to ask why would you overfeed your child?

[ineedtoknowwhy]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but, please, can someone explain to me why would a parent overfeed an already obese child?

Every day when I drop my daughter off at nursery I see the same little girl being dropped off too. She is always on her buggy which suggest they live nearby so could potentially walk but never ever do. At pick ups is the same, straight from nursery into buggy. Her face is always covered in chocolate (at 8 in the morning!) and she is always holding some sort of biscuit or chocolate belly so big her shirts don't come below her belly button. I am not talking about a bit chubby, or with a bit of a belly.

I cannot help to think poor child whose mum is happy to keep feeding her biscuits, chocolates, etc. when the child is clearly not in a healthy weight.

I can't help but silently judge her in my head so please can someone explain reasons for this. If you are a mum with an overweight child, why would you do this?

I would wonder the same but you'll get a lot of hate around here for being judgemental. Suppose it's because it's cheap and easy to give her biscuits and now the child is used to it so probably expects it and isn't happy if she doesn't get this food.

I would too tbh but it's not something I'd do anything about. I'm sure the nursery are aware.

There could be a whole host of reasons their daughter is overweight which includes possibly being SEN.

What size are the parents?

Oh wow prepare for the onslaught.

At a high level its parental abuse.

But there will be people suggesting "whatifs" to justify. What if child is on the spectrum, what if child won't eat, what if child has a meltdown, what if mum is struggling, what if mum..... and so on and so on - "whatifs"

Doesn't change the situation that it's lazy "parenting" - shuts the child up is probably the crux. Easier than being the adult and parenting the child.

One of my kids is technically overweight. She doesn't look overweight and has just had a growth spurt and started her periods so I'm putting it down to puberty. She's taller and more developed than other girls her age (11). It can also be hard when there's things like ASD involved and children becoming restrictive about what they eat. I don't think it's as simple as stopping them eating certain things.
However, I remember a boy from my eldest child's primary school and he was massively overweight, also visibly neglected in other ways. I think there's a big difference between kids who are a bit chubby, putting them in the overweight zone and a child several stone overweight.

Not commenting on the food but there is an assumption that if a child is in a pushchair they’re close enough to walk. What is the case for many is they are travelling too far for a child to walk but still on foot, it can be a considerable distance. Others would drive it and not get judged. It seems grossly unfair.

Obviously you are correct to some extent. But YABU for blaming ‘mums’, kids have 2 parents.

Because some people think 'puppy fat' is ok, not realising that at that level it is downright dangerous. And some parents just can't see anything wrong with their child because they are so precious

Ds had a very solidly built classmate when he was about 6. We went on a play date over the Easter holidays and the mum confided in me that she was very upset, that the school nurse service had warned her that her ds was obese. She sat there and cried in the kitchen, completely genuine, saying she didn't understand how it could be so, that he only ate healthy home made food, that his portions were small.

In the background her son helped himself, over the course of two hours, to FIVE cream eggs out of a bowl on the coffee table. That's in addition to the huge Easter egg he showed my ds.

I never saw her son walk anywhere. When he came to ours on a play date, he ate the ham, hummus, tomatoes & pitta bread lunch, refused water because he wanted coke (which we don't keep in) and kept asking for sweets.

If the mum is responsible for drops off and pick ups and is seen feeding her child chocolate and biscuits at 8am, then for the purpose of the thread the mum is in the wrong. I'm sure if OP saw the dad doing it he'd get a mention too.

YANBU OP at all and I agree with PP at a high level it's abuse. If adults choose to have unhealthy habits and to overfeed themselves to the point of obesity, they don't automatically shove that view on a child.

Well not always, but I take your point.

Because food=love in the parents eyes. They don't know better.

It doesn't excuse it, but does explain it.

Not all kids are overweight due to parents actions, can also be health issues or medications that contribute.

