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.

But it isn't just in poor areas
No needles, dogs or scary gangs here
Kids just don't have walking embedded in their lives anymore. Some of our teens struggle to do flights of stairs. They are often more out of breath than the teachers.

Some children may think that's the way to eat, yes.

But please stop making excuses for the parents thinking it.

There is a whole internet out there, full of nutrition advice.

Yes but it's a problem for the human being, the humanity , not just because it costs us money

You can make a stir fry in the time it takes to heat an oven and wait for a frozen pizza to cook.

Tiny? The portions are massive! I get for 2 and feed 3 and we have generous portions with that. Could definitely feed 4 with some of them. Sometimes I do put aside some for my lunch tomorrow.

Ozempic and other weight loss medications will hopefully reverse some of this unfolding catastrophe, give it a couple of years and it will be as popular as lip filler and Turkey teeth.

I’ve a colleague that is massively over feeding her little boy. He’s 20 months old and already you can see he’s going to have a lifetime of weight issues.

He was a late walker as his legs couldn’t physically take is weight. Now he is walking he is allowed to go to a ‘sweets’ drawer and take what he likes. He’s started to refuse the healthy food given to him at nursery so she feeds him up on crap at tea time to make up for it.

She delights in showing us videos of him eating and asking for ‘sweets’. He drinks cola, always seems to have some food on his lap or his hands on her Facebook pics of him.

‘Look how chunky and cute he looks’ she says. I think no, he’s awfully fat.

The two are not mutually exclusive, it is bad at population level that so many people are overweight and living less quality lives and it is bad that it costs the NHS billions every yaar.

I don't know of any obese children around here who are British. I can see plenty of Romanian children who are though! Don't deny it is an issue but most kids here are slim.

What about Scandinavia though

Surely she can be reported for this? Unbelievable just how absolutely stupid some people are.

A lack of time is a factor. A satiety message is missed if food is eaten too fast. It should be cut up & savoured. If this happens portions can be smaller.

Do you live in Bucharest?

Bear in mind of course that shops, businesses, food manufacturers are not our friends, our cosy Sainsbury or Tesco friend, providing us with nice things.

They are a business wanting to make as much profit as possible. And to do that, they have been part of a drive to ensure we eat more, at all times of the day, pushing the snack culture, dont leave your child hungry, have a laden table. It is in their business interests to have a fat nation because that way they sell more food.

There was an advert recently mocking some meal a dad had made as 'whats today? Blandsday?' because it was some concoction of veg and what not. And I think she was meant to be a fairy godmother and out came some chicken nuggets or something like that. To make the kids meal more exciting.

Children can exercise at home. Not everything is the fault of the education system.

There are a huge number of Romanian/Roma in my area. I am talking about those.

Yep, but then school dinners is pizza and fish fingers & chips once a week each, and one week out of 4 another day has a fry up!

Kids in Germany have got a lot fatter too. We go there regularly and have noticed a change since Covid.

Agree with this

We had lunch out with family recently and nephew (age 12) had 3 enormous glasses of coke with his lunch (it was a help yourself machine). No one batted an eyelid. All that sugar and 2 of those were before he'd even eaten his food.

There are so many small changes parents could make that would help make a difference and create better habits for adulthood. I worry nephew may not even get there.

Also, I think life is hard , being a parent is hard. It's also your full time job. Without trying to be harsh, tough shit if its hard to cook healthy meals when you've been working all day. Get organised , freeze ahead etc.
You wouldn't stick a fag in a baby's mouth to keep it occupied, we must start seeing terrible.processed cheap food the same way.

Too often, extremes of poverty get brought out in arguments like this, but it's a range of young people from a wider demographic than the most extreme poverty. There needs to be better controls in all aspects. Since losing weight, I can eat at only a few restaurants. There are places where I cannot find ANYTHING to eat as it is all too high calories. This seems ludicrous that pub meals are all easily over 1000calories

Of course but the point is that many don't and for some the only exercise they get is in school PE lessons. I didn't say it was the fault of the schools did I? PE has had to be cut to make way for the god awful new national curriculum

Yes, my family is French and I’ve lived out there in different stages of my life. I’m just trying to say, it’s not a case of other countries not having these pre-packaged foods (and I find France worse than the UK in terms of UPFs with regards to sweet food), there are also fat French people!!

Everyone knows what foods are healthy, there are fat and thin people everywhere. It’s not some magic fix of the government banning food.

Children living in our part of the UK are overweight. It's a huge shame and must be hard for them in a society that cares so much about looks. I saw a group of 8 or so year 6 girls excitedly roaming the streets in the neighbourhood with their new found nearly secondary school independence. All of them were chubby and they were all wearing very short, skin tight dresses. It's junk food and lack of exercise. Not sure where these girls picked up the idea that wearing extremely short and tight dresses as 10 and 11 year olds is fun.

@Onand you’re right re: adults. How many are now using weight loss meds of some kind? Wegovy etc?

Also I would add holidays aren’t a representative sample of children. I walk past a large school everyday (from nursery to 18), and I would say only 10% of the children are overweight.