatisfied with our lives so we reach for more junk and more screen time to get a dopamine hit.

We can get a dopamine hit from exercise and nice meals too but we look for the quick fix instead of the one that takes effort.

Threads like this are good because they bring an awareness and bring this topic out into the open. It will help to shift attitudes and priorities.

Same at our school. The vast majority of kids are middle class and slim. The small minority of children who are fat seem to come from poorer backgrounds.
I know this isn't always the case. The two most overweight people I know come from very affluent families. However, as we all know, in this country obesity is generally linked to poverty.

No I’ve never heard this.

In fact eyesight is often deemed to be an intelligence thing. Glasses wearers are usually meant to be more intelligent as a whole.

There are studies on it.

Yes, the World Economic Forum even flagged this as an issue of global concern recently. Myopia in children is on the rise.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675264/

Yes, and it's very tiresome!

"No I’ve never heard this.

In fact eyesight is often deemed to be an intelligence thing. Glasses wearers are usually meant to be more intelligent as a whole.

There are studies on it."

Isn't that because they're reading books all the time so the eyes get 'trained' to be short sighted? If they'd got lots of outdoor time as well then their vision may be better.