On the other hand, I was recently on holiday and saw an example of it definitely being the parents!! I saw 3 children who were drinking Coca Cola like its water, only eating chips and donuts for dinner, and this was for 7 days straight, they always sat really near us in the buffet so I saw it all and wondered what the parents were thinking. Sadly they were all very overweight and bursting out of their clothes etc.

I came to the conclusion that the parents also ate very badly so maybe it was generational learning, they were eating all the same stuff. Also it gave them an easy life - the kids chose all their own meal and then they just sat on their phones all through the meal, adults and kids alike :(

Not saying I don’t give my kids treats but even on holiday, I’d expect them to have a plate of veggies, some meat/protein, small portion of chips as a side, and then donut, fruit or ice cream for dessert (maybe all 3!) No Coca Cola but maybe one glass or 2 of juice.

I think you’re being unfair on the distance and the child not walking. My DH is visually impaired which means he can’t drive. He’ll pick DD2 up from nursery in the pram - it’s a 40ish min walk at adult pace, it would take forever with a 2 year old walking.

YANBU about the food. There was a younger sibling at the school DD1 used to go to, probably 18 months ish. Every morning waiting outside the school in the pram eating a bag of frazzles, every afternoon some sort of chocolate.

There is a little girl locally who must be morbidly obese She’s a year 1 and age 12 clothes are too small. Said the letter from the reception weight and height was wrong back then as her child was clearly not overweight.

I think overfeeding to the state your child is overweight overweight rather than a little chunky should be considered abuse just as starving your child would be.

There is puppy fat and a little bit overweight then there is obese children.

I think some people just don’t know, they have no concept of what a healthy diet is.

If I think back to what I ate when I was younger, at the time I thought it was fine but now I know it isn’t.

I find it extremely strange as well but there could be some reason ( other than stupidity) I suppose

Nothing you can really do about it though

YANBU! It's abuse. I've seen some mums do it as well. One of them, anorectic herself, had her toddler eating M&Ms in her buggy. I did warn her about the choking hasard but she brushed it away saying her child knew how to eat peanuts.🙄
But I also judge the "almond mums" whose children wind up with orthorexia/anorexia. It's another form of abuse but still abuse.

Yes I look back and I grew out of it when I went to uni and lived abroad and taught myself to cook, and started to eat vegetables and salad 🤣🤣 I remember going to my friend’s house and being amazed at the veggie lasagna and cavalo nero her mum served, haha!

Now I pass that on to my kids but I could very easily not have - my brother to this day lives on energy drinks, fried chicken and crisps 😳

And don’t get me wrong I eat way too much sugar still but at least I do eat some vegetables too!

YANBU, and I can’t understand why anyone would feed a child chocolate for breakfast.

Agree with others that YABU about the walking, though! I don’t drive and it’s about 3km for us to walk to my nursery. We take the pram and my almost 2yo does a mix of walking and being pushed. Almost 4yo will happily walk, but it would make me verrrrry late for work some days if the little one was walking the whole way there.

Ignorance of healthy eating. Laziness (it’s easier just to give them something than say no). Personal issues. Could be any number of reasons.

What’s an almond mum?

SEN doesn’t cause obesity. Food does.

Poor food literacy in this country.

I think one other issue not already mentioned is also that some people do not have an accurate mental picture of what a healthy weight looks like, whether in children or in adults.

Especially if the peer group around you is also overweight, it's easy to think that what is "normal" around you is also "healthy" - but it may not be.

My mum was/is a total feeder.

It appeals me as an adult that I was allowed to consume a whole pack of choc chip shortbread rounds for breakfast on a Saturday, and my totally disordered eating led to miserable teen years, a continual battle with my weight and hangovers from loose skin now as an adult with a normal BMI - but that's how my mum instinctively shows love.

100% she's got childhood trauma going on, but it's never discussed.

She still gives my boys sweets & chocolate & cake when she has them once a week, but knows I'm much stricter (i.e. normal) and reigns it in.
They actually say 'no thank you' to a lot of the stuff (I know, right?!) and it comes home with them.

So, yeah. It happens